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Cardinals trade QB Josh Rosen to Dolphins
AAF Investor Reggie Fowler Arrested on Bank Fraud Charges After $25 Million Investment
Fowler was a primary investor during the first season AAF, giving the league $25 million before his arrest on Monday
Michael Shapiro
Alliance of American Football investor Reggie Fowler was arrested on Tuesday with charges of "bank fraud and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business," according to Sports Illustrated's Conor Orr.
A former minority stakeholder in the Vikings, Fowler invested nearly $25 million in the AAF during its inaugural season. But withdrawals from his domestic and foreign accounts were reportedly "held up around Christmas," freezing a key source of the league's funding.
Fowler did not respond to calls from Sports Illustrated before his arrest, per Orr.
The Alliance of American Football is currently sorting through a myriad of financial troubles after the league folded last month, including a filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on April 17. The league has claimed assets of $11.3 million and liabilities of $48.3 million, holding just $536,160.68 in cash.
The decision to fold the AAF on April 2 sent the league's players into a sea of economic uncertainty. Former Giants safety Adrien Robinson reported a $2,500 hotel room charge on the league's behalf, while injured players didn't know who would provide medical care.
"As word of the crash came down on April 2, players scrambled to book their own flights home. Others, some of whom had literally crammed their kids’ cribs into hotel rooms, searched for places to stay," Orr wrote in his story appearing in the May 6 edition of Sports Illustrated. "In the mayhem, one [Arizona] Hotshots player texted afriend on the Memphis Express to ask if he was O.K. The reply: “This feels like the Fyre Festival.”
The AAF folded with two weeks left in the regular season. The Orlando Apollos finished with the league's best record at 7–1 behind head coach Steve Spurrier.
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Preparing medical students for clinical practice: How health educators from the UK and Somaliland are transforming Somaliland’s health education system
By the SPHEIR team
Dr Derie Ereg, Dean of the College of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Hargeisa, Somaliland, with some young medical graduates.
2020 was designated ‘Year of the nurse and midwife’ by the World Health Organization. As the year draws to a close, we look at how health educators from the UK’s National Health Service and UK universities are working with their counterparts in Somaliland to transform undergraduate education for doctors, nurses and midwives.
Somaliland’s health education system faces challenges that many countries will recognise... A lack of formal pedagogical training for lecturers, critical gaps in university curricula, and insufficient opportunities for students to develop their skills in clinical settings.
As a result, students often graduate without the vital knowledge, skills and practical experience they need to practise safe, patient-centred healthcare.
Prepared for Practice (PfP) seeks to address these challenges through an integrated approach to health education system reform. The project has three strategic aims: improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment in medical, nursing and midwifery schools; strengthening the capacity of lecturers and management of medical, nursing and midwifery schools; and strengthening national governance and management of education for health professionals.
Part of the UK-aid funded SPHEIR programme, PfP is delivered through a partnership model which connects volunteer health workers and educators from the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and UK universities with health schools in Somaliland to promote skills, knowledge exchange and mutual learning. The PfP partnership is led by King’s Global Health Partnerships, an initiative of King's College London (UK), working with Amoud University, Edna Adan University and Teaching Hospital, and University of Hargeisa from Somaliland, plus UK organisations MedicineAfrica and the Tropical Health and Education Trust.
Improving the quality of teaching, learning and assessment
Through PfP, UK health workers deliver weekly online tutorials at three of the country’s leading health schools – Hargeisa, Amoud and Edna Adan universities - to complement and address gaps in the curriculum. Online courses are delivered through MedicineAfrica, a digital educational platform, covering core subject areas in internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, radiology, mental health, communications skills, nursing and midwifery.
Hannah Burrows, PfP Programme Manager explains, “Since the project launched in 2017, PfP has delivered online distance education courses to over 700 medical, nursing and midwifery students and examined over 500 students. We have also supported partners to implement an evidence-based examination process that tests students’ clinical skills and behaviours, and overseen the conduct of written and practical exams, ensuring only those students who are ready enter the health system. Covid-19 has meant the partnership is unable to travel to Somaliland, yet the project has managed to continue delivery of many formerly face-to-face activities by utilising our online teaching and video conferencing platform in new and innovative ways.”
Strengthening the capacity of lecturers and managers
At the institutional level, PfP is building the capacity of higher education personnel. UK volunteers with expertise in educating health professionals design and deliver a one, two and three-year course in Health Professions Education, enabling lecturers to develop knowledge and skills in pedagogy, lesson planning and designing student assessments.
So far, PfP has trained over 100 academics on student-centred teaching, pedagogy, assessment and curriculum development. This has contributed to significant improvements in how medical, nursing and midwifery students are taught and assessed: 100% of lecturers participating in the project report making changes to the way they plan lessons, teach and assess students. Partner universities have started to take on the running of the Health Professions Education course in this last year of the PfP project, with both Amoud University and University of Hargeisa setting up Educational Development Centres within their institutions, and introducing completion of the certificate year as a mandatory requirement for teaching faculty.
Strengthening national governance and management of education for health professionals
At a national level, PfP has supported the Somaliland government in developing the country’s first national Medical Education Policy, which outlines how government, regulators, and universities can collaborate to produce a well-trained medical workforce. The partnership has also supported independent assessment of medical schools, ensuring institutions training health workers meet an internationally recognised standard for medical education.
PfP recently took part in two SPHEIR webinars exploring online higher education.
In the first webinar from September 2020, find out about the online tutorials and other content provided to medical and nursing students in Somaliland via PfP
In the second webinar from December 2020, hear how PfP has tackled the training and remote mentoring of medical and nursing students.
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St. John, Bowling & Lawrence
The History of 416 Park Street
James M. Bowling, IV
Francis McQ. Lawrence
Business Formation & Litigation
Municipal Representation
Civil Rights Defense
Eminent Domain & Land Use
The Virginia Trial Lawyers Association selected Francis McQ. Lawrence to its Steering Committee. A majority of the sitting Steering Committee members is needed to select new members. Membership Chair Theo Stamos made the motion selecting Mr. Lawrence, who replaces Mr. Craig Cooley on the committee.
The VTLA is a voluntary bar association “dedicated to enhancing the knowledge, skills and professionalism of trial lawyers and committed to improving the law and the fairness of Virginia’s system of justice.” The Association is governed by a statewide Board of Governors and “educate the public about the role of trial lawyers and the importance of the jury in our justice system.” The association also hosts a variety of continuing legal education seminars, hosts the Virginia Criminal Justice Conference, and lobbies before the Virginia General Assembly.
The Virginia Supreme Court granted a motion to dismiss filed by St. John, Bowling & Lawrence, ending a case brought against the Region Ten Community Services Board. Jim Bowling represented Region Ten in litigation brought against the agency by the plaintiff, an individual receiving services from Region Ten. When the plaintiff lost at the trial court, he attempted to appeal the trial court decision to the Virginia Supreme Court. In lieu of filing a lengthy and time-consuming Brief in Opposition to the Petition for Appeal, Mr. Bowling filed a succinct Motion to Dismiss, pursuant to Virginia Supreme Court Rule 5:4. The Motion argued, among other things, that the Assignments of Error were insufficient and that the appeal should be dismissed. The Motion also asked the Court to stay the proceedings until the Motion was decided.
The Supreme Court granted the motion to stay the proceedings, obviating the need to file a Brief in Opposition to Appeal and subsequently granted Region Ten’s motion to dismiss the petition on the basis of insufficient assignments of error.
On May 9, 2016, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided a precedent-setting case in Goines v. Valley Community Services Board, et al. that has been cited frequently since its publication. St. John, Bowling & Lawrence attorneys Jim Bowling and Francesca Fornari represented a mental-health evaluator, who was alleged to have erroneously concluded that the plaintiff suffered from a mental illness and that he posed a threat to the safety of his neighbors. The plaintiff was involuntarily committed to a hospital for five days. The District Court held on a motion to dismiss that the mental-health evaluator did not violate any of the plaintiff’s constitutional rights, and dismissed the case against her. The plaintiff appealed the decision to the Fourth Circuit, where Jim Bowling successfully argued that the information contained in the Prescreening Report, which had been attached to the Complaint, was sufficient to provide probable cause for the emergency mental-health detention. The Fourth Circuit upheld the District Court’s dismissal of the case against the mental-health evaluator. The Goines opinion is an important decision out of the Fourth Circuit because it sets forth the legal standards governing under what circumstances the contents of documents attached to a Complaint should be treated as “true” for purposes of a motion to dismiss.
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Hundreds of cash-strapped Stoke-on-Trent residents miss out on £500 Covid grant
A missing code has been blamed for the issues
The NHS contact tracing app on a mobile phone (Image: Department of Health & Social Care/PA Wire)
A council is seeking Government help due to a mix-up involving self-isolation payments.
Stoke-on-Trent City Council say issues with a code given to those eligible for the £500 Test and Trace Support Payment is leaving people without the money when they are entitled to it.
The one-off payment is only available to those who have been contacted by NHS Test and Trace and told to self-isolate. An alert from the NHS App to self-isolate will not qualify individuals for the payment.
The scheme is designed to help those people who are on a low income and cannot work during self-isolation
To qualify, residents must be on a low income, not be able to work from home and be in receipt of a qualifying benefit.
As of November 13, council documents show 858 applications relating to Test and Trace payments had been received. 163 of them have been paid and there are 228 waiting to be assessed.
There were a further 52 where further information was required.
The document states: "Nationally, the number of rejections is high; due to either no Test and Trace number being provided, or that applicants do not meet the eligibility criteria.
"It is understood that nationally there are some issues with the allocation of test and trace numbers, which is delaying the allocation of some payments.
"The Department of Health and Social Care are aware of the issue and are in the process of trying to resolve."
Council leader Abi Brown (Image: Joe Burn)
Council leader Abi Brown said: "We know that there have been issues for some people around having the relevant code to access the self-isolation payments.
"And we are speaking to the Government to try and resolve this. We are keen to support people who are having to self-isolate and access the payments."
Details of how to apply for the grant can be found on the council's website.
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Help with Federal Agencies
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U.S. Senator Tina Smith’s Legislation to Improve Mental Health Services for Children, Families Passes Senate with Broad Bipartisan Support
Senator’s Legislation Would Provide Much-Needed Mental Health Services to Families in Child Welfare System
Katie McElrath
katie_mcelrath@smith.senate.gov
WASHINGTON, D.C. [9/23/20]–U.S. Senator Tina Smith’s (D-Minn.) priorities to make sure the child welfare system supports and connects families to mental health services recently passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support. The Supporting Family Mental Health in CAPTA Act would improve the delivery of mental health services for children and families, connect families with needed support services, support research on effective practices to prevent child abuse and neglect and address disparities in the child welfare system.
Sen. Smith says that young people experience mental health conditions about as often as adults—about 1 in 5 struggle with severe mental health problems—but they often have a hard time getting services.
“All children deserve safe, stable and nurturing relationships and living environments. But too often, I hear from Minnesotans who are worried about the mental health challenges and trauma that children and families are facing," said Sen. Smith. "If we don’t address the trauma that some families and children are going through right now, then the cycle could continue through adulthood and to future generations. When we connect families to the local services they need and we really work to support parents, families are stronger and children can get a better start in life.”
“NAMI Minnesota thanks Senator Smith for her advocacy to increase access to mental health and substance use treatment in order to prevent child abuse and neglect, and to recognize that children in child protection need access to mental health treatment. Adverse childhood experiences have a negative impact on the health and mental health of children and increased access to evidence-based and evidence-informed care will mitigate the impact.” —Sue Abderholden, MPH, Executive Director of NAMI Minnesota
“The American Psychological Association commends Senator Tina Smith for advancing legislation, unanimously passed by the Senate, to address the mental health needs of children and families who come into contact with the child welfare system. Her bill updates the landmark federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and makes much-needed improvements in light of the high percentage of children with mental health issues in foster care. This includes the delivery of trauma-focused mental health services and developmental screenings. APA calls on the House to enact the bill without delay.” —Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, CEO of the American Psychological Association
Sen. Smith’s measures will:
Improve state grants for child welfare programs and child protective services
Improve training on early childhood, child, and adolescent development and the impact of child abuse and neglect, and the long-term impacts of adverse childhood experiences
Improve coordination between child welfare services and health care providers, including working with families with mental health needs and substance use disorders and those experiencing domestic violence
Strengthen community-based grants for child abuse and neglect prevention
Meaningfully partner with parents in the development, implementation, oversight, and evaluation of prevention services
Connect families to community-based organizations and service providers, and support long-term strategic planning to help strengthen and support families
Reduce barriers to access to community-based and prevention-focused programs, including for diverse, underserved, and at-risk populations
Enhance research and technical assistance programs at the Department of Health and Human Services
Improve collaboration between the child protection system and other agencies, including the juvenile justice system and entities that deliver services and treatment related to domestic violence, substance use disorders, and mental health
Identify evidence-based programs that prevent child abuse and neglect in families that have not had contact with the child welfare system
Methods to address and reduce geographic, racial and cultural disparities in the child welfare system
The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) governs important child protection programs and services to prevent, assess, and identify child abuse and neglect—and it is the only federal program exclusively dedicated to these aims.
This legislation is supported by the Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, the American Counseling Association and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
U.S. Senator Tina Smith's Statement on Storming of U.S. Capitol
U.S. Senator Tina Smith Outlines Plan with Biden-Harris Administration to Protect Americans From COVID-19 Testing Charges
U.S. Senator Tina Smith Presses VA for Answers After Hearing From Minnesota Veterans to be Hit by Bills for Medical Expenses Incurred During Pandemic Billing Moratorium
U.S. Senator Tina Smith's Bipartisan Bills to Help Tribes Combat Homelessness & Help More Native Families Become Homeowners to be Signed Into Law
U.S. Senator Tina Smith: COVID-19 Relief Will Bring Support to Minnesotans, But More Must be Done
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Solar Decathlon
Richard King Award
Build Challenge
Solar Decathlon Africa
Solar Decathlon China
Solar Decathlon Europe
Solar Decathlon India
Solar Decathlon Latin America and Caribbean
Solar Decathlon Middle East
Back to the Future, Solar Decathlon Style
By Ruby Theresa Nahan
Now that Solar Decathlon 2017 has officially come to a close, and the 11 innovative houses have moved from the competition site at the 61st and Peña Station in Denver to their next destination, I think it’s a perfect time to reflect on the impact the Solar Decathlon might have on the future. Most students who have participated in Solar Decathlon since 2002 might not be familiar with the 1985 film to which my title alludes, but all are very familiar with, quite literally, holding the future in their own hands. Even if they don’t realize it yet.
A recent report released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory demonstrates just how much the 18,000-plus students who have participated in the U.S. Solar Decathlon may have influenced the market adoption of some once-futuristic technologies that are now readily present in our homes.
The report, titled Insights on Technology Innovation – A Review of the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon Competition Entries 2002–2015, focuses on several technologies, including solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies, innovative materials, construction techniques, efficiency strategies, and building-integrated vegetation. While solar is the most visible star of the Decathlon, the efficient technologies that reduce a home’s energy demand set the stage for reaching a net-zero energy status. That kind of energy savings is critically linked to the successful adoption and execution of solar electric systems, as homes that require less energy also require fewer solar panels and lower costs for consumers.
The NREL report offers the use of smart home technologies as one example of technology early adoption and demonstration by Solar Decathlon teams. Smart home systems, especially those that give consumers greater control over when, how much, and for what purpose their household requires electricity, allow both consumers and electricity providers an opportunity to optimize electricity use with the time of day when solar electricity production is highest, and vice versa.
According to recent reports by CNBC and Business Insider, smart home technologies are really only likely to take off in the consumer market beginning this year, whereas NREL reports that multiple Solar Decathlon teams were showcasing some form of residential control technologies as early as 12 years ago. In 2007, “at least two team houses featured touch-screen controls that interfaced with the Internet.” In 2009, “at least seven teams were demonstrating integrated graphical displays and experimenting with responsive control algorithms and remote access.” Then in 2011, one team “programmed their house to respond to hand movements and signals by modifying a Microsoft Kinect attached to an Xbox.” That’s the same year Apple released the iPad on which I am typing this blog post, and six years before Google acquired NEST smart thermostats!
The report goes on to provide examples of more innovation in smart home technologies in the 2013 and 2015 competitions that reflect trends we’re seeing in the consumer market more recently. These systems did more than just optimize heating and cooling in accordance with the weather, but also allowed occupants to operate lights and appliances, assisted with home gardening, and supported a house in performing as an essential neighborhood energy hub in the event of a disaster.
Solar Decathlon students were experimenting with smart home technologies, including home automation, interactive screens for monitoring home performance, and controls via Internet connectivity, years before commercial smart home products appeared on the market. Some of the technologies demonstrated in the most recent competitions, such as automated management of home energy use to optimize time-of-use pricing and resilient design, offer a glimpse of potential future smart home products. Credit: NREL
Solar Decathlon team use of LED lighting provides another stunning example of technology early adoption and demonstration. According to the NREL report, LED lighting “represents the fastest growing, most common new lighting source for residential” applications. And, that’s a good thing, as the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates LEDs use 75% less energy and last 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs.
According to the National Electrical Manufacturers Association “A-line LED lamps” (that’s LED light bulbs to the rest of us) currently account for 32% of the consumer market. Compare that to NEMA’s estimate for LEDs just five years ago in 2012—0%. I’d call that a fast-growing trend!
What does the Solar Decathlon have to do with this? It’s impossible to draw a straight line from the Solar Decathlon to such significant market growth, but Solar Decathletes were certainly important early adopters who worked with industry partners to develop the technology.
The NREL report notes that in 2005, LEDs were not really being considered for the residential market and that “compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs were going to change the world, but Solar Decathlon teams thought differently.” Four teams in 2005 experimented with LED lighting in novel ways. In 2007, teams began to use LEDs as “functional general-purpose lighting, replacing fluorescent and incandescent bulbs.” In 2009, 100% of teams used LED lighting in some way, and five teams are discussed as “already demonstrating 100% LED solutions in their houses.” Contrast this timeline with DOE’s announcement of the L Prize as part of the 2007 Energy Independence Security Act “to develop super high-performance, energy-saving replacements for conventional light bulbs that will save American consumers and businesses money.” And consider, Phillips did not win the L prize for their LED 60-Watt replacement bulb until 2011.
Solar Decathlon student houses demonstrated the potential of LED lighting years before the technology became common for residential lighting. As early as 2005-2007, Solar Decathlon teams were using the technology to light their houses, proving the versatility and potential of the technology. Credit: NREL
What is the connection between the Solar Decathlon and market transformation and diffusion of new technologies? It’s easy to spot at least three critical links. First, Solar Decathlon, as a workforce development project, has provided tens of thousands of students the opportunity to grapple with potentially transformative technologies, and these students will or have gone on to work in or create the businesses that bring transformative technologies to market.
Second, Solar Decathlon teams must fund their own projects. That means they are always looking to industry for assistance. Often, this assistance comes in the form of technology development or demonstration. A team’s experience with a particular product provides critical feedback to the developer and has the potential to influence the way in which the product is ultimately delivered to the market.
And last but by no means least, the Solar Decathlon is a huge consumer demonstration event. NREL reports an average of 90,000 visitors attended each of the seven Solar Decathlons held from 2002 to 2015.
So, when it comes to a link between the Solar Decathlon and, for example, significant growth in the smart home technology and LED lighting industries—coincidence? Those of us lucky enough to participate in the Solar Decathlon certainly don’t think so.
To find out what’s on the horizon, sign up to receive email updates through the Solar Decathlon Village Insider. We’ve got our eyes on future competitions and innovation insights to come!
Tags: Competition, Contests, Solar Decathlon 2002, Solar Decathlon 2005, Solar Decathlon 2009, Solar Decathlon 2011, Solar Decathlon 2013, Solar Decathlon 2015, Solar Decathlon 2017, Technologies
This entry was posted on Monday, October 23rd, 2017 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Competition, Energy Balance, Solar Decathlon, Solar Decathlon 2002, Solar Decathlon 2005, Solar Decathlon 2009, Solar Decathlon 2011, Solar Decathlon 2013, Solar Decathlon 2015, Solar Decathlon 2017.
Market Appeal
Innovation Pavilion
Solar Decathlon 2002
Solar Decathlon Alumni Association
Solar Decathlon China 2013
AZ State/New Mexico
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Technology Spotlights
Solar Decathlon® is a registered trademark of the U.S. Department of Energy.
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Fletcher Henderson Biography, Life, Interesting Facts
Died On :
Cuthbert, Georgia, United States of America
Fletcher Henderson was born on December 18th, in 1897. He was a notable American pianist, composer, arranger, and a bandleader. He, alongside Duke Ellington, rose to become well known musical arrangers. Henderson was regarded as one among the best arrangers in the history of jazz music.
Fletcher Henderson was born on December 18th, in 1897. His birthplace was in Cuthbert, Georgia. He was the son of Fletcher H. Henderson, who was a principal in a local school called Howard Normal Randolph School. Henderson’s mother was also a notable teacher. As a young boy, Henderson took his early piano lessons from his mother.
Because he was strictly taught to play the piano, by the time he clocked 13, he had polished his playing skills. However, he chose to focus on science and math. After that, Henderson joined Atlanta University where he graduated in 1920. He had majored in mathematics and chemistry.
Upon graduating from the university, Henderson relocated to New York City. His reason for transferring was that he wanted to pursue his master’s degree in Columbia University. However, no historical evidence proves he studied at the institution.
Bandleader
In 1921, Fletcher Henderson went ahead and played the piano for the Black Swan records. Here, he worked alongside Ethel Water, a notable singer. With time Henderson took the role of a bandleader. By 1924, Henderson had become famous and he was landing regular gigs while playing at the Roseland Ballroom in New York City. During the same year, he brought Louis Armstrong into the orchestra group.
His other band members included the likes of Coleman Hawkins, Charlie Green and Benny Carter. Henderson was not good in business, and this affected his band significantly. He lost out on bookings, and as a result, his band members opted to try out better opportunities.
In 1934, Henderson was heavily hit by financial issues which led his decision to sell his arrangements. The following year, his band completely broke apart.
Fletcher Henderson was the elder brother to Horace Henderson, a talented pianist.
Fletcher Henderson passed away on December 29th, in 1952. He died at the age of 55.
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New Twitter Frontpage Resembles Search Engine
By David Worthington | Wednesday, July 29, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Twitter’s new home page, which went live yesterday, resembles a search engine, with trending topics taking the place of categories. Twitter is a useful way to learn what is happening now, but it is also a way to become quickly misinformed.
Social media is a nontraditional, but effective means to keep up with the day’s news and events. Event feeds, where friends share information with one another, are a much better way to stay on top of what people are talking about than e-mail ever was. I regularly check my feeds on Facebook, and to a less extent, Twitter, to stay looped in.
People that I add to my social mesh are typically people whose opinions I respect, and I find it useful to read their take on what’s happening. There is a certain amount of trust required, because status updates and tweets are not vetted sources or information (at least upfront).
Therein lies the rub. Twitter has a history of security problems and exploits, and it can be a hotbed of misinformation. In May, a rogue tweet was responsible for causing a civil rights panic, and rumors about other celebrities dying were propagated on Twitter after Michael Jackson passed away last month. The effect was viral.
Twitter is also the target of hackers. The accounts of public figures, including ABC News broadcast journalist George Stephanopoulos have been phished, and taken over by unknown persons.
The site also relies on outmoded, and easily compromised, security questions for account password retrieval.
In short, while Twitter is useful to tune into the day’s buzz, it is not a news organization. A certain degree of skepticism is required when controversial or shocking information surfaces from social media. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t use Twitter, but I am urging people to validate what they read before sharing it with others.
Read more: Facebook, Security, Twitter
Celebrities Dying | Headline News Says:
August 1st, 2009 at 4:30 am
[…] snacks, with names like Dizzee Rascal, Ronaldo and Kit Kat proving popular … New Twitter Frontpage Resembles Search EngineIn May, a rogue tweet was responsible for causing a civil rights panic, and rumors about other […]
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Time to invest in Myanmar ? Not so fast
“This is the appropriate time to invest in Myanmar”, said Mr. Myin Maung Htun, managing director of Malika Power Engineering Ltd. and president of Myanmar Business Executives Association. But companies familiar with international business must lower some of their expectations when entering the last frontier of Southeast Asia.
Yukari Sekine
Foreign investors seeking business opportunities in Myanmar have a new and unexplored market opening up, but challenges remain in an underdeveloped economic, financial and legal environment, and this must be met with patience, said panel speakers at the seminar on Tuesday. The event “Doing Business in Myanmar” was promoted by consulting company Interactive Business and Legal Solutions, in Bangkok.
Things happen there at a comparatively slower rate, both in terms of logistics and licensing, and financial transactions are still in their infancy. Cultural differences must also be taken into account when dealing with local partners.
Only 2 percent of the Myanmar population owns a car, 37% own motorcycles and 51% own bicycles. Picture : Yukari Sekine
President Thein Sein concluded a three-day visit to Thailand on Monday, signing agreements with prime-minister Yingluck Shinawatra, and affirming cooperation on the Dawei seaport and economic zone.
The Italian-Thai development plans to invest 300 billion baht initially in a project that would transform Dawei into the hub of trade connecting Southeast Asia and the South China Sea, via the Andaman Sea to the Indian Ocean, receiving goods from countries in the Middle East, Europe and Africa, and spurring growth in the whole ASEAN region.
Since 2011, the Myanmar government has taken significant steps toward democratic reform.
Conferences are being held in Yangon to promote networking and encourage partnerships between domestic and foreign companies. US, India, Japan and Thailand have shown increased interest in and now compete with China, who has been the biggest foreign investor, corresponding to 70 percent of total foreign investment in the country. Western countries have shown themselves eager to participate in Myanmar’s prospected boom, by lifting sanctions previously imposed as a pressure against a brutal military regime.
Legal reforms are under way, with a new Foreign Investment Law to be approved by the end of this month. The Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC) has been established to oversee and facilitate foreign investment, and has been responsible for granting licensing for new investors in the country.
Myanmar has a population of approximately 60 million and the second largest land area in Southeast Asia.
Its strategic location bordering five countries: India, China, Thailand, Bangladesh and Laos means it has a tremendous consumer potential in its neighboring countries and a large labor force, according to Ms. Thida Thant, managing director of New Link Marketing Ltd.
Myanmar still has the lowest living standards in the region, with a GDP per capita of 379 dollars, according to UN data of 2009, behind Laos in Cambodia, but literacy rate in the country is about 90 percent. The IMF has predicted a GDP growth of 5.5 percent in financial year 2011-2012 due to higher commodity exports and higher investment, and 6 percent in the following financial period.
Only 2 percent of the Myanmar population owns a car, 37% own motorcycles and 51% own bicycles.
The telecom industry is still underdeveloped, and only 4 percent of the population have GSM or CDMA mobile phones. The internet is notoriously slow in Myanmar, although young people are increasingly taking advantage of greater liberties and easier access. Currently, only 0.2 percent of homes subscribe to the internet, with 0.1 per cent having mobile phones with internet, according to data presented by Ms. Lynn Lynn Tin Htun, Managing Director, Mango Marketing Services Co.,Ltd
Opportunities abound, but the country is also facing numerous challenges
Myanmar’s main export items include natural gas, rice, jade, fishery products, garments, rubber, teak and hardwood log, mostly destined to the Asian region, according to Ms Thida Thant.
The country is still a majority rural economy, and the agricultural sector contributed to 35.6 percent of the GDP and 61.2 percent of employment between 2007-08, but only 0.48 percent of total investment in agricultural sector comes from foreign investment.
Thailand’s biggest agro-industrial conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group announced this week that it plans to invest US$ 550 million in Myanmar in the next three years, in the development of rice farms and rice mills, and livestock, according to The Nation.
Myanmar has already invited foreign firms earlier this month to explore 23 offshore oil and gas blocks, and some foreign companies have signed agreements for onshore exploration. Hydropower potential is abundant and Chinese companies have begun projects in the north of the country.
Frequent power outage in Myanmar show that the country is in desperate need of electricity
and people marched with candles for several weeks in May against the energy problem. This energy supply will also be necessary for the future development of the country.
Investors in the mining sector also met at a conference in Yangon this week. Foreign companies are eager to explore Myanmar’s rich and untapped mineral resources, including gems and copper, lead, zinc, tin, gold and limestone.
Reforms are encouraging, but some sectors are still restricted to foreign investment, such as the communications, banking, education, accounting sectors, said Ms. Cho Cho Myint. Many of these have been long dominated by military linked people who may slowly be loosening their powers over these sectors.
The booming tourism sector is also facing challenges, from infrastructure to high prices.
Cost of travel, particularly hotels are more expensive than in neighboring Thailand, partly due to the lack of available accommodation. Prices at a five star hotel can vary from 90 to 250 dollars a night due to seasonal change, said Ms Cho Cho Myint. Staying at a Ramada Inn may cost 55 dollars in Thailand, but can cost up to 150 dollars a night in Myanmar. The government is only beginning to regulate this fluctuation and imposed a limit of 150 dollars a night last week, she said.
Speakers at the seminar are all members of the Myanmar Business Executives Association:
Ms Thida Thant: BA International Relations, MBA, Managing Director, New Link Marketing Ltd.
Ms Cho Cho Myint: BA English, MBA, DBL, Managing Director, Interactive Myanmar
Ms Lynn Lynn Tin Htun – B Com, MBA, Managing Director, Mango Marketing Services Co, Ltd
Mr. Zaw Naing: B. E Electronics, MBA, CEO Myanmar Business Executives Association.
Entrepreneurs Better Enjoy Getting Their Hands Dirty
Trial and Error for Business Social Media Will Fail
The online dispute settlement platform for intellectual property cases will assist with cases related to copyright, patents, and trademark infringements using digital technology.
BANGKOK (NNT) – The Department of Intellectual Property has introduced its online dispute settlement services covering intellectual property cases that it developed with the Thai Arbitration Institute.
Thailand is in the process of responding to the World Bank’s advice and the “Ten for Ten” proposal by five ambassadors to Thailand, according to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy Supattanapong Punmeechaow.
The government has made improving the business environment in Thailand a key policy by setting a goal to raise the ranking of the ease of doing business to be among the top 20 countries in the world.
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Turning our backs on people in need
By Scott Burchill
June 30, 2006 — 10.00am
Politicians constantly face the danger of believing the rhetoric and PR that is written for them at vertiginous moments in the political cycle.
After the initial pretext for invading Iraq collapsed when no weapons of mass destruction could be found, speech writers in the United States, Britain and Australia produced an alternative, if retrospective, justification for violating Iraq's sovereignty: ending Saddam's tyranny and extending the blessings of democracy to a benighted country and region.
Little, if anything, was heard about this before March 2003. At a news conference on March 6, President George Bush declared that WMD was the "single question" that justified the invasion, a view subsequently repeated until it became untenable a few months later. Eliminating the threat posed by Saddam's WMD was also the sole basis of US congressional authorisation for the war.
Spreading democracy by force wasn't a theme in Australian foreign policy either until a new rationale for the war and the occupation had to be found quickly.
Given the increasingly vicarious flavour of Australia's foreign and defence policies under the Howard Government, it was not surprising that a fictitious pretext constructed by spin doctors in Washington for opinion management in the US would be mimicked here.
It takes an awful lot of self-indoctrination to look at what has been done to Afghanistan and Iraq over the past five years and claim, as John Howard did recently in Chicago, that no power in history "has brought to bear the righteous force or generous countenance of the United States of America". The ingratitude of both peoples, expressed in their irrational anti-Americanism and cruel resistance to the use of righteous force against them, is therefore inexplicable.
In his most definitive statement yet on the moral foundations of Australian diplomacy, Alexander Downer recently outlined the role that promoting freedom and democracy plays in the Government's foreign policy. Not since Robespierre have we heard such a commitment to the highest moral and political virtues.
Largely plagiarised from neo-conservative pamphlets and White House press releases, Downer's statement reflects the zero-sum world view from Washington rather than the more subtle multilateral perspective normally favoured by middle powers.
Although an attempt to rewrite the history of catastrophic Western interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ideology of Downer's approach is best illustrated by applying it to the case of Indonesia generally, and Papua specifically.
In the article, Downer argues that "we are supporting values that deliver practical success for ordinary people. We are delivering tangible outcomes for people who deserve the opportunity to forge a future of their own." It's a commendable commitment, except that in the case of Papua we are seeking to deny people the opportunity "to forge a future of their own" by opposing their right to self-determination.
The only "tangible outcomes" for them are persecution if they stay and off-shore processing on Nauru if they succeed in escaping the territory.
According to the Foreign Minister, "we need to promote moderation at the expense of extremism. We need to foster societies where there is tolerance for everyone except the intolerant" and, it appears, those in Indonesia's eastern province who seek a political future outside the repressive control of Java's political elite. Kopassus and the rest of the Indonesian military (TNI) are known for many things. Moderation towards the country's population isn't one of them.
"In democracies, people can freely express their disagreements with governments," says Downer. "They can exercise their right to influence governments and hold them to standards of accountability through public comment, political activism and, ultimately, by voting." True enough, unless the country is Indonesia, where democratic rule mysteriously permits political repression and persecution, larceny, cultural attacks and lengthy prison terms for people who "freely express their disagreements with governments" or merely raise an unofficial flag. This is behaviour we wouldn't hesitate to brand state terrorism if it were occurring in Iran or North Korea.
Although he wants to give precisely the opposite impression, the democratic attributes that Downer accurately defines are largely absent from many parts of Indonesia, suggesting a move away from what he calls "militaristic" and "authoritarian" government has yet to be fully made there. By regularly citing Indonesia as a democratic transition state in the region, the Foreign Minister cannot explain the persecution Australia's Immigration Department believes 42 Papuan asylum seekers would face if they were forcibly sent home.
Downer claims that "it is a recurring theme in Australian foreign policy that where an oppressed people stand for freedom and democracy, Australia plays its part". The part that Australia is playing in Papua, however, is helping to deny "an oppressed people" an opportunity to "stand for freedom and democracy", because good political relations with Jakarta are more important.
His suggestion that Australia is "acting to support these values with our neighbours" must ring hollow around the Freeport gold and copper mine at Grasberg, and throughout the benighted territory of Papua.
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Addressing faith leaders' concerns on gay conversion bill will only strengthen it
The Age's View
December 8, 2020 — 8.58pm
In 2017, a postal survey resulted in a clear majority of Australians in every part of the country voting in favour of same-sex marriage. That result put to rest the idea of a "silent majority" who opposed such a move and, for many, affirmed the idea of our nation as a "live and let live" society.
Credit:AP
But the debate before the survey was also notable for how opponents of same-sex marriage presented their case, as University of Tasmania philosophy lecturer Louise Richardson-Self has pointed out. Rather than focusing on whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, "No" campaigners set out fears over the downstream effects of such a decision on parents' rights, freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
These fears have been raised again with the Victorian government's introduction of the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill, which has been criticised as encroachment by the state into churches' pastoral relationship with individuals and even into what people may pray for or about.
The Victorian bill goes further than recent legislation in Queensland, which concerned itself mainly with so-called therapies to change sexuality in medical settings, to target attempts to change people's sexuality in religious settings as well as actions by family members. "No one is 'broken' because of their sexuality or gender identity. These views won’t be tolerated in Victoria, and neither will these abhorrent [conversion] practices," is how Victorian Attorney-General Jill Hennessy put it.
The text of the proposed legislation highlights the difficulties in characterising what a "change or suppression practice" is, at one point referring to "a religious practice, including but not limited to, a prayer-based practice, a deliverance practice or an exorcism".
This is understandable given some of the highly informal methods some victims of "conversion" attempts have spoken about, but it also creates doubt as to the extent of the practices under scrutiny. That doubt was heightened during the second reading of the bill, when Ms Hennessy said that while sermons stating general religious beliefs did not come under its purview, "such conduct may be considered as part of the Legislative Assembly’s ongoing inquiry into anti-vilification protections".
In a list of "unresolved questions" regarding the bill provided by Melbourne's Catholic Archbishop, Peter Comensoli, it is asked if "change or suppression practices" would include showing someone a Bible passage on abstinence, or parents counselling children to wait rather than undertake gender reassignment. Other religious organisations have noted that the bill as it stands makes the consent of the individual concerned irrelevant when it comes to determining whether a "change or suppression practice" has taken place.
As the archbishop has pointed out, churches are in the conversion and repair business when it comes to human behaviour. Or as one religious organisation put it during consultation on the bill proposal last year, "feelings of guilt and shame are a proper response to sin and brokenness".
In a society of free individuals, it is essential that everyone is protected from coercion and abuse, especially when they are clothed in doctrinal language and pursued by institutions, religious or otherwise. The Age supports the intent of the bill and views the decision to go beyond the Queensland legislation in terms of scope as a simple acknowledgement of the realities of what is sometimes called "conversion therapy" today.
It is important to note the government's assurance that only in cases where such practices could be shown beyond a reasonable doubt to have caused injury or serious injury would they be considered offences under this legislation.
However, addressing the concerns put forward by Archbishop Comensoli and other faith leaders regarding how the bill will work in practice can only strengthen the legislation in the final analysis, and avoid its use as a wedge issue between or within political parties.
Liberal leader Michael O'Brien has sought a pause in the process which Daniel Andrews' government seems unwilling to grant. Meanwhile, though it may be impossible for the government to satisfy the bill's opponents on every point, reaching out to them now will ensure that the government is able to proceed in good faith.
The Age's editor, Gay Alcorn, writes an exclusive newsletter for subscribers on the week's most important stories and issues. Sign up here to receive it every Friday.
Since The Age was first published in 1854, the editorial team has believed it important to express a considered view on the issues of the day for readers, always putting the public interest first. Elsewhere, we strive to cover a diversity of views without endorsing any of them.
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Take A Very Strange Bounce With ‘Rubber’
Rubber = 3 Stars
Lieutenant Chad: No reason.
Would anyone suspect something serious to come out of a film in which a rubber tire comes to life and kills people, using telepathic powers? I would not think so. Why would this happen? As the movie’s mantra suggests, “No reason.” It is fitting that I saw Rubber around the same time that I watched Scream 4. Both films are designed to satirize horror and film culture and subvert audience expectation. While I think Scream 4 only managed to point out these themes without being clever enough to pull off something more meaningful, Rubber is more of an experiment, made to address the tropes and status of horror films and the audiences that watch them. While very bizarre, self indulgent at times, and overlong, the film works as a ridiculous meta-horror-comedy pushed to the extreme.
As I have already explained, the premise is incredibly simplistic. In California, a tire comes to life and embarks on a killing spree. Starting out small, learning to roll and crushing things under its wait, the tire soon advances further by using telekinetic powers to blow up anything that crosses its path (I am sorry if this is where I lost you). Meanwhile, an audience watches the events unfold through binoculars. They have been setup in the distance by a policeman (Stephen Spinella), who is apparently all too aware of this tire’s abilities, along with the fact that he is inside the constructs of a film. Things may become too much for even him to handle, as the tire continues its killing spree with seemingly no way to be stopped.
I could not even write that summary with a straight face as it is just ludicrous to describe. However, I got exactly what I was expecting, after hearing about a film that revolves around a killer tire. That being said, the movie is also very aware of how preposterous it is. There is no way that writer/director/editor/cinematographer Quentin Dupieux could have made this film without having an exact understanding of how this film would be regarded. While very drawn out, this film has a sense of humor about itself that is very fitting with the tone.
It is a little hard to explain the exact kind of appreciation I have for this movie. As it stands I would only assign a marginal recommendation rating to it. I guess the benefits I saw from watching the film relied on how willing it was to embrace its bizarreness. Starting with the opening of the film, which has the policeman drive through a row of chairs, destroying each one with his car, before stopping, exiting his vehicle, and delivering a monologue directly at the camera, only to have it revealed that he is addressing an audience that watches the events of the films go down, this film has already established that it literally knows how weird it is. The use of an audience watching this film in the background is like Dupieux having his cake and eating it too. They consist of mostly annoying people, chatting about what they see, making the kind of comments that a stereotypical audience would make during a regular slasher movie. The idea is to obviously pull the rug out from under those who would comment on this film, were it to be played any straighter. It only kind of works, but eventually grows tiresome, before it just outplays itself.
That is the main problem with this film. In concept, there only seems to be enough material for a short film. Rubber film lasts for 85 minutes and certainly drags in its midsection. Who would have thought that you can only do so much with a concept about a killer tire? There is not a lot going on, but the film really tries to pad itself out by having elements such as the audience aspect, the role of the policeman, and even small expansion on some of the supporting characters. This film really does not need any of this. It would have remained just as much a unique experience without these other developments, but it would have probably lost the less-than-subtle meta layer that the film is going for.
There is not much to speak of in way of characters. Besides the evil, charismatic tire (played by Robert, according to the credits), you have the policeman, who is in on it; the policeman’s assistant, who sees to the observing audience; a boy who sees the tire do his work, but no one believes until it’s too late; a women, whom the tire seems to be stalking (and this wouldn’t be a slasher film without her having a gratuitous shower scene); and then other characters who are doomed. There is certainly a lot of quirkiness involved (there would have to be), but you really have to be in on the tone of this film to appreciate what is being brought by these folk to the film.
From a filmmaking standpoint, this is actually a solid example of what can be accomplished in crafty, low budget cinema. Given that this has to be a film about a possessed tire, the film manages to provide a convincing perspective of a tire moving on its own, through a clever mix of mostly practical props and some subtle special effects. Also aiding this is how the film manages to portray the menace of a tire, which is surprising. In any other movie, the way some scenes are constructed could be fitting of a successful suspense sequence. Adding to all of this is the score, which is at times fitting for a darker toned film and at other times perfectly contrasting in a humorous way to the drama that is unfolding. I certainly found success to be seen in the presentation of Rubber.
This is quirky, independent cinema at its most extreme. There is nothing profound about what this film presents, but I found it to be intriguing enough, in a ridiculous sort of way. I may get some flak from my other buddies at Why So Blu for this next statement, but I appreciated what this film had to offer more than something like The Human Centipede, which is better in concept/discussion rather than its actual execution. Rubber is far from perfect, but it has ideas, solid filmmaking, and fun with what it achieves. Certainly one of the stranger films to watch, but given its Video OnDemand status and incredibly limited release, you should not be surprised by its lack of mainstream appeal. So, along with Hobo with a Shotgun, this is an interesting, yet strangely entertaining time for the flicks you can find OnDemand.
Zach: I’m not joking. I’m sure this tire killed Martina!
2011 Films Comedy Horror Quentin Dupieux Stephen Spinella
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Tag Archives: John Legend
Carrie Underwood Shares One of Her Favorite Christmas Eve Memories
While Carrie Underwood is a global superstar singing to millions of fans now, she used to sing to a much more exclusive crowd. Carrie shares a Christmas tradition that she did with her family when she was younger, “One thing that we always did growing up that was one of my favorite memories, we would on…… MORE
Watch Carrie Underwood & John Legend’s Majestic New Video for “Hallelujah”
Carrie Underwood released her first-ever Christmas album, My Gift, on Sept. 25. The 11-song album, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, features a combination of beloved traditional favorites, such as “Silent Night” and “Away in the Manger,” as well as original material, including “Sweet Baby Jesus” and “Let There…… MORE
Listen to Carrie Underwood Team With John Legend on New Holiday Song, “Hallelujah”
Carrie Underwood released her first-ever Christmas album, My Gift, on Sept. 25. The 11-song album features a combination of beloved traditional favorites, such as “Silent Night” and “Away in the Manger,” as well as original material, including “Sweet Baby Jesus” and “Let There Be Peace.” There are also two special guests on the new album.…… MORE
Carrie Underwood Reveals Track List & Special Guests on Upcoming Christmas Album, “My Gift”
Carrie Underwood will release her first-ever Christmas album, My Gift, on Sept. 25. The holiday offering will feature a combination of beloved traditional favorites and original material that celebrate Carrie’s faith and the spiritual nature of Christmas. Carrie revealed the album’s 11-song track list and special guests via Instagram on Aug. 27, stating: “The songs…… MORE
Kane Brown to Release New 7-Song EP, “Mixtape Vol. 1,” on Aug. 14
Kane Brown will release a new seven-song EP, Mixtape Vol. 1, on Aug. 14. The new EP features four previously released tracks (“Worldwide Beautiful,” “Cool Again,” “Be Like That” and “Last Time I Say Sorry”) as well as three brand-new songs (“Worship You,” “BFE” and “Didn’t Know What Love Was”). Kane co-wrote every track on…… MORE
Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani, Kelly Clarkson & John Legend to Serve as Coaches on Season 19 of “The Voice”
Gwen Stefani is returning as a coach on Season 19 of The Voice. Gwen will join boyfriend Blake Shelton—who has served as a coach on every season—Kelly Clarkson and John Legend in the red chairs when the show returns this fall. “Y’all hear?! @gwenstefani’s back and so is @nbcthevoice!!!! See yall in the fall! @johnlegend…… MORE
Kane Brown & John Legend Drop Self-Directed Video for “Last Time I Say Sorry” [Watch]
After collaborating with cross-genre artists Marshmello, Becky G, Khalid and more, Kane Brown teamed with EGOT-winner John Legend for a new ballad, “Last Time I Say Sorry.” “Last Time I Say Sorry” was co-written by Kane, Legend, Matt McGinn and Andrew Goldstein, who also produced the track. Kane and Legend initially connected during an episode of…… MORE
Kane Brown Teams With John Legend in New Ballad, “Last Time I Say Sorry” [Listen]
After recording tunes with Marshmello, Becky G, Khalid and more, Kane Brown added to his cross-genre collaborations by teaming with John Legend for the new ballad, “Last Time I Say Sorry.” “Last Time I Say Sorry” was co-written by Kane, Legend, Matt McGinn and Andrew Goldstein, who also produced the track. Kane and Legend initially connected…… MORE
New Season of “Carpool Karaoke” Features Dierks Bentley With Sheryl Crow & Blake Shelton With Chelsea Handler [Watch Trailer]
Carpool Karaoke released a new trailer for its upcoming season on Apple Music, and it features a lot of star power, including Blake Shelton, Dierks Bentley, Will Smith, John Legend, Alicia Keys, Shaquille O’Neal, John Cena, Metallica and more. The new show is based on The Late Late Show’s viral videos starring James Corden, who…… MORE
“SpongeBob SquarePants” Musical Heads to Broadway With Original Songs From Lady Antebellum, David Bowie, Steven Tyler & More
SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick Star, Sandy Cheeks, Squidward, Mr. Krabs and the rest of the motley crew from Bikini Bottom will hit the Broadway stage on November 6 for the opening of The SpongeBob Musical. According to the musical’s press release, SpongeBob and his crew have their hands full as they face total annihilation in their…… MORE
Florida Georgia Line to Team With John Legend for Performance at Billboard Music Awards
Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line will team up with John Legend for a performance at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards on May 21. Tyler, Brian and John are set to serenade the crowd with two ditties: FGL’s smash hit “H.O.L.Y.”, as well as John’s “Surefire.” FGL, which is nominated for six…… MORE
Garth Brooks – One of the 5 Honorees for Kennedy Center Honors 2021
Congrats to Garth Brooks — he’s been named as one of the honorees for the 43rd Kennedy Center Honors. Along with Garth, the lifetime achievements of Debbie Allen, Joan Baez, Midori and Dick Van Dyke will be celebrated. When he learned of the honor, Garth shared, “I’m humble. I’m proud. I’m all the good things.”
The Kennedy Center Honors will air June 6 at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.
Photo Credit: Becky Fluke
Vince Gill & Amy Grant
Alabama With Martina McBride
Tanya Tucker “CMT Next Women of Country Tour”
Scotty McCreery
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Call now for free initial consultation
The Counsel You Need To Make Confident Decisions and Resolve Legal Problems
» Man held in New York on out-of-state felony charges
Man held in New York on out-of-state felony charges
On behalf of Law Offices of Joseph J. Tock | Aug 29, 2016 | Felonies
After committing a crime, some perpetrators become fugitives and end up hiding in another state. Of course, it is a defense attorney’s duty to assure that the police have the right person and have not made a mistake. If the suspect is arrested in New York on alleged felony charges filed in another state, certain protocol will kick in that will attempt to pay some deference to the state where the suspect was apprehended.
In the final analysis, however, the main motivating force in such cases is the pressure applied by the state where the crime occurred to expedite the extradition of the suspect back to the originating state. That process was initiated recently in the Bronx when a man was picked up on shooting charges emanating from a neighboring state. Such interstate fugitive matters are usually handled by the United States Marshal’s Service.
Even though the charges here involve an arrest warrant from Pennsylvania alleging attempted homicide and aggravated assault, the matter essentially becomes a federal interstate fugitive problem which brings the federal law enforcement agency into jurisdictional authority. The man was picked up by the U.S. Marshals and deposited in the New York Central Booking unit to be formally arraigned as a fugitive from justice pending extradition proceedings. A spokesman for the Marshal’s Service stated that the service will continue to cooperate in coordinating the apprehension of suspects between local, state, and federal jurisdictions.
In a case like this, extradition is rarely denied. The main charges and offending behavior took place in another state, and even if the suspect is innocent, it is up to the charging state to provide due process rights and determine guilt or innocence on the felony charges. In this case, the man is charged with shooting and seriously injuring another person. The police in that state are alleging that there are witnesses who identified the suspect. Although he is waiting for processing back to the state of origination, obtaining the services of a New York criminal attorney would serve the important function of safeguarding his basic rights at this time.
Source: publicopiniononline.com, “Chambersburg shooting suspect arrested in New York“, Aug. 17, 2016
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Kanye West Renounces Trump Support, Declares Own Political Party the ‘Birthday Party’
“I’m taking the red hat off,” rapper and just-announced presidential candidate tells Forbes in new interview
Lindsey Ellefson | July 8, 2020 @ 6:18 AM
Kanye West, fresh off a Fourth of July presidential run announcement, gave a wide-ranging interview to Forbes where he renounced his support for President Donald Trump and said he is running on the “Birthday Party” ticket.
“I am taking the red hat off, with this interview,” said the rapper, who has famously supported Trump and met with him at Trump Tower and in the Oval Office.
The interview dropped in the early hours of Wednesday, and by daylight, other elements of West’s chat with the magazine were trending on Twitter, particularly “Birthday Party.”
Also Read: Kanye West's Presidential Bid Hurts Joe Biden's Odds to Win, According to Betting Site
The reason why he calls his political party — for which he is receiving guidance from Elon Musk — the Birthday Party is simple: “Because when we win, it’s everybody’s birthday.”
West’s presidential bid has slightly dinged Democratic presumptive Joe Biden’s odds to win the 2020 election, according to one of the largest online sportsbooks, so maybe it isn’t Biden’s birthday after all.
According to Bet Online, political betting markets opened Sunday with West added at +10000 (100/1) odds to win the 2020 election. Those are the same odds 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has, though she is not in the race and has thrown her support behind Biden.
From Saturday to Sunday, Biden — the outright favorite — moved from -180 (5/9) to -160 (5/8) odds, according to Bet Online. Republican and incumbent Trump’s odds to win improved with West’s weekend announcement, moving from +150 (3/2) to +130 (13/10).
All the Movies Suspended or Delayed Due to Coronavirus Pandemic (Updating)
As the coronavirus continues to spread, an increasing number of movies are delaying or suspending production. As the number of impacted movies grows, TheWrap felt it would be most informative to keep a running list.
Disney/MGM/Warner Bros.
"No Time to Die"
MGM, Universal and Bond producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli announced that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of "No Time to Die" will be postponed until November 2020.
Photo credit: Universal
"A Quiet Place Part II"
Director John Krasinski announced on Instagram that the horror sequel's March theatrical release would be delayed amid the growing spread of the coronavirus around the globe. Paramount has now dated the film for release on Sept. 4.
Photo credit: Paramount
"Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway" was one of the first films delayed as part of the coronavirus, with Sony pushing its late March release to Aug. 7. But as the shutdowns continued, Sony juggled its release slate so that the family film will now open Jan. 15, 2021.
Photo credit: Sony
"Fast and Furious 9"
The release of the next “Fast & Furious” installment, “F9,” has been delayed from May 22 to now opening on April 2, 2021.
"The Lovebirds"
Paramount postponed the April 3 theatrical release of the romantic comedy “The Lovebirds" starring Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani after its SXSW premiere was also canceled. Netflix then acquired the film from Paramount and debuted it on May 22.
Paramount/Netflix
"Blue Story"
Paramount postponed the theatrical release UK gang film "Blue Story," which was set to open on March 20. The film then premiered on digital on May 5.
"The Artist's Wife"
Strand Releasing and Water's End Productions delayed the limited release of the Bruce Dern and Lena Olin film "The Artist's Wife." The film was meant to open in New York on April 3 in Los Angeles on April 10 and in San Francisco on April 17. No new release date has been set.
Strand Releasing
"The Truth"
Hirokazu Kore-eda's film "The Truth" from IFC Films will postpone its March 20 domestic release to now open at an unspecified date in summer 2020. The film is in both French and English starring Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Ethan Hawke and has already opened in some overseas markets. IFC Films has set a new release date for July 3.
"Mulan"
Disney postponed the release of its blockbuster, live-action remake of the animated film "Mulan" from March 27 to now open on July 24. The shift was part of a big shuffle of films Disney made to its release calendar on April 3.
"The New Mutants"
After numerous delays, 20th Century's X-Men spinoff "The New Mutants" was also pushed back by Disney "out of an abundance of caution." The film from director Josh Boone was meant to open April 3. The film will now open Aug. 28, 2020.
"Antlers"
"Antlers," an indie horror film from director Scott Cooper starring Keri Russell, was also pushed back by Disney and Searchlight Pictures from its April 17 release. No new release date has been set.
"Black Widow" and the MCU
In a restructuring of its entire release calendar, Disney pushed back every Marvel movie in the cinematic universe. "Black Widow" was meant to open on May 1, but will now shift back to the slot previously occupied by "The Eternals" on Nov. 6.“Eternals” is moving to February 12, 2021, “Shang-Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings” will open May 7, 2021, and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is shifting to Nov. 5, 2021. The changes also affected Marvel's slate for 2022 with “Thor: Love and Thunder” opening Feb. 18, 2022, “Black Panther 2” shifting to May 8, 2022, and “Captain Marvel 2,” which was not previously dated, is now set for a July 8, 2022 release.
Untitled Elvis Movie
Baz Luhrmann's Elvis Presley biopic starring Austin Butler ceased production in Australia after co-star Tom Hanks (playing Presley manager Col. Parker) and his wife, Rita Wilson, tested positive for COVID-19. The planned release date was also bumped back one month to now open Nov. 5, 2021.
"Mission: Impossible 7 and 8"
In late February, Paramount's action sequel halted production in Italy on the Tom Cruise action sequel. Paramount on April 24 also bumped the release dates of both films, with "M:I 7" moving to November 19, 2021 from its July 2021 release date, and the eighth film also moving back to Nov. 4, 2022 from its summer release.
"The Nightingale"
Sony postponed the Budapest shoot of the drama starring real-life sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning.
"Birds of Paradise"
Amazon Studios halted production in Budapest on director Sarah Adina Smith's ballet drama.
"Jurassic World: Dominion"
Universal put a pause on production on the third "Jurassic World" in March after four weeks of shooting had been completed in the UK for a 20-week shoot. Production will resume on July 6, and the film is expected to be released on June 11, 2021.
"Flint Strong"
Universal also halted production on this boxing biopic starring Ice Cube and Ryan Destiny.
"Man From Toronto"
Sony delayed the start of production on the action comedy starring Kevin Hart and Woody Harrelson (who stepped in to replace Jason Statham).
"Official Competition"
Spanish studio Mediapro suspended production on the new comedy starring Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas.
"The Batman"
On March 14, Warner Bros. halted the U.K. production on Matt Reeve's DC Films reboot for at least two weeks. The film stars Robert Pattinson as the Caped Crusader. On April 20, Warner Bros. officially shifted the release date back four months to Oct. 1 from its originally planned June 2021 release date. The shift also pushed back some other DC titles, including "The Flash" to June 3, 2022 and "Shazam 2!" to Nov. 4, 2022.
"Samaritan"
On March 14, MGM paused production on the Sylvester Stallone thriller. The film had been shooting in Atlanta.
"Cinderella"
Sony's modernized take on "Cinderella" from director Kay Cannon and starring Camila Cabello will put its production on hiatus due to the travel ban extension to the UK. The film was shooting at Pinewood Studios.
"Fantastic Beasts 3"
The third installment of J.K. Rowling's "Fantastic Beasts" series that's spun off from the Harry Potter universe will postpone its production that was scheduled to begin in March in the U.K. The film stars Eddie Redmayne, Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Katherine Waterston.
"The Card Counter"
Paul Schrader's "The Card Counter," starring Oscar Isaac, Willem Dafoe, Tye Sheridan and Tiffany Haddish, shut down production with five days remaining in its shoot after the director said on Facebook that a "day player" tested positive for the virus. "Myself, I would have shot through hellfire rain to complete the film," Schrader added. "I'm old and asthmatic, what better way to die than on the job?" Schrader said in an interview in June that the film would resume production on July 6 but that all major crowd and intimate scenes had been completed.
"The Matrix 4"
Production on "The Matrix 4" was temporarily put on hold in March, an individual with knowledge told TheWrap. The sequel starring Keanu Reeves was in production in Berlin, Germany.
"First Cow"
After releasing Kelly Reichardt's "First Cow" in limited release on March 6, the distributor announced Monday it will re-release the film in theaters later this year.
"Deerskin"
The theatrical release of the indie film "Deerskin" from director Quentin Dupieux starring Jean Dujardin has been postponed until further notice. Greenwich Entertainment meant to release the film on March 20 after it played at Cannes, TIFF and Fantastic Fest. The movie will now open via a virtual cinema offering on May 1.
"Uncharted"
“Uncharted,” the film adaptation of the popular PlayStation video game franchise starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, and Antonio Banderas, was unable to begin production in March amid coronavirus concerns. As part of a larger shuffle of Sony's release slate, the most recent release date for the film was also shifted back from March 2021 to Oct. 8, 2021.
Getty Images/Naughty Dog
"The Climb"
Sony Pictures Classics' indie comedy "The Climb," which played at Sundance this year, was meant to hit theaters March 20 and will now be released on Oct. 9.
"Avatar"
The sequels to James Cameron's four "Avatar" sequels delayed shooting in New Zealand indefinitely, according to the film's producer Jon Landau speaking to the New Zealand Herald. The executive team was to fly to Wellington, NZ on Friday but will remain in Los Angeles due to the coronavirus. Landau said he couldn't give an answer as to when production would resume and when the local Kiwi crew could get back to work. "If I told you we are going to know something in two weeks I'd be lying. I might not be wrong - even a broken clock is right twice a day. But I would be lying because I don't know," Landau said. "We're in the midst of a global crisis and this is not about the film industry. I think everybody needs to do now whatever we can do, as we say here, to flatten the curve."
"The Personal History of David Copperfield"
Searchlight Studios was meant to release "Veep" creator Armando Iannucci's comedic take on the Charles Dickens novel on May 8. It will now open in limited release on August 14.
"The Woman in the Window"
The Amy Adams mystery thriller from director Joe Wright, "The Woman in the Window" was meant to open in theaters on May 15 from 20th Century Studios. No new release date has been set.
The theatrical release of the Annie Silverstein indie drama "Bull" was postponed from its March 20 release and will now open on VOD and digital on May 1. The film has toured the festival circuit since making its debut at Cannes in 2019.
"Minions: The Rise of Gru"
The latest "Minions" movie "The Rise of Gru" was postponed from its release date on July 3. Illumination Entertainment's Paris office was forced to shut down due to the coronavirus, so the film was not able to be finished in time. Universal will release the film on July 2, 2021, a full year after its initial date.
"Wonder Woman 1984"
The sequel to "Wonder Woman" starring Gal Gadot will now hit theaters on Oct. 2 after first being pushed back from its June 5 release date and again from Aug. 12.
"In the Heights"
The movie musical based on Lin-Manuel Miranda's stage production "In the Heights" was postponed by Warner Bros. from its June 26 release date and bumped to June 18, 2021.
"Malignant"
"Malignant," a horror film from director James Wan, was pushed indefinitely from its release date on Aug. 14 to clear the way for "Wonder Woman 1984" to open at the tail end of the summer.
"Peter Rabbit 2," "Morbius" and "Ghostbusters: Afterlife"
In a sweeping overhaul of its release slate, Sony moved three films it had scheduled for release this summer to the first quarter of 2021. The "Peter Rabbit" sequel will now be released in January 2021 while both "Morbius" and "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" have been moved to next March.
Sony has moved a WWII drama written by and starring Tom Hanks off of its mid-June release date and partnered with Apple to release the film on Apple TV+ in early July.
"Wicked"
Universal has removed the movie musical adaptation of “Wicked” from its release slate from its original date on Dec. 22, 2021, and will be redated at a later time.
"Sing 2"
Illumination’s “Sing 2” will now open in the place vacated by “Wicked” on Universal's release slate on Dec. 22, 2021.
"Top Gun: Maverick"
The sequel to the 1985 hit starring Tom Cruise has been pushed back from June 24 to December 23, 2020.
"Candyman"
Universal's horror film "Candyman" from director Nia DaCosta and produced by Jordan Peele will move from its June 12 release date to Sept. 25, 2020.
"Praise This"
The Will Packer-produced musical comedy "Praise This" about a church choir was delayed from its Sept. 25 release date and will be re-added to the slate by Universal at a later date.
Photographed by Ian Spanier for TheWrap
"The Spongebob Movie: Sponge On The Run"
Paramount originally shifted the animated "Spongebob" movie from its release date on May 22 to open on August 7, but it will now debut in early 2021 on premium VOD followed by the rebranded CBS All Access.
Paramount Animation
"Jungle Cruise"
With the shift of "Mulan," Disney moved the release of the Dwayne Johnson adventure comedy "Jungle Cruise" back a full year to July 30, 2021.
"Free Guy"
The Ryan Reynolds video game comedy was meant to open July 3 but will now open Dec. 11.
20th Century Fox/Disney
"The French Dispatch"
Director Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch” moved from July 24, 2020 to Oct. 16, 2020 as part of Disney's shift of its entire release calendar.
Untitled Indiana Jones
The fifth Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford has already shifted its release date in response to Disney's wave of other release changes. It will now open July 29, 2022.
"Nobody"
Universal's "Nobody," a revenge thriller and action movie starring Bob Odenkirk from the writer of "John Wick" and the producers of "Atomic Blonde," was delayed from its Aug. 14, 2020 release date to now open on Feb. 26, 2021. As a result, an untitled M. Night Shyamalan thriller that was slated for that day is now undated and will be re-added to the calendar later.
Photograph by Steven Gerlich for TheWrap
"Soul" and "Raya and the Last Dragon"
Disney and Pixar's "Soul" was moved from its June release date to open on Nov. 20. It's now opening near where the Disney Animation Studios film "Raya and the Last Dragon" was meant to open. That movie will now debut March 12, 2021. It filled the slot of an unnamed Disney live-action film that has now been removed from the slate.
Walt Disney Studios/Pixar
"Infinite"
The latest film from director Antoine Fuqua starring Mark Wahlberg, "Infinite," was pushed back by Paramount from its Aug. 7 release date to now open on Memorial Day weekend, May 28, 2021. The film is currently in post-production, and while "Infinite" wasn't explicitly pushed back due to the coronavirus, the new date allows the studio more time to ramp up the film's original intellectual property.
"The Many Saints of Newark"
The prequel to "The Sopranos" that follows a young Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini's son Michael Gandolfini, during the 1960s Newark riots was pushed to 2021, now opening on March 12, 2021 after originally being slated for a September 2020 release.
"King Richard"
The biopic about the life of tennis great Richard Williams starring Will Smith was pushed from its November 2020 release date to now opening almost a full year later on Nov. 19, 2021.
"Venom: Let There Be Carnage"
While the "Venom" sequel did get a new title from Sony in its latest update, "Let There Be Carnage," it also found itself pushed back from an October release to now open on June 25, 2021.
"Dungeons & Dragons"
Paramount's movie based on the "Dungeons & Dragons" game from the directors of "Game Night," John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, has been delayed from a November 2021 release date to May 27, 2022.
"Spell"
Paramount's horror film starring Omari Hardwick that was set for release in August of this year was pulled from the release calendar, with no new date set as of yet.
"John Wick: Chapter 4"
The fourth movie in the Keanu Reeves action franchise "John Wick" was moved back a full year to now open May 27, 2022. Lionsgate also juggled several of its other big releases to 2021 and 2022, including "Fatale" (10/30/20), "Voyagers" (11/25/20), "The Asset" (4/23/21), "Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar" (7/16/21), "The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard" (8/20/21) and "American Underdog: The Kurt Warner Story" (12/10/21). Further, the films "Run" and "Jesus Revolution" are both without release dates.
"Antebellum"
Lionsgate's horror movie "Antebellum" starring Janelle Monáe was moved from its April release date to now being the studio's next most earliest release in 2020 on Aug. 21.
"Spiral"
"Spiral," Chris Rock's new take on the "Saw" franchise that stars himself and Samuel L. Jackson, was moved from a summer 2020 release to now open on May 21, 2021.
"The Forever Purge"
The fifth film in "The Purge" horror franchise was meant to open in theaters on July 10 of this year but was pulled from the release calendar. No new date has been set as of yet.
"Kajillionaire"
"Kajillionaire," the latest film from director Miranda July that made its debut at Sundance and stars Debra Winger, Richard Jenkins and Evan Rachel Wood, has been pushed from its planned June release date to now open Sept. 18, 2020. However, the film will still open theatrically in a limited release.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute/Focus Features
"Everybody's Talking About Jamie"
20th Century Studios' adaptation of the stage musical about a teenage drag queen stars Max Harwood and Richard E. Grant. It was meant to open Oct. 23, 2020 but will now open Jan. 22, 2021.
"The Beatles: Get Back"
"The Beatles: Get Back," a documentary from Peter Jackson about the Fab Four's time recording the "Let It Be" album and culminating in their historic rooftop concert, was pushed back from a fall release on Sept. 4, 2020 to now open Aug. 27, 2021.
Photo Courtesy of Apple Corps Ltd.
"The Broken Hearts Gallery"
Selena Gomez-produced rom-com “The Broken Hearts Gallery” is the story of Lucy, a 20-something art gallery assistant living in New York who, after her latest breakup, decides to create a pop-up art space of artifacts from past relationships. The film which was scheduled to be released on Aug. 7, has been pulled from the release schedule with its release date to be determined.
"Greenland"
“Greenland,” a disaster thriller which stars Gerard Butler, along with the rest of humanity, tries to escape a massive comet that threatens to make all life on Earth extinct. Originally scheduled to be released on August 14, the film has been pushed a month to September 25.
Release slates for 2021 and beyond are taking shape as studios look to write off summer 2020
Kanye West’s Yeezy, MPTF, AFI Got Multimillion-Dollar Federal Loans
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Posted on December 7, 2016 by Times Gazette
Dear council: Refocus on Hillsboro
Columns, Opinion
By Gary Abernathy - gabernathy@civitasmedia.com
An open letter to Hillsboro City Council:
I’m sure most of you would agree that in many ways 2016 has been a lost year for our city. Since he was first elected in 2011, Mayor Drew Hastings has been the focus of intense scrutiny like no elected official in the history of Hillsboro, all to the detriment of Hillsboro and its citizens.
Throughout this past year, Drew’s adversaries finally achieved part of what they wanted – taking Drew to court, both civil and criminal, with the hope of removing him from office. The results were not what they hoped for, and the fallout is not surprising, including personnel changes.
This week, as you know, Chief Todd Whited resigned from the Hillsboro Police Department. His career as a law enforcement officer is to be honored. I admire the chief for making the difficult decision to resign, but his email to you made it clear this decision is best both for him and for our town.
I can understand the chief’s feeling that he can no longer work for the mayor. Despite a trial that exonerated the mayor, the chief’s email to you continued to make a number of unsettling statements and allegations on the same issues and more.
His unwillingness to accept a jury’s verdict is demonstrated by his rehashing of charges that have had their day in court. Our justice system worked, because justice is a process, not a particular result.
The chief’s insinuation that if you are friends with someone who is charged with a crime, then you, by association, are also at fault because you had to know what he was doing is troubling coming from law enforcement.
The disparagement he cast on your council clerk – who, before joining the Hastings administration in 2012, served the Highland County Commission for a decade with an unblemished record and who has never been charged with a crime – is alarming.
His statement that Drew should have resigned when he was indicted is an affront not only to our system of justice, where everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty, but also to our citizens who put Drew where he is through their votes. It is a particularly troubling statement considering the trial ended with Drew’s acquittal on all charges.
The fact that the chief is unwilling to accept the results of due process and is now encouraging city council to take the law into its own hands is disappointing. But it’s not surprising when you consider that when he first came into possession of the evidence in Drew’s case a year ago, he provided it to five local citizens, whom he knew disliked Drew, for the purpose of filing a civil case that, if successful, would have immediately removed Drew from office. In our justice system, the roles of investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury are separate functions for good reason.
In his resignation letter, the chief said it was clear “that Mayor Hastings does not like me nor the police department.” Considering a Hillsboro police officer’s personal investigation of the mayor’s residency in 2013, the providing of criminal evidence to his adversaries for the filing of a civil suit, and the ongoing HPD investigation even after the case was supposedly handed off to the sheriff’s office, it might not be a stretch for the mayor to conclude that the police department does not like him. (In fact, I know there are HPD officers who have no problem with Drew.)
Why has there been such an intense focus on Drew Hastings? The chief summed it up in his email to you when he reminded you that Drew isn’t from here, and that he moved here 10 years ago from California. He’s an outsider, to be feared. Never mind that Drew actually grew up about an hour from here in the Dayton area and didn’t move to California until he was in his late 30s. Unfortunately we see that attitude as an undercurrent to so much of the criticism that comes Drew’s way.
But these issues are all beyond your control. So, what is within your control? Focusing on our city and its citizens. I doubt that any of you ran for city council thinking that you would spend so much of your time embroiled in controversies manufactured by the mayor’s adversaries.
I’m guessing that each of you ran for council because you wanted to contribute to Hillsboro’s growth, prosperity and success. There may be projects across the city that are particularly important to you. For members who were elected from particular wards, I imagine there are issues in your own neighborhoods that you want to tackle aggressively.
Drew’s devoted adversaries have demonstrated that they will never put the best interests of Hillsboro above themselves. They will continue trying to shame you – mostly through internet posts using pseudonyms, which tells us there are probably just a handful of people posting under numerous names – into keeping your focus on their agenda rather than on the accomplishments that most of our citizens hope you and the mayor will achieve for the sake of our city.
Drew is mayor because the people of Hillsboro elected him, twice, and by healthy margins. Most Hillsboro residents like the direction Drew is leading our city. Most citizens are exhausted with the nonsense and are hoping that the mayor and council will work together for the betterment of Hillsboro. It’s a safe bet that most Hillsboro residents would rather be reading stories about projects and improvements happening here than reading about more court filings, accusations and infighting.
Thank you for your service on city council. The year 2016 may have been mostly lost to side issues and unnecessary distractions. Going forward, I hope you will make a choice that is entirely within your control. I hope you will make the decision that 2017 will be a year that is remembered for progress and achievement. If you do, I think you’ll find that what is often a thankless job results in considerably more appreciation from the citizens you serve.
Reach Gary Abernathy at 937-393-3456 or on Twitter @abernathygary.
http://aimmedianetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2016/12/web1_Gary-Abernathy-CMYK-1.jpg
By Gary Abernathy
gabernathy@civitasmedia.com
Hi! A visitor to our site felt the following article might be of interest to you: Dear council: Refocus on Hillsboro. Here is a link to that story: http://www.timesgazette.com/opinion/11858/dear-council-refocus-on-hillsboro
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Presidential powers
By Melissa Erickson
While the United States is a country that runs on a system of checks and balances, with each branch of government wielding different powers established in the Constitution, the president stands alone. As the most powerful player with unparalleled potential to lead the country, the president commands impressive tools such as executive orders to make his will into action.
But how do the president’s executive orders fit into the American system of checks and balances? To find some answers, two experts, Mark Major, a senior lecturer in the political science department at Pennsylvania State University and author of “The Unilateral Presidency and the News Media: The Politics of Framing Executive Power,” and Mitchell Sellers, an assistant professor in the political science department at Temple University, examine how our system prevents the president or any branch from exercising too much power.
Civics 101
Back in school we learned that the three branches of government operate with separate powers. At the most basic: The legislative branch (Congress) makes the laws. The executive branch (president) executes the laws. The judicial branch (courts) interprets the laws.
Each branch also has powers to keep the others in check. For example, when Congress passes a law, the president can veto it, but Congress can override a veto with enough votes. The Supreme Court can declare a law unconstitutional, and the Senate approves the president’s nominees for court justices.
Less well-known are the unilateral powers of the president, or the ways a president can act without the support of Congress and the courts, Major said. Executive orders are just one type of unilateral power available to the president. Others include signing statements, presidential proclamations (such as the Emancipation Proclamation), national security directives and presidential memorandums, Major said.
Not mentioned in Constitution
One of the first things that should be known about a president’s executive orders is that they are “a derived power” that is not clearly stated in the Constitution, Sellers said. Instead, they “originate out of tradition starting with Washington and continuing through Trump,” Major said.
“Presidents rely on predecessors for experience and power. Once one president acts in a certain way, others will follow,” Major said.
Historically, presidents use executive orders to direct policy and set agendas, and they are most commonly used in the first 100 days of a presidency and toward the end, Sellers said.
“They want to start by making big changes, then later they’ll use different strategies and work with the legislature to get things done,” he said.
Often used as a way to jump-start promises made on the campaign trail, executive orders are actually not that common these days. Issuing executive orders as a presidential strategy peaked under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who issued on average 307 each year of his historically long tenure, 1933-45. Former President Barack Obama issued the least amount in the past 120 years, 35 on average, followed by former President George W. Bush with 36 and former President Bill Clinton with 46, according to the Pew Research Center.
Executive orders walk a fine line between achieving policy objectives and not making Congress or the courts react.
“It’s a delicate calculator between what do I want to achieve and what can I get away with. Presidents act alone but within the system of checks and balances,” Major said.
Cutting through gridlock
In recent years, Washington has been plagued by partisan gridlock, and executive orders are a useful tool for a president to make things happen.
“If everything has to be approved by Congress, nothing would get done,” said Sellers, who called it “reasonable” for presidents to have some unilateral power.
Any policy change needs to be grounded in existing law, but with so much legislation adopted over the last 200-plus years, that’s not difficult to do, Sellers said.
Recent examples of executive action:
Question: Why could a federal appeals court in Seattle stop the president’s travel ban?
Background: On Jan. 27, President Trump signed an executive order barring any non-U.S. citizen from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen from entering the United States. The courts got involved, and a U.S. District Court in Seattle, Washington, granted a restraining order halting the travel ban.
Answer: “While the president acted alone, his actions are still within the context of checks and balances. They’re subject to policy and judicial review. States can challenge an order, and it’s up to the courts to decide,” Major said.
In deciding to put the order on hold, a three-judge panel noted that the states of Washington and Minnesota had raised serious concerns about religious discrimination and that due diligence wasn’t served. In essence, “The courts did a cost-benefit analysis and found that enforcing the order would increase harm on citizens” while showing no evidence that any foreigner was responsible for a terrorist act on U.S. soil, Sellers said. “The hardship was greater than the treatment,” he said.
What was extraordinary was the immediate and swift pushback from the courts less than two weeks after Trump took office, Major said.
“The president usually gets the final words, but not always. The political system is capable of checking the president,” Major said.
Question: Does having a Congressional majority and president of the same party erode the power of checks and balances?
Answer: Having one party in charge of both Congress and the presidency can be a cause for cheer or concern, Major said.
“With a unified government, congressional oversight tends to drop and drop dramatically,” said Major, referencing the current political climate as well as Obama’s first two years in office.
Surprisingly, research shows that presidents act alone and issue more executive orders under a unified government, not when the opposing party is in power in Congress, Major said. With “friends” in Congress who will not get in the president’s way, he is more likely to issue executive orders, Major said.
Question: Congress has to vote to go to war, but the president is the Commander in Chief — is that why unilateral action like drone strikes is OK?
Answer: When it comes to war powers there’s a stark contrast to the theory written in the Constitution and the practice of the political system, Major said.
“Congress has the sole authority to declare war, but the president executes the action. There’s large wiggle room and leeway when it comes to foreign policy,” Major said.
Since the War on Terror is not an officially defined war, the president has temporary abilities to strike opponents, Sellers said. The president is able to “get around it because we never declared war. It’s part of a military conflict effort,” he said.
Additionally, whether Congress doesn’t want the responsibility or it’s been taken away, the evolution of national security now falls more directly on the president’s shoulders.
“Over the years Congress has gradually given responsibility to the executive branch,” Major said.
Legislation by other means
Partisanship plays a huge role in how people view executive actions, Major said.
“When you’re on the outside looking in, everybody becomes a constitutional scholar. When your side is not in power, it looks unconstitutional. When you are, it looks like a valuable policy tool,” Major said. So Democrats accuse Republican presidents of overreaching and acting like kings, and Republicans attack Democratic presidents for having too much power and acting like tyrants.
“Ultimately, the conversation needs to be on the nature of unilateral action. Should the president have these types of power? We need to look at the issue rather than have a partisan lens,” Major said.
More than 15,000 executive actions have been made, spanning everything from domestic policy, space travel and agriculture to science and technology, immigration, the environment and more. In addition to the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed all slaves living in the Confederacy in 1863, some of the most well-known executive orders include:
• Indian Appropriations Act of 1871, which empowered the government to remove by force if necessary Native Americans from ancestral homelands and create reservations.
• Executive Order 7034: As part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal in 1935, this created the Works Progress Administration to increase employment for the jobless during the Depression.
• Executive Order 9066: Japanese-American internment, which authorized in 1942 the detention of more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans on the West Coast for the duration of World War II.
• Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the armed forces in 1948, which was part of a plan to extend civil rights to African Americans and phase out all-black units of the military.
• Executive Order 10924: President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps, which was one of his campaign promises, as a trial program paid for by discretionary funds.
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PM Lee on official working visit to Washington from Oct 22 to 26
ZAKIR HUSSAIN, THE STRAITS TIMES
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will make an official working visit to Washington from Oct 22 to 26 at the invitation of United States President Donald Trump, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) said yesterday.
He will meet key administration officials as well as members of the congressional leadership, an MFA spokesman added, following the US' announcement on Tuesday that Mr Trump will meet Mr Lee at the White House on Oct 23.
The spokesman said: "PM Lee will also participate in a moderated dialogue at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and speak at the Economic Club of Washington, DC."
The CFR, an independent think-tank on foreign policy issues facing the US and others, has announced on its website that a conversation with Mr Lee will take place on Oct 25.
The Economic Club, which Mr Lee will address, aims to strengthen and promote global awareness of Washington's key economic role.
Mr Trump's press secretary said this week that when both leaders meet, they will discuss ways to further strengthen the economic, political, security and people-to-people ties between their countries.
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They will also work to advance US engagement and mutual interests throughout the Indo-Pacific region, she added.
The visit will also be an opportunity to discuss Asean and the Asean-related meetings that Mr Trump is scheduled to attend next month
He will travel to Japan, South Korea and China from Nov 3 before heading to Vietnam for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the Philippines for the Asean-US and East Asia Summits.
Lee Hsien Loongdonald trumpunited states
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In 1995, the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) acquired UnixWare from Novell.
Dennis Ritchie
Dennis Ritchie was born on September 9, 1941 in Bronxville, New York. His father was Alistair E. Ritchie, a longtime Bell Labs scientist and co-author of The Design of Switching Circuits on switching circuit theory. As a child, Dennis moved with his family to Summit, New Jersey, where he graduated from Summit High School. He graduated from Harvard University with degrees in physics and applied mathematics.
Dennis created the C programming language, the basis of most all modern computer software including Unix and Linux.
Dennis began working at the Bell Labs Computing Sciences Research Center in 1967. In 1968, he defended his PhD thesis on "Program Structure and Computational Complexity" at Harvard under the supervision of Patrick C. Fischer. Dennis never officially received his PhD degree.
During the 1960s, Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson worked on the Multics operating system at Bell Labs. Ken Thompson, aided by Dennis and others, took an old PDP-7 machine and developed their own application programs and operating system from scratch. In 1970, Brian Kernighan suggested the name "Unix", a pun on the name "Multics". To supplement assembly language with a system-level programming language, Ken Thompson created B. Later, B was replaced by C, created by Dennis Ritchie, who continued to contribute to the development of Unix and C for many years.
During the 1970s, Dennis collaborated with James Reeds and Robert Morris on a ciphertext-only attack on the M-209 US cipher machine that could solve messages of at least 2000–2500 letters. He said that, after discussions with the NSA, they decided not to publish it because the principle was applicable to machines still in use by foreign governments. Dennis was also involved with the development of the Plan 9, the Inferno operating systems, and the programming language Limbo. As part of an AT&T restructuring in the mid-1990s, Dennis was transferred to Lucent Technologies, where he retired in 2007 as head of System Software Research Department.
Dennis Ritchie passed away or or about October 12, 2011 (70 years old) at his home in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.
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Press releases ›
Bioeconomy goes hand in hand with cancer research in a joint project between UPM and FIMM
Press Release 12.5.2016 11:00 EEST
(UPM, Helsinki, 12 May 2016 at 10:00 EET) - The Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), at the University of Helsinki and UPM Biochemicals have started a joint research project with the purpose of investigating the applicability of UPM's new cellulose-based gel material for cancer research.
The project focuses on growing cancer cells on a three-dimensional culture using UPM's new biomaterial and studying the drug responses of the cancer cells. This exciting research project brings together two growth areas: bioeconomy and personalised medicine.
"One of the key challenges in experimental drug testing is being able to grow cells in a laboratory in an environment that resembles the human body," says Senior Researcher Vilja Pietiäinen, who is responsible for coordinating the project at FIMM.
"We need better three-dimensional models for cell culture so that cells from cancer tissue would retain their distinctive characteristics also outside the body. Creating an environment that resembles tissue requires new types of materials."
UPM concentrates on innovations related to the efficient and responsible use of recyclable and renewable wood biomass. The biomaterial used in this joint research project is a cellulose-based hydrogel developed by UPM. It is highly biocompatible with human cells and tissues and it can be used in three-dimensional cell culture.
"This joint project is a great opportunity for us to collaborate with an internationally recognised expert in their field and find new life science applications for our biomaterial. The hydrogel that will be used in the project is one example of our innovations in the field of bioeconomy. These innovations help us create new business opportunities related to the use of renewable biomass," says Pia Nilsson, head of the GrowDex business at UPM Biochemicals.
FIMM, the academic partner in the research project, specialises in research into personalised medicine. The institute's high throughput screening unit allows researchers to determine the response of different types of cancer cells to hundreds of drugs in only a few days. The constantly increasing amount of data enables researchers to identify cancer cell characteristics that help predict the most efficient drug for each type of cancer. In time, this information will also help patients.
"We foresee that co-operation with UPM can help us build better cell models also for the needs of personalised medicine," Vilja Pietiäinen continues.
Pia Nilsson, Senior Manager, UPM Biochemicals, tel. +358 40 558 7829
Vilja Pietiäinen, Senior Researcher, FIMM, University of Helsinki, tel. +358 40 5102546
9.00-16.00 EET
UPM Biochemicals offers sustainable and competitive wood-based biochemicals for a variety of industrial uses, without compromising product performance. The principal raw material of our products is certified wood originating from sustainably managed forests. We develop new bio-based materials for the biomedical and other sectors. We aim to expedite the development of new solutions through our collaboration with a number of different partners. www.upmbiochemicals.com
Through the renewing of the bio and forest industries, UPM is building a sustainable future across six business areas: UPM Biorefining, UPM Energy, UPM Raflatac, UPM Paper Asia, UPM Paper ENA and UPM Plywood. Our products are made of renewable raw materials and are recyclable. We serve our customers worldwide. The group employs around 19,600 people and its annual sales are approximately EUR 10 billion. UPM shares are listed on NASDAQ OMX Helsinki. UPM - The Biofore Company - www.upm.com
Follow UPM on Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
The Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM) is an international research institute in Helsinki focusing on human genomics and personalised medicine. FIMM integrates molecular medicine research, Technology Centre and Biobanking Infrastructures "under one roof" and thereby promotes translational research and adoption of personalised medicine in health care.
FIMM is an independent institute of the University of Helsinki and part of the Nordic EMBL Partnership for Molecular Medicine, composed of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the centres for molecular medicine in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. In 2015, FIMM had a personnel of 220 and a budget of around 17 million euros, with more than 50% arising from external competitive grants. More information: www.fimm.fi
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Feminist Waves, Feminist Generations
Life Stories from the Academy
Hokulani K. Aikau, Karla A. Erickson, and Jennifer L. Pierce, editors
Finding the “2.5 generation”—an alternative to binary feminist categories
Feminist Waves, Feminist Generations challenges the static figuring of feminist generations that positions the second wave of feminist scholars against a homogeneous third wave.
Contributors: Sam Bullington, Susan Cahn, Dawn Rae Davis, Lisa J. Disch, Sara Evans, Elizabeth Faue, Roderick A. Ferguson, Peter Hennen, Wendy Leo Moore, Toni McNaron, Jean M. O’Brien, Felicity Schaeffer-Grabiel, Anne Firor Scott, Janet D. Spector, Amanda Lock Swarr, Miglena Todorova.
This collection will no doubt find its place on the shelves, and in the hands, of young feminist scholars.
Cultural Criticism, American Studies, Education and Law, Sociology, Academia, Feminism
Feminist Waves, Feminist Generations challenges the static figuring of feminist generations that positions the second wave of feminist scholars against a homogeneous third wave. Based on life stories from contemporary feminist scholars, this volume emphasizes how feminism develops unevenly over time and across institutions and, ultimately, offers a new paradigm for theorizing the intersections between generations and feminist waves of thought.
Contributors: Sam Bullington, U of Missouri; Susan Cahn, SUNY Buffalo; Dawn Rae Davis, U of Minnesota; Lisa J. Disch, U of Minnesota; Sara Evans, U of Minnesota; Elizabeth Faue, Wayne State U; Roderick A. Ferguson, U of Minnesota; Peter Hennen, Ohio State U at Newark; Wendy Leo Moore, Texas A&M U; Toni McNaron, U of Minnesota; Jean M. O’Brien, U of Minnesota; Felicity Schaeffer-Grabiel, U of California, Santa Cruz; Anne Firor Scott, Duke U; Janet D. Spector, U of Minnesota; Amanda Lock Swarr, U of Washington, Seattle; Miglena Todorova, U of Minnesota.
Hokulani K. Aikau is assistant professor of political science at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. She received her B.S. in women’s studies and sociology from the University of Utah in 1994, her M.A. in sociology from the Center for Research on Women at The University of Memphis in 1996, and her Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Minnesota in 2005. Her dissertation research was supported by a Ford Foundation Fellowship as well as a MacArthur Scholar Fellowship. She is now revising her dissertation into a book, tentatively titled Negotiations of Faith: Mormonism, Native Hawaiian Identity, and Struggles for Self-Determination.
Karla A. Erickson is assistant professor in sociology at Grinnell College. She received her Ph.D. in American studies, with a minor in feminist studies, at the University of Minnesota in 2004; her M.A. in liberal studies from Hamline University in 1998; and her B.A. in English and women’s studies at Illinois Wesleyan in 1995. She is working on a book that examines the role of gendered labor in the service sector. Her work has been published in Symbolic Interaction, Space and Culture, and Qualitative Sociology.
Jennifer L. Pierce is associate professor of sociology and American studies, a former director of the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies, and a former editorial board member of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society at the University of Minnesota. Her publications include Gender Trials: Emotional Lives in Contemporary Law Firms and a coedited anthology, Is Academic Feminism Dead? Theory in Practice. She is working on a book tentatively titled Racing for Innocence: Whiteness, Corporate Culture, and the Backlash against Affirmative Action and on a collaborative project with M. J. Maynes on the uses of personal narratives in the social sciences. She received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991.
I suggest you give copies of this book as a gift to your favorite graduate students when they get their first academic positions. They will need the foreknowledge to arm themselves against the perennial vicissitudes of academic politics, especially if they do not fit the conventional mode whatever it is in their time and space.
Contemporary Sociology
Are Girls Necessary? Lesbian Writing and Modern Histories In this analysis of twentieth-century lesbian writing, Julie Abraham offers new readings of pulp novelists alongside high modernists—authors as various as Gertrude Stein, Willa Cather, Mary Renault, and Virginia Woolf—to examine how these writers created new lesbian narratives.
Secret Treachery of Words Feminism and Modernism in America Untangles the intertwined relationship between feminism and modernism through a look at four major figures of the era
Skeptical Feminism Activist Theory, Activist Practice A clarion call for a new approach to feminist thought
Third Wave Agenda Being Feminist, Doing Feminism Discusses the challenges and pleasures of creating a new feminism.
Generations Academic Feminists in Dialogue Explores the conflicts and challenges facing older and younger feminist scholars.
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Related topics: Automotive, Michigan
MI: Lear Corp. Breaks Ground on New $29.3M Flint Facility for 600 Jobs
Lear Corporation, a leading global supplier of automotive seating and electrical systems, broke ground on a new seat manufacturing facility located on the former site of the historic Buick City complex in Flint, Michigan.
Ray Scott, executive vice president of Lear Corporation and president of Lear's seating business, was joined by Flint Mayor Karen Weaver and Tom McMillen, executive director, Interiors & Safety, Global Purchasing & Supply Chain at General Motors.
Jason Scott, global vice president for Lear's GM seating group, presented an informational overview including specific plans for the Flint plant, and Gerald Kariem, director of UAW Region 1D, provided additional remarks.
Lear's Flint seating plant will be the first major automotive supplier manufacturing facility constructed in Flint in more than 30 years. Plans call for the 156,000-square-foot facility to begin production of seats by April 2018. The world-class facility will employ approximately 600 workers, when it reaches full production. Thirty percent of the 33-plus acre site will be green space.
Lear chose the Buick City site for a number of reasons including: its proximity to the homes of many of its workers, the location of the GM plant, as well as the corporation's objective to give back to the communities in which it operates. The Flint area has been hard hit in recent years, and Lear also wants to bring manufacturing back to the area since many manufacturing jobs in Flint have been lost over the past several decades.
Flint holds sentimental value for Ray Scott, who grew up in Flint and worked while attending the University of Michigan-Flint delivering parts just-in-time to General Motors.
"I have a lot of pride in Flint; it helped shape who I am today," he said. "We had options for other locations that we considered, but what was important to us was that this was the right thing to do from a community standpoint. To build a modern, state of the art facility at that location is very symbolic and historic."
Lear worked with GM and the City of Flint while deciding on the location for the new manufacturing facility. The Michigan Strategic Fund board approved a $4.35-million Michigan Business Development Program performance-based grant to support Lear's $29.3-million capital investment at the site, which includes the subassembly and final assembly of automotive seats.
"We have a long relationship with Lear during its 100 years of business," said Mr. McMillen. "Lear has earned GM's coveted Supplier of the Year designation 16 times and our partnership continues as we both commit to this next phase for Flint. Our next-generation vehicles to be produced in Flint are our newest step in almost $3 billion we have invested in Flint since 2009."
"We are proud to partner with Lear on this exciting new project," said Mayor Weaver. "We are pleased to have established a good relationship with a company that has demonstrated it supports the communities where it does business. This project will provide opportunities for Flint residents and an overall positive impact on our local economy. Both Lear and the City of Flint are looking positively to the future."
About Lear Corporation
Lear Corporation (NYSE: LEA) was founded in Detroit in 1917 as American Metal Products. In 2017, the Company will celebrate its 100th year anniversary. Lear is one of the world's leading suppliers of automotive seating and electrical distribution systems. Lear serves every major automaker in the world, and Lear content can be found on more than 400 vehicle nameplates. Lear's world-class products are designed, engineered and manufactured by a diverse team of approximately 156,000 employees located in 38 countries. Lear currently ranks #151 on the Fortune 500.
Lear's headquarters are in Southfield, Michigan. Further information about Lear is available at www.lear.com or follow on Twitter @LearCorporation.
Flint & Genesee Chamber of Commerce
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Show me the moneyHigher education
A busy year ahead as funding changes
Linda Nordling
Mon 2 Jan 2006 19.11 EST
As the dust settles after the new year's party, it's usual to take some time out for a little retrospection - and for looking ahead. In the world of research, 2005 was a year of implementing the government's 10-year framework for science, revealed the previous summer. But it was also a year of challenges and changes that will affect how research is done in universities for years to come.
The biggest single change, with perhaps the least immediate impact, was the introduction of the full economic cost funding system on September 1. This new way of doing things will start to reveal the true cost of university research - woefully underfunded in the past - over the next few years.
It will put research funders like industry and government departments under pressure to cough up as near to the full proportion of costs - overheads and all - as they can manage. And, potentially, it could cut the volume of research funded this way as research becomes more expensive.
The health of science disciplines also came under the microscope in 2005. It was the year when the government admitted there was a problem in subjects like chemistry and physics, and announced special measures to cope with an exodus of students and department closures.
The government also announced new measures to deal with animal rights extremism. And, in the 11th hour, construction resumed on the besieged Oxford animal house last month, ending a year-long stalemate between the university and animal rights activists.
But it was also a year of disappointments and steps in the wrong direction. The amount of research and development done by industry fell slightly, despite the government's promises to make it more straightforward to claim tax breaks for R&D and offering up hundreds of millions of pounds for industry research under its new technology strategy. It's a trajectory that must be reversed soon, or the government will not achieve its target of raising investments in R&D to 2.5% of GDP by 2014.
Looking ahead, many of the challenges of 2005 will remain in 2006. But there are new developments on the horizon. December's EU budget deal means that it is now possible to agree on the union's research budget for 2007-2014.
This is likely to include a large new chunk for basic research, distributed by a groundbreaking European Research Council. Along with the impending research assessment exercise in 2008, what looks to be a tight government spending review in 2007, and ongoing controversy over developments in open-access publishing, it looks like a busy year ahead.
· Linda Nordling is news editor of Research Fortnight. ln@researchresearch.com
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The ObserverSchools
Brown backs army cadet corps plan for schools
· Review urges military drill for pupils
· Anti-gun campaigners condemn call
Prince Harry was a cadet as part of Eton's Combined Cadet Force. Photograph: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images
Mark Townsend and Anushka Asthana
Sat 5 Apr 2008 19.43 EDT
Controversial plans for pupils in comprehensive schools to sign up for military drills and weapons training are being backed by Gordon Brown in an attempt to improve the relationship between the public and the armed forces.
A major review of the military's role in British society says that encouraging more state secondary school pupils to join the cadet corps would improve discipline among teenagers while helping to improve the public perception of the army, navy and air force.
However, anti-gun campaigners say that teaching teenagers to shoot would exacerbate the growing problem of gun crime among youngsters.
The government-commissioned review of civil and military relations, led by Quentin Davies, the Labour MP, was 'alarmed' at the number of schoolchildren who had no idea of military life. Davies wants secondary school pupils to receive basic military training as a means of developing greater affiliation with the armed forces.
Davies, who was a Tory MP before defecting to Labour last year, said his controversial proposals to expand the cadet structure throughout the comprehensive system were firmly backed by the Prime Minister, the Children's Secretary Ed Balls and defence ministers.
'The Prime Minister is very, very keen on the opportunities represented by cadet forces and we will be making a number of recommendations to increase the use of this superb national asset,' he said.
Only 60 cadet forces exist among the England and Wales comprehensive system, with just 2 per cent of pupils members. This compares to 200 forces in the grammar and independent school sector, which represent only 10 per cent of schools. Another six military cadets corps were introduced into the state sector during the last year, but the vast majority of the £80m a year Ministry of Defence funding for the Combined Cadet Force goes to funding young people in independent schools.
Under the new government proposals, state schools who do not set up a cadet system will encourage pupils to attend a community cadet force instead.
One of the core elements of the cadets' training is mastering shooting skills and military drill, although advocates including Davies believe the virtues of discipline, physical exercise and team spirit outweigh any concerns over the use of firearms.
However, the recommendation is contentious for other reasons, with teaching unions last month claiming school-based cadets were merely a questionable tactic of military recruitment. Recently, the army announced a bursary scheme for thousands of school leavers in an effort to boost recruitment amid a projected 10 per cent shortfall in troop numbers.
Last month the National Union of Teachers pointed to evidence from the Rowntree Trust that suggested the MoD was focusing disproportionately on schools in the most disadvantaged areas and targeting vulnerable pupils without clearly outlining the risks of an army career. However, the union insisted it was not 'anti-military'.
Last night, the notion of introducing cadet forces across schools was welcomed by heads and teachers. Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers, said: 'One of the things that these organisations do bring is discipline and order and, in my experience, working with children who have fragmented lives at home, that is something that is missing and something they crave.'
Brookes said some children had a natural propensity to look for a career in the armed forces and as long as it was a 'genuine choice' and not 'exploitation' then he welcomed it.
However, Lyn Costello, co-founder of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, which campaigns against street violence, said plans to encourage the use of firearms in state schools were perturbing if the controls were not strict enough.
She said: 'There would be a problem putting kids onto rifle ranges because that doesn't teach them that guns are dangerous, but in the army you hope that they will learn that this is a bit of machinery that kills. Obviously they will need strict controls and the guns would have to be monitored very carefully.'
Police recently warned that officers could soon be forced to shoot a child amid concern about the increasingly lower age of firearms use among young people. Scotland Yard's 'blood on your hands' campaign last year focused on pupils who were getting involved in gun crime. There were eight teenage gun murders in London last year.
Elsewhere in his review, Davies also recommends that the British military's portrayal in the school curriculum should be re-examined, although he accepts that the government cannot become involved in such decisions and that teachers by law are required to treat political issues in a balanced way and to avoid partisan views. Other ways to improve relations between youngsters and the armed forces include more school visits from serving soldiers. Davies, whose report also relied on the expert views of Bill Clark, a senior Ministry of Defence civil servant, and Air Commodore Martin Sharp, examined how France teaches the importance of its military legacy within its curriculum.
The report also unequivocally recommends that soldiers should be encouraged to wear their uniform off-duty, a policy that has been relaxed since British military personnel ceased to be targets of the IRA.
Davies said: 'There is a definitive move back in that direction and there is overwhelming support within the military for this.'
The report singles out Harrods for criticism and condemns the store's policy of refusing to allow military personnel in uniform to enter its doors as 'unacceptable'. Other instances cited in the report include an incident on a garage forecourt in which an Asian attendant refused to serve a soldier wearing a uniform and the decision of the RAF to ban personnel from wearing uniforms in the city of Peterborough following abuse.
British identity and society
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eurasian collared dove food
It forms sizeable winter flocks where there are food supplies such as grain. The Collared Dove is the only medium sized pale grey bird of the region, sexes are alike and juveniles resemble adults without the neck markings. Recent literature I can find pretty much dispels any competition. The oldest known Eurasian collared dove is believed to have been 13 years 8 months old. Collared doves aren’t super wary, though, so only minimal concealment is necessary; but do remain motionless. They are rather social and form large flocks in winter around areas with ample food supplies. Streptopelia decaocto . Introducing a New kitten to your home and Cat. Nutrition and Energetics. During the 20th century, this pale dove expanded its range spectacularly from the Middle East all the way across Europe. Privacy Policy. There is no set breeding season, and breeding occurs throughout the year when there is an abundance of food. A gray or faint pink wash can be seen on the he… Weight: Their weight is usually between 4.4 and 8.5 oz (125-240 g). With a flash of white tail feathers and a flurry of dark-tipped wings, the Eurasian Collared-Dove settles onto phone wires and fence posts to give its rhythmic three-parted coo. The Eurasian collared dove is listed as ‘Least Concern’ by the IUCN. The female lays two eggs, of white color which are then incubated by both parents, the male during the day and the female during the night. Eurasian-collared doves will not count as part of your aggregate bag of mourning doves as long as they are identifiable. This chunky relative of the Mourning Dove gets its name from the black half-collar at the nape of the neck. By storing large amounts of food in its crop (storage pouch of the digestive tract) and using a special siphoning technique to drink large volumes of water, the dove is able to roost for long periods between feedings, shortening the amount of time it must spend in dangerous, open are… The cooing of the Eurasian collared doves in early spring is mistakenly reported sometimes as the calls of cuckoos arriving early, and therefore as a mistaken sign of the return of spring. These doves are easily identified by their long, tapered tails, soft gray plumage, and spots on the wings. The male advertises himself through flight displays and is eventually chosen by a mate. It is common throughout the UK. Eurasian collared doves are not wary of the human population, often staying and feeding close to populated areas. © 2020 (Animal Spot). (Eurasian) Collared Dove - Streptopelia Decaocto The Collared Dove is a very frequent garden bird and will take food from the bird table, it is more often seen taking the overspill from underneath the bird table. Use of this website constitutes acceptance of our Doves and pigeons occur worldwide, but the greatest variety is in the Southeast Asia and Australasia. Drinking, Pellet-Casting, and Defecation. The bird has … The Eurasian collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) is a species native to Asia and Europe. The Eurasian Collared-Dove bird eats almost all kinds of food that they can find near human neighborhoods. Eurasian collared dove is similar to Rock Pigeons in that they have plump bodies, small heads and long tails, however, they are longer-tailed than the Pigeon and are larger than Mourning Doves. During the non-breeding season, Eurasian Collared-Doves roost communally, often by the hundreds, in barns or in trees in city parks. The Eurasian collared dove bred for the first time in Britain in … They are not migratory, but do have a very high rate of dispersal. Sounds and Vocal Behavior. As far as hunting Eurasian collared-doves, many of the typical mourning dove tactics work as well. These birds are considered invasive pests across most of the range where they have been introduced. Kennedy Wild Bird Food guide to the Collared Dove. A black crescent on the back of the neck forms a ring that nearly connects in the front of the neck. White-winged and mourning doves … The undertail coverts are white and from below the tail appears white apart from a dark grey base. Young birds lack the black collar and are generally duller than the adults. Wingspan: The wingspan measures around 19 to 22 inches (47-55 cm). In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, Editor). Metabolism and Temperature Regulation. Their monotonous cooing will be a familiar sound to many of you. Primaries are dark, contrasting with the lighter-colored inner part of the wing; even at rest, the dark wingtips are noticeable. Their beaks allow them to drink water as if they were drinking with a straw. Food Selection and Storage. The popular diamond dove is native to Australia, and the equally popular ring-necked dove is native to Africa. Your favorite dove recipe will suffice for both, so take advantage! A few Eurasian Collared-Doves were introduced to the Bahamas in the 1970s. Breeding occurs throughout the year when abundant food is available, though only rarely in winter … There are white patches on the tail, and there is a thin band of black crescent on the back of the neck, which looks like a collar, giving it its name. Accidentally introduced to North America in the 1980s and now have significant populations in Texas, Oregon, California, and Arkansas in the United States and also in some parts of Canada, including British Columbia. Bill black and dainty, legs dark pink and eye dark red with pale eye ring. Introduced accidentally into the Bahamas in 1974, it soon spread to the Florida mainland. European settlement of the continent, with its opening of the forest, probably helped this species to increase. Mourning doves, to me, are the best on the table, but collared doves are a close second. The Invasive Eurasian Collared-Dove Eurasian Collared-Dove is believed to have originated in Asia, spreading quickly during the early 1900’s through much of Europe. They also eat some berries and green parts of plants, as well as invertebrates.Back to top. Color: Their color ranges from a light brown to a gray-buff. ... Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto), version 1.0. Eurasian collared doves are widespread in Europe, Asia, parts of Africa and North America. The domestic Ringneck Dove is probably a descendant of the Eurasian or African Collared Dove. The 2007-2008 the Tennessee Christmas Bird Count reported 526 individuals on 12 counts statewide. Parents feed their hatchlings with a substance produced in their crop, known as crop milk, which is rich in fat and protein. They live on seeds, berries, and insects. Doves are found in every part of the world; the exception being the Antarctic. Doves have been domesticated for thousands of years. Required fields are marked *. Size: These birds are usually around 13 inches from the beak to the tip of the tail. The first Eurasian collared dove spotted by ornithologists in Colorado was in Rocky Ford in 1996. They live in Russia, Turkey, Turkestan, China, throughout the Middle East, Iran, India, and Sri Lanka. Eurasian Collared-Dove. Populations have also spread to Japan, the United States and the Caribbean. They have a melancholy coo-coo-coo song and a harsh, loud screech. Males and females are similar with overall beige-gray plumage slightly darker on the wings and tail with paler whitish-gray undertail coverts. This is 10 of the 12 doves. In the latest Audubon Christmas Bird Count, there were close to 19,000 in … Anshu Pathak of Exotic Meat Market provided me with a dozen Eurasian collard-doves that were shot by hunters in Arizona. They usually have 3-4 broods, but the record number of broods stands at 6. They use the latter in flight, particularly just before landing. Collared doves are a pale, pinky-brown grey colour, with a distinctive black neck collar (as the name suggests). In Texas, the Eurasian Collared dove has been documented in 134 of the 254 Counties in the State, including Dallam, Deaf Smith, Hansford, Oldham, Parmer, Potter, Randall, Sherman, and Swisher counties. Eurasian Collared-Doves are adaptable to both urban environments and suburban settings like residential homes where they find access to bird feeders and seed sources. By the 1970’s, a small flock of captive Eurasian-Collared Dove escaped (or were released) from the Bahamas and made their way into Florida. At first glance, the Eurasian collared-dove looks like a chunky, pale gray mourning dove. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. Incubation lasts between 14 and 18 days, with the young fledgingafter 15 to 19 days. When present in large numbers, they can discourage other species from using bird feeders, and may even aggressively defend these food sources, chasing other birds away. They have deep red eyes and reddish feet. They are also found searching for food on farms and fields where they feed on an abundance of grain, millet, sunflower, milo, and wheat. Birders should know more of these birds' distinct traits, however, to be confident in telling mourning doves apart from other doves that look similar. They may also take bread crumbs given by humans. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. Pet Doves for Sale. This small dove is grey with a darker back. http://www.hbw.com/species/eurasian-collared-dove-streptopelia-decaocto, http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/eurasian-collared-dove, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eurasian_Collared-Dove/lifehistory, https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Eurasian_Collared-Dove/id. It is the same strain being seen right now in North and South Dakota dove mortalities, according to FWP Region 7 Non-game Biologist Brandi Skone. Joined Jan 8, 2015 Mourning dove (left) and Eurasian collared dove (right). This is one of the few birds that can drink water without having to stop to let the water go down their throat. Find a field or food source (e.g., sunflower, wheat, oat, or millet) ahead of your hunting trip and, if possible, scout for bird activity in the morning and evening when dove hunting should be hottest. Currently, regulations concerning the Eurasian Collared dove are the same as for feral pigeons or Rock Doves. Eurasian collared doves are not wary of the human population, often staying and feeding close to populated areas. The Eurasian Collared-Dove is a year-round resident of Washington state and North America (Romagso, 2012) A large part of their food source comes from bird feeders, allowing them to stay remain residents even in areas with a colder climate (Romagso, 2012). Flocks typically consist of 10 and 50 individuals, but flocks of up to 10,000 birds have also been documented. Nesting Nest Placement. They are elegant looking birds and will parade around the garden, generally in pairs. We have them too. In California, Eurasian collared-doves may be competitively displacing another non-native dove, the spotted dove (Streptopelia chinensis). Overall color is a chalky or grayish tan, with whitish patches at the end of the tail. The hatchlings fledge after around 15 to 19 days after they hatch. Are collared doves native to the UK? The head is pale grey as is the throat, breast and belly. Eurasian Collared-Doves are usually found in small groups, but on occasion, in large concentrations where food is abundant. They are also kept as pets in some parts of their range. Male collared doves can weigh up to 7.3 grams. Your email address will not be published. The mournful cooing of the Mourning Dove is one of our most familiar bird sounds. They are rather social and form large flocks in winter around areas with ample food supplies. The tail is reasonably long, pale grey above with a broken white terminal band which is visible on the spread tail. But your Eurasian Collared Dove is much smaller and here known as "turkish dove". Most states, however, treat them as a recent invasive and do not have closed seasons or bag limits. In the United States, the Eurasian collared dove is a popular game, and hunting seasons for this bird happen every year. The mother may have the next set of eggs in the nest even before the previous brood has left. The male provides for the female during this. The Eurasian collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) is described as a large pale grey dove with a small head and long, square tipped tail. The Incubation period lasts for 14-18 days. From southern Canada to central Mexico, this is one of our most common birds, often abundant in open country and along roadsides. When present in large numbers, they can discourage other species from using bird feeders, and may even aggressively defend these food sources, chasing other birds away. Juveniles appear from April onwards and are similar to adults. But not in that numbers then wood pigeon. Flocks typically consist of 10 and 50 individuals, … Eurasian collared doves typically breed close to human habitation wherever food resources are abundant and there are trees for nesting; almost all nests are within 1 km (0.62 mi) of inhabited buildings. It has a black half-collar on its nape from which it gets its name. All rights reserved. The female Eurasian Collared-Dove bird lays two eggs that are white and sits on them. Entire upperparts are a soft pale buffy grey, the wings show very pale almost white shoulders and dark smokey grey primaries. Terms & Conditions and Also, as Eurasian collared doves spread across North America, there was talk about them out-competing mourning doves for food and perhaps even for nesting sites. Eurasian Collared-Doves forage in open habitats for grains, seeds and fruit, or eat from bird feeders. Your email address will not be published. In California, Eurasian Collared-Doves may be competitively displacing another non-native dove, the Spotted Dove (Streptopelia chinensis). These birds inhabit suburbs, forest edges, farmlands, and open country. Dickerson also told the Sibley Nature Center that Eurasian collared doves … In 2007, 3,000 were observed from one location in Memphis, but numbers over a dozen are uncommon. Image by Troy Rodakowski. In general, the terms "dove" and "pigeon" are used somewhat interchangeably. They are masters at colonizing any new territory they go into. Although you'll often see them on their own or in pairs, flocks may form where there is a lot of food available. Infected birds can shed virus particles for six months or more. Eurasian Collared-Doves eat mainly seed and cereal grain such as millet, sunflower, milo, wheat, and corn. If a location is over-gunned, Eurasian doves will quickly adapt and avoid. The female lays two white eggs in a stick nest, which she incubates during the night and which the male incubates during the day. Food. Sorry for my mistake! Easily identifiable but possibly confused with, Collared Dove is essential pale buffy grey all over, it is around 32 cm in length, slightly larger than its cousin, the. Mar 29, 2017 #8 hank4elk Well-known member. The Collard Dove shows an incomplete black collar which runs around the back of the neck, this is bordered thinly with white. The weight of an adult Eurasian Collared-Dove bird can be between 125–240 g (4.4–8.5 oz). Eurasian collared doves have a very wide extent of distribution. I have held your Eurasian Collared Dove for our common wood pigeon who have a "collar" at the neck too. With the increasing populations of Eurasian collared doves in recent years in the U.S., reports of deaths in these species are increasing. Eurasian collared doves are a monogamous species. Owls routinely prey on Eurasian collared doves.
Scope Of Behavioural Science, Cooked Whole Pig For Sale Near Me, Petrography Of Charnockite, The Devil Rides Out Quotes, What Does Ansi Do, Plastic Champagne Bottles Wholesale,
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CORPORATIONS & SHAREHOLDERS
Transaction Analysis: Sponsored Spin
By Stephen P. Musante, CPA, New York, NY, and Stephen R. Wegener, J.D., Washington, DC
Editor: Jeff Kummer, MBA
Arguably one of the most restrictive and limiting rules imposed on a corporation by the federal income tax system is the corporate-level tax on the sale of business assets or subsidiaries that hold business assets. This inability to sell business assets without a corporate-level tax severely impedes a corporation from monetizing appreciated assets and reinvesting the sale proceeds to expand its retained businesses. Not surprisingly, with limitation comes the inevitable challenge to find a solution. Unfortunately, in this case businesses and their tax advisers often find themselves with an empty toolbox and are unable to overcome the challenge. Nonetheless, the search for tax-efficient exit structures often leads to creative planning and use of the current tax rules to produce economic results otherwise reserved for a tax-free sale of assets.
Sec. 355 allows a corporation (Distributing) to distribute to its shareholders or its security holders the stock or securities of one or more corporations that it controls (Controlled) without triggering income or gain to itself or its shareholders. Following the repeal of the General Utilities doctrine (see General Utilities & Operating Co. v. Helvering, 296 U.S. 200 (1935)), Sec. 355 remains the only reliable way to distribute appreciated assets from a corporation to its noncorporate shareholders without paying a corporate-level tax on the distributed assets.
Sponsored Spin
It should be no surprise that Sec. 355 is a useful tool for mitigating the corporate-level tax on the disposition of business assets. However, in order for a transaction to be governed by Sec. 355, a long list of requirements must be met, some of which specifically target a sale of either Distributing or Controlled (e.g., the device prohibition, continuity of interest, continuity of business enterprise, Sec. 355(d), and Sec. 355(e)). The latter two requirements are generally the most restrictive and require careful planning to produce tax-free results. One transaction that can successfully navigate all the requirements of Sec. 355, yet economically results in a tax-free monetization of appreciated business assets, is known as the “sponsored spin.”
Sec. 355(d) causes a spin-off to be taxable at the corporate level if the distribution of a controlled corporation is to any person holding “disqualified stock” constituting a 50% or greater interest (by vote or value) of either Distributing or Controlled. Generally, disqualified stock is any stock of the distributing or controlled corporation acquired by purchase within the five-year period ending on the date of the distribution. Under Sec. 355(e), a spin-off is taxable at the corporate level if it is “part of a plan or a series of related transactions” involving an acquisition of 50% or more of the stock of either Distributing or Controlled. Accordingly, a sponsored spin transaction generally limits the acquisition of either Distributing or Controlled to less than a 50% interest.
The best way to illustrate the mechanics and benefits of a sponsored spin is by walking through a very basic example.
Example: Corporation X is a publicly held corporation engaged in two separate lines of businesses. The first business, A, is X’s primary business and accounts for two-thirds of its revenue, cashflow, and fair market value (FMV). Business B accounts for the remaining one-third of X’s revenue, cashflow, and FMV. X conducts each business through a separate LLC subsidiary treated as a disregarded entity for U.S. income tax purposes (collectively, the LLCs). A has an FMV of $800 and B has an FMV of $400. X has a zero basis in its A and B assets. X has $400 of outstanding thirdparty debt and has no assets other than its interests in the LLCs.
Despite the smaller size of B relative to A, X’s management devotes the majority of its time to running B and believes that the lack of resources devoted to A is severely limiting A’s growth. Further, a disposition of B would result in cash proceeds available either to satisfy a portion of X’s outstanding debt or to fund the growth and expansion of A. Clearly, the most straightforward method to dispose of B is a cash sale of either the B assets or the LLC interest that holds the assets. However, both of these sales would result in a significant tax bill to X.
First, consider the economics and taxation of a straight sale of B to a third party. If X sells B for its FMV, X will recognize a $400 gain on the sale ($400 FMV less $0 basis). Assuming that a combined federal and state tax rate of 40% is applied to this gain, X will pay $160 of tax on the sale and realize aftertax cash proceeds of $240. Following the sale, X will have an FMV of $640 (assuming that X uses the cash proceeds either to pay down existing debt or to invest in capital assets).
Next, contrast the alternative transaction, which uses Sec. 355 to provide a greater economic benefit to X and its shareholders. (See Exhibit 1.) First, a thirdparty investor (New Investor) purchases $49 of X stock on the open market. (New Investor is the “sponsor” in the sponsored spin.) Next, X forms a new controlled corporation (Controlled) and contributes B in exchange for Controlled stock and a $300 debt instrument from Controlled that qualifies as a security for U.S. tax purposes. As part of a reorganization plan, X then distributes the Controlled security to its third-party debt holders in exchange for a portion of X’s outstanding debt, and it distributes the Controlled stock to its shareholders in a transaction intended to meet all the requirements of Sec. 355. In the stock distribution, X will transfer a portion of the Controlled stock (having an FMV of $49) to New Investor in redemption of the X stock held by New Investor, and it will distribute the remainder of Controlled stock pro rata to its public shareholders.
The result of this sponsored spin is that X receives $300 of value from Controlled free from tax because Controlled has effectively assumed $300 of X’s third-party debt. In addition, X’s public shareholders receive $51 of value in the form of Controlled stock. Following the transaction, X will have an FMV of $700, and Controlled will have an FMV of $100. Exhibit 2 compares each alternative.
Practitioners should note that the rules applicable to sponsored spin transactions are very specific and require careful planning and that there are numerous variations on the sponsored spin transaction described above (see, e.g., Letter Ruling 200708016, which involves a “sponsored reverse spin”). As with all transactions, the precise form of transaction the taxpayer uses must be determined based on all the facts and circumstances as well as the taxpayer’s short- and long-term goals.
Sec. 355 and IRS Private Letter Rulings
355, the often-ambiguous application of the statutory and nonstatutory requirements for tax-free treatment, and the potential tax cost involved in running afoul of these requirements, taxpayers often wish to confirm the tax treatment of a Sec. 355 distribution before its execution. The highest level of confirmation comes in the form of a private letter ruling from the IRS and provides the taxpayer with assurance that the Service will uphold any ruled-upon positions taken on its tax return. In addition, an IRS ruling can reduce the chance that the Service will challenge or analyze aspects of a transaction in future audits. Generally, a taxpayer may file a request for a ruling before executing a transaction or, for a completed transaction, any time before filing its tax return for the year of the transaction. A taxpayer may also submit a request after the return is filed, provided that the relevant IRS field office waives jurisdiction over the transaction (see generally Rev. Proc. 2008-1).
Jeff Kummer is director of tax policy at Deloitte Tax LLP in Washington, DC.
Unless otherwise noted, contributors are members of or associated with Deloitte Tax LLP.
For additional information about these items, contact Mr. Kummer at (202) 220-2148 or jkummer@deloitte.com.
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Management Changes at Macy’s
Thomas Cole to retire in spring 2013
Department store operator Macy’s Inc. (Cincinnati) announced a series of changes to its senior executive leadership team, effective immediately.
• Thomas Cole is retiring as chief administrative officer after a 41-year career with the company and its predecessor companies. He will remain with the company through May.
• Robert Harrison, previously executive vp for omnichannel strategy, is assuming the newly-created role of chief omnichannel officer. He will oversee managing the development of strategies to closely integrate the company’s stores, online and mobile activities and assume responsibility for systems and technology, logistics and related operating functions.
• Peter Sachse, Macy’s chief stores officer, will assume additional responsibility for store planning, design and construction. The company’s nationwide portfolio of Macy’s stores, as well as the region, district and central stores organization and visual merchandising, continue to report to Sachse.
• William Allen has joined Macy’s as chief human resources officer. Allen previously served as senior vp of AP Moller-Maersk A/S
• Karen Hoguet, Macy’s chief financial officer, will assume additional responsibility for credit and customer services, real estate, non-merchandise purchasing and sustainability.
Green Today, Gone Tomorrow?
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TCO Performance Center
Presser Points
The Truth Behind
News | Minnesota Vikings – vikings.com
Vikings Claim S Steven Parker Via Waivers
Vikings PR
Vikings New S Steven Parker in Photos
View images of Vikings new S Steven Parker in photos.
Eagan, Minn. (August 14, 2020) – The Minnesota Vikings have announced the following roster move:
CLAIMED VIA WAIVERS FROM MIAMI:
PLAYER...................... POS.... EXP................ COLLEGE
Steven Parker.................... S......... 2................. Oklahoma
Steven Parker (6-1, 210), who joins the Vikings after being claimed via waivers, played in 14 games with four starts for the Dolphins last year. He totaled 19 tackles (14 solo), two interceptions and three passes defensed after he was claimed off waivers on Sept. 1, 2019, after being released by the L.A. Rams. Parker originally entered the NFL as an undrafted college free agent with the Rams on May 15, 2018, and spent the 2018 season on the Rams' practice squad. Parker played collegiately at Oklahoma where he was teammates with current Vikings G Dru Samia.
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Violinist.com - News & Advice - News
Interview with Composer Qigang Chen: 'La Joie de la souffrance' Violin Concerto
August 31, 2018, 12:11 AM · SHANGHAI -- Of all the instruments, the violin has perhaps the widest capacity to express human emotion, said France-based Chinese composer Qigang Chen.
"The violin's expressive capabilities have developed over centuries, with the accumulation of many very delicate techniques," Chen said, speaking with a group of reporters at his hotel in Shanghai about his new violin concerto, "La Joie de la souffrance" ("The Joy of Suffering.").
Qigang Chen. Photo by Violinist.com.
"No other instrument can compare," he said. "There are so many variations you can achieve with the violin that are difficult or impossible to achieve with the voice, or with brass and wind instruments."
That broad capacity for expression, more than his own personal suffering, was the inspiration for the concerto -- though to read his biography, Chen certainly has seen his share of suffering. Born in 1951 in Shanghai, Chen grew up in an intellectual family that nurtured his interest in music. Unfortunately this made him a target during his teens, when he was locked up in a barracks and given an "ideological reeducation" during China's "Cultural Revolution." He emerged from this period unchanged in his love for music and in 1977 began studying composition at the Beijing Central Conservatory with Luo Zhongrong. In the early '80s he was authorized to study abroad after passing a strict exampe, and he became the legendary French composer Olivier Messiaen's last student, studying with him from 1984 to 1988.
Chen's new violin concerto -- his first work specifically for the violin -- was commissioned in part by the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition. Each of the competition's six finalists, are required to perform the work with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Stern. (The first performances were on Thursday, with another set on Friday and then Saturday.) The piece was actually premiered in October 2017 by violinist Maxim Vengerov, playing with the China Philharmonic and conductor Long Yu at the 20th Beijing Music Festival. Other co-commissioners were the Melbourne Symphony, New Jersey Symphony and Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse.
This work is not a traditional, three-movement concerto. Meant to be about 25 minutes long, Chen described it as "waves of emotion."
"It takes time for emotion to build," he said, and the first 20 minutes are meant to build to a climax, which phases out in the last five minutes. (The duration of the piece has so far been variable, according to the violinist).
Is it a "modern"-sounding piece? Chen said, in a word, "No." He also said that whether a piece is "modern" or not is not the best way to judge a piece. His mentor, Messaien, said that the best way to measure a piece was by its honesty and authenticity, telling his students that foremost, they must be themselves and be honest in their work.
The piece does contain long melodic segments, and Chen said he used an ancient Chinese melody called Yangguan Sandie, traditionally played on the guqin, a seven-string Chinese plucked instrument.
Chen, who is not a violinist (he studied clarinet) said that he did not consult a violinist in the first phase of composing the piece. Instead, he composed it for its emotional and musical content, spending about seven months composing it. Before the world premiere, he worked with violinist Maxim Vengerov for a full week before the first rehearsal, in order to work out fingerings, specific bowing techniques and other issues that would be involved in performing the piece. After the competition, Vengerov will record the piece with the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and conductor Long Yu.
When asked if writing music was a healing process, Chen said that "Art is an artist's language; it's how we express our condition. It's more like an outlet, where we can let out our emotions. Whether it heals or solves any problems, that depends on how successful the piece turns out to be."
Review: Shanghai Competition Day 1 Finals: First Performances of La Joie de la souffrance
Our Full Coverage of the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition
Violinist.com Interview with Maxim Vengerov: Conducting, Competitions, and Returning to the Violin (2013)
Will Wilkin
August 31, 2018 at 10:50 PM · Wow Laurie, for such a short article, this stimulates so many dimensions of reflection and curiosity! At one level, I care nothing for the life and circumstances of an artist, preferring to judge works purely on aesthetic impact, as if asking "does it move my heart and mind in my very different time, place and subjectivity?" Such criteria seems to be my search for something more humanly universal, something transcendent of (though of course still emanating from) the immediate world of the artist's life. Yet at the same time, and surprising to me, this interview intrigues me to hear the piece knowing, after all, just a little of the artist's life. I want to hear how a Chinese composer has taken an ancient Chinese melody (and of course the more abstract but larger and no doubt powerful formation of aesthetic sensibility growing up in Chinese music and culture), reflected on that ancient tradition while being persecuted under a revolutionary regime intent on breaking ties with much of the Chinese past, and then reworked it after the influence of great European composer-teacher and the larger Chinese integration into the western orchestra as his ensemble. Also I would be very interested in the multiple-CD set of all or several of the 6 violinists (I hate in art that word "competitors") renditions of this work, as a further study of the human interpretation in every step of making the music, from influences to composing to playing.
September 1, 2018 at 12:56 AM · Here is a good performance of it from the competition, at the beginning of the video, with Jiayi Chen of China:
September 3, 2018 at 08:21 PM · Avery fine piece indeed! Shows not all contemporary composition is obtuse. This piece has some real delicacy and beauty. At moments I almost hear a touch of the wistful side of Vaughan Williams. And so enjoyable to watch how precisely played by the soloist, backed perfectly by the orchestra!
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Find early and late-breaking Skinny at The Range, our daily dispatch, at daily.tucsonweekly.com.
SICK SPENDING
U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl stopped by Arizona Illustrated last week—not to gloat about the GOP's big takeover of the House of Representatives, but to tamp down expectations by reminding viewers that Republicans won't control the U.S. Senate or the presidency. Kyl's spin: Don't expect too much from the GOP until voters give them back the Senate and the presidency.
But Kyl's response to a question about Medicare funding left us wondering just how committed the GOP really is to balancing the budget.
One of the GOP's biggest attack lines during the recently completed campaign season was that Democrats had cut $500 billion from Medicare as part of the health-care reform package. It was one of the lines we heard over and over again from Republican Jesse Kelly in his campaign to unseat Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (which always struck us as odd, given that Kelly's own long-term proposal was to get rid of Medicare and ask elderly Americans to buy health insurance in a private market so they would be able to "get off the public dole").
As any fact-check site will tell you, Democrats didn't actually cut $500 billion from Medicare; they reduced future expected expenditures over the next decade by $500 billion with a few reforms.
Whether those reforms will actually take place remains to be seen; some of them involve reducing payments to doctors and hospitals—a touchy move that's been tried before, yet has always been reversed by Congress before it actually takes place.
But one big cost reduction—an estimated $136 million over 10 years, according to The New York Times—came by reducing the amount of money the federal government would spend on the Medicare Advantage program, an alternative to traditional Medicare that pays private insurance companies to provide coverage for elderly Americans.
The original idea behind Medicare Advantage was an admirable experiment: Let's see if private insurers could provide better health-care coverage to seniors at a lower cost than the government could through traditional Medicare.
Unfortunately, it turned out that, while popular (about one-fourth of all Medicare recipients are on Medicare Advantage), Medicare Advantage was not cheaper. It actually cost taxpayers about 14 percent more than traditional Medicare. That totaled an estimated $44 billion between 2004 and 2008, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
The Democratic health-care reform plan works to rein in the future growth of spending for those plans by giving the government more leverage over the private insurers. And in the short run, it worked; the Times reported earlier this year that many insurance companies actually dropped the cost of premiums for Medicare Advantage patients rather than lose the business altogether.
But instead of applauding this example of market forces in action, Kyl says the reductions were a big mistake, arguing that "people who didn't like the private-sector alternative were trying to make it less attractive."
Kyl says he also opposes cuts in payments to doctors if that results in "rationing care," but assured viewers that there were "other places in Medicare where cuts can occur." Of course, he didn't name any of these "other places."
If you're going to keep shoveling money to private insurers, and you're not going to limit what doctors can charge, we find it pretty hard to believe that you're serious about reducing the cost of Medicare. And if you're not serious about that (and if, like Kyl, you're also opposed to any tax increases on anyone), then it's pretty hard to believe that you're really serious about reducing the deficit.
BUS TICKET TO TROUBLETOWN
Tucson City Council members have a new problem on their hands: What should they do about the Greyhound Bus terminal?
Greyhound used to be located next door to downtown's Rialto Theatre, but that was a lousy location for a variety of reasons—not the least of which was that there are better uses for that property, which is now scheduled to be developed as part of Jim Campbell's proposed housing and retail development.
The city moved Greyhound from that site to a temporary location next to Interstate 10. Now, City Manager Mike Letcher wants to sell that parcel, which at one point was going to be the location of a new arena. (As you might have noticed, it's unlikely the city will be building a new arena anytime soon.)
So city staff has gone back to the City Council's original direction, which was to put the bus station at Sixth and Toole avenues.
The idea, back then, was to create a big transit hub that included local buses, Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains all coming together. (We'll leave aside the central problem with that notion, which is that the Amtrak trains only roll through town three times a week, late at night, which doesn't exactly create the bustling atmosphere of Grand Central Station.)
Today, the city is so broke that it can't afford the $18 million that it would take to build a new bus station, which was supposed to have office space above it. Instead, transportation and real-estate officials are proposing to include the bus station at the northwest end of the train station and install some bus bays on the vacant lot next door to the station.
This, naturally, has folks like Hotel Congress owner Richard Oseran upset, because he's invested a considerable amount of money in getting Maynards Market and Kitchen up and running at the other end of the train station.
"Whatever arguments you could have made for putting the bus station downtown six or seven years ago, there's been a dramatic change in the last six or seven years," Oseran says. "It's now an entertainment district. ... We're trying to create commercial activity and residential spaces. Here you have the last piece of dirt in the district that could be developed for that purpose, and you'd be putting bus bays on it."
Ward 6 Councilman Steve Kozachik doesn't mince any words about the proposal, saying that it sounds like "one of the dumber ideas that's come down to us."
Koz says the plan will increase traffic in "an already congested area that's finally starting to see some private-sector development ... I hardly think it's the highest and best use for that area. Wrong place, wrong time, wrong activity."
There's one problem with not moving the bus station over to the train depot: The city got a big grant from the Federal Transit Administration based on plans to have a multi-modal transportation hub. So there's $2 million out there that can be used to cover the expense of moving Greyhound if it ends up near the train depot.
Ward 1 Councilwoman Regina Romero says she's keeping an open mind about the proposal, but is concerned about giving up the federal funds.
"Are we going to lose almost $2 million if we choose another space?" Romero asks. "That's a very important piece of the puzzle."
Transportation Director Jim Glock says the $2 million doesn't have to be spent on the bus station. He says the money could go toward more improvements of the train depot.
The council is set to discuss the Greyhound Bus proposal during its weekly study session on Tuesday, Nov. 23.
Follow the Skinny scribe on Twitter: @nintzel
Jim Nintzel
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Watch I Am Legend
"The last man on Earth is not alone"
The movie called "I am Legend" came out in 2007 as a science fiction horror film. It was directed by Francis Lawrence, and its main character, Robert Neville, is played by Will Smith. Willow Smith, Will Smith's son, is also in the movie as Willow plays Marley. The other stars of the movie are: Alice Braga as Anna, Dash Mihok as Alpha Male,Salli Richardson Whitfield as Zoe, and Charlie Tahan as Ethan. It is a remake of the 1954 by the same name. It was filmed in 2006 in New York City, and it had the biggest budget for the times. The movie is rated PG-13. One of the famous songs from the movie is "I shot the Sheriff" by Bob Marley, but it was sung by Will Smith in the movie.
Neville is a virologist who is immune to the virus that has been made to cure cancer. He is trying to come up with a remedy to the problem, but he is fighting the humans who have been changed by the virus in the mean time. He is the only sane human left, and so it falls on how to save humanity. He sends out radio messages to find any more survivors but cannot find any survivors. He knows he is the only survivor in New York City but he is trying to find out if he is the only survivor in the whole entire world. The mutants are waiting for Neville to make a mistake, so they can take him down.
It has been hard to defend himself against all of them, but he managing to do so. Neville continues to have one mission throughout the movie, and that is to save the human population from inevitable existent. Neville knows that his immune blood is probably the key to solving the problem, but he is outnumbered. If you want to find out how it ends, you need to watch the movie to find out! Does Neville save the human race from inevitable extinction? The movie will enjoy wanting the ending as it is filled with action and excitement.
I Am Legend is an Drama, Horror, Action, Thriller, Science Fiction movie that was released in 2007. It has received moderate reviews from critics and viewers, who have given it an IMDb score of 7.2 and a MetaScore of 65.
Where do I stream I Am Legend online? I Am Legend is available to watch free on IMDb TV and stream, download, buy on demand at Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube VOD online. Some platforms allow you to rent I Am Legend for a limited time or purchase the movie and download it to your device.
Drama, Horror, Action, Thriller, Science Fiction
| 2007 | | 7.2/10 | 65/100
Will Smith, Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson-Whitfield
Village Roadshow Pictures Weed Road Pictures Overbrook Entertainment
Akiva Goldsman David Heyman James Lassiter Neal H. Moritz
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The Erdogan’s threats in Syria
Introduction In Idlib, the Turkish counteroffensive is on the march. At least this is the message that Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to imprint in the minds of Syrian President Bashar el-Assad and his Russian godfather, Vladimir Putin. On 5th of February, seven soldiers and a civilian of the Turkish army were killed in the last […]
By YoungDiplomats Editorial Team Feb 14, 2020 No Comments
Credit : Al-Monitor
In Idlib, the Turkish counteroffensive is on the march. At least this is the message that Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to imprint in the minds of Syrian President Bashar el-Assad and his Russian godfather, Vladimir Putin.
On 5th of February, seven soldiers and a civilian of the Turkish army were killed in the last rebel province in north-western Syria. The Turkish Head of State issued an ultimatum to the Syrian regime: to withdraw, before the end of the month, from all the areas of Idlib. If Damas doesn’t withdraw, they will face a military operation from Ankara. The death of five more Turkish soldiers in the regime’s firefights on Monday brought the timetable to an abrupt end.
The Turkey-Russia agreement
“We are determined, by the end of February, to push the regime back outside the Sochi agreement, beyond our observation posts. We will do the right thing, without hesitation, on the ground and in the air,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.
The Russian-Turkish Sochi agreement, signed in September 2018, was supposed to make Idlib a “demilitarized zone”. Turkey had pledged to evacuate jihadists from the Hayat Tahrir al-Cham group, formerly affiliated to al-Qaeda. A few hundred Turkish soldiers, deployed at 12 observation posts, were to guarantee a ceasefire between pro-Ankara rebels and forces loyal to Damascus.
But Sochi’s promises were never kept and the regime’s offensive, which began at the end of April 2019 with the support of the Russian air force and pro-Iran militias, has in recent days led to a direct confrontation between Turkish and Syrian soldiers. “As of today, if our soldiers deployed at our observation posts or elsewhere are attacked, we will strike the regime’s forces everywhere, regardless of the Idlib borders or the Sochi agreement,” President Erdogan said Wednesday.
9000 Turkish soldiers on the spot
The likelihood of an uncontrolled escalation is increasing by the hour: in Idlib, Turkey has mobilised more men, vehicles and weapons than in all its previous incursions into Syria. Some 9,000 Turkish troops are believed to be there. The vast majority have crossed the border in recent weeks. This massive deployment is all the more risky because the Turkish military – some of whom are already surrounded by loyalist Syrian forces – have no air cover in case of aggression, or to support their counter-offensive. The airspace over Idlib is controlled by Moscow, which prohibits Turkish aircraft from flying there. Why, then, is Recep Tayyip Erdogan exposing his army to such perils? What is his strategy in Idlib?
“Turkey is forcing Russia’s hand,” says Emre Kürsat Kaya, a researcher at the Centre for Economic and Diplomatic Studies (Edam) in Istanbul. “It wants to find with Moscow – and perhaps, indirectly, with Damascus – a global and permanent agreement, not only on Idlib but also on the control of all the regions in northern Syria” where the Turkish army is present. That is what is at stake here. For Ankara, it’s not just a question of blocking the flight to its borders of the three million civilians from Idlib. Indeed the country is already struggling to accommodate more than 3.6 million Syrians. It is also a question of not giving up any ground – psychologically and physically – vis-à-vis Moscow and Damascus.
The eternal fear of the Kurds
“It is clear that after Idlib, Syrian forces will focus on the regions of previous Turkish operations such as the Euphrates Shield (between Jarablous and al-Bab) and the Olive Tree (Afrin),” explains Emre Kürsat Kaya. “Turkey does not want above all to create a precedent of retreat” and be forced, in the end, to abandon its protectorates in northern Syria, which are primarily aimed at preventing the establishment of an autonomous Kurdish region.
In recent days, discussions in Ankara between Turkish and Russian officials have ended without result. A Turkish delegation is due to travel to Moscow shortly to resume negotiations. In the midst of his anti-Damascus tirade, Recep Tayyip Erdogan had this sentence with little emphasis: “From now on, we will no longer turn a blind eye to […] fanaticism, treason, provocations […] by mavericks within the opposition groups who offer the regime a pretext for its attacks”. A toughening of the Turkish army against Idlib’s jihadists? Perhaps this is the quid pro quo Recep Tayyip Erdogan is offering Vladimir Putin.
KurdsRussiaSyriaTurkey
YoungDiplomats Editorial Team
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Top 10 of the Most High Tech Countries in the World
Who are the most high tech countries in the World? You will be surprised! Those able to harness the power of information and communication technology are reaping ever more benefits. But in poor countries, digital poverty is holding back growth and development, leaving them further behind. 10/ Finland Finland is highly famous for its […]
By David Allouche Jul 03, 2018 47 Comments
Who are the most high tech countries in the World? You will be surprised! Those able to harness the power of information and communication technology are reaping ever more benefits. But in poor countries, digital poverty is holding back growth and development, leaving them further behind.
10/ Finland
Biotechnology has become essential.
Finland is highly famous for its high-tech projects and medical prowesses. The Nordic country created Nokia, which was a world leader in mobile communications for dozens of years. The Scandinavian leader is now focusing on biosciences, energy and environmental science and has been offering thousands of scolarships to young scientists from all over the world.
9/ China
China has often been described as the next super power. The problem is that they are already a superpower. The nation has been able to perform breathtaking achievements and complete major developments in the field of technology in the last ten years. Gunpowder and compass were first used in China. The Chinese scientists are now focusing on robotics, semiconductors, high-speed trains, supercomputers, genetics and automobiles. Additionally they are also slowly but surely expanding theirspace exploration program.
Robotic Technology can saves lives
8/ Canada
Canada has a highly developed technology sector. The Government of Canada strongly encourages sciences and research. The nation specializes in peaceful technologies such as biotechnoloy. Canada created the wireless interact machines, chip less credit and debit cards and the advanced supersonic twin-engined, Avro Arrow.
7/ United Kingdom
The United Kingdom was the World first modern industrial Nation. British Scientists permitted the discovery of hydrogen. Jet engine, locomotive engine, World Wide Web, electric motor, incandescent light bulb and commercial electrical telegraph were all invented in the British Territory. Recently the United Kingdom specialized in military technologies include the Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle, BAE Systems Taranis. These technologies produced spectacular results on the battlefield in Iraq.
6/ Russia
The Russians launched the first expeditions to the moon and were the first to explore Space. Apart from space technology in which it used to be the main leader before the Americans took the lead, Russia is an heavy producer and inventor of weapons technology and defense systems. It has one of the best high-tech defense system. It exports defense equipment to many nations in the world. Russia’s S300, S400, S500 and ICBM long range surface-to-air missile systems are very efficient than any other in the world. Recently Russia’s deployed it’s S300 in the Middle East in Syria and was able to deter the most powerful Air Force of the Region , Israel.
Medical Breakthrough
5/ Germany
Germany has since centuries been a highly high-tech nation. It is famous for its results in the field of engineering. German research scientists have contributed in fields like space travel and biotechnology. R&D efforts are an integral part of the German economy. Germany’s automotive technology is outstanding with big brands like Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW, Volkswagen and Porsche. Germany also took the lead recently in terms of Defense Industry by producing the Dolphin submarines sold to Israel.
4/ Israel
Around 35 percent of Israel’s exports are technology-related. Israel is one among the top five in space science. It is also known for its innovations in the defense industry such as Iron Dome. Israel developed the first unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with real-time surveillance. This amazing nation is among the few nations in the world that have modern electric car infrastructure. You will find a well-maintained network of recharging stations all over Israel. Its main achievement remaining without a doubt the legendary “Iron Dome”that blocked all missiles attacks from Gaza during the 2014′ conflict.
3/ South Korea
South Korea is the birthplace of technology companies like LG, Hyundai and Samsung. These brands are competing with global technology brands like Apple and Toyota. South Korean scientists have made significant contributions in fields like robotics. The average internet speed in South Korea is thrice that in the US.
2/ The United States
The advances in space technology have played a significant role in making the United States of America a global superpower. From the atomic bomb to landing Neil Armstrong on the Moon. Space exploration, pharmaceuticals, defense system and telecommunications have been United States’ main focus for many decades. This nation has the most powerful and technologically advanced military in the world. This nation has produced the world’s biggest technology companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Intel, IBM and Microsoft. These technology behemoths have changed the way people live worldwide.
1/Japan
Japan is well-known for its scientific research. Research scientists of Japan have made immense contributions in various fields like automobiles, electronics, machinery, earthquake engineering, optics, industrial robotics, metals and semi-conductors. Japanese researchers have won many Nobel Prizes. Japan’s particularity lay down in the fact that they achieved results in every fields : from bio-technology to robotics.
High-TechTechnologytop 10Top10World
David AlloucheFRANCE
David founded Young Diplomats in 2014. His goal was to create a platform for students in International Relations to share their articles with the world. David's holds an MA in Strategy and Diplomacy and works for an International Organization. He can be reached at youngdiplomats2@gmail.com
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A decision on whether spectators will be permitted to attend the Olympic Games will be made within the next two months, according to Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori.
Organisers are bracing themselves for a tough call on whether fans will be allowed to attend Tokyo 2020 as new variants of COVID-19 create further uncertainty across the globe.
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‘The Office’ Was the Most-Streamed Show of 2020
When the Streaming Wars started to gain momentum a couple of years ago, one of the main pieces on the metaphorical battlefield was The Office, the mega-popular former NBC sitcom about a group of paper company employees and their ridiculous boss. The show has reliably been a huge performer on whatever streaming platform it’s on, and The Office once again dominated the competition last year. According to some new measurements, it was the most-streamed show of 2020 in the United States…and second place didn’t even come close.
But those disappointing seasons in the back half of the show’s run have not stopped people from watching the series in serious numbers: according to Variety, Americans streamed more than 57 billion minutes of The Office on Netflix last year. (That information is according to Nielsen, since the people at Netflix are famously stingy about releasing useful viewership data themselves.) That’s a staggering number – and one that becomes even more impressive when you learn that the second place series, Grey’s Anatomy, was streamed for 39.4 billion minutes.
Of course, it’s important to note that Netflix will not benefit from The Office in 2021, since the show migrated over to Peacock starting on January 1 (and Peacock is really taking advantage of having the show under its wing).
Head over to Variety to see the full breakdown, but here is Nielsen’s full list of the top streaming content of 2020 when it comes to original series.
Buffalo Bills: Josh Allen’s development on full display against the Colts
Detroit Lions: A way too early 2021 NFL Draft preview
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Home Durham News
Stark warning impact ‘no-deal’ Brexit could have on region
A STARK warning about the detrimental impact a ‘no-deal Brexit’ could have on the regional economy has been spelled out by business experts, compounding dire financial forecasts laid bare this week by the chancellor.
The North-East Chamber of Commerce said increased export tariffs, quotas and customs measures would make firms based in the region far less competitive with foreign counterparts than they currently are.
It warned the region is ‘disproportionately vulnerable’ as it exports around 60 per cent of its goods to the European single market, and members have reported having ‘serious concerns’.
Experts have also said failure to reach a trade agreement before the Brexit transition period closes at the end of next month will exacerbate the ongoing harm done caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
On Wednesday, while delivering his Spending Review, Rishi Sunak painted a bleak picture of the country’s finances as he said the economy was set to contract by 11.3 per cent in 2020, the largest fall for more than 300 years.
Unemployment, nationally, is expected to reach 7.5 per cent next spring, with 2.6 million people out of work and borrowing is forecast to hit £394bn this year, equivalent to 19 per cent of GDP, the highest ever in peacetime.
On Thursday, the region’s economy suffered another heavy blow after it was placed in the highest tier three restrictions, leaving independent traders in the hospitality sector wondering whether they can survive.
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey warned the economic cost of no-deal would be bigger in the long term than the damage caused by Covid-19.
Tom Kennedy, policy advisor with the North-East Chamber of Commerce, said members had already registered a number of concerns regarding a ‘no-deal Brexit’.
He said: “This would result in the introduction of tariffs, quotas and extra customs measures such as increased goods’ checks as they enter the European Union.
“This will make UK exports fundamentally less competitive in Europe, our biggest market.”
Last year, 59.46 per cent of North-East goods exports were sent into the EU, the highest of any region in mainland Britain.
Mr Kennedy said: “It is significantly higher than the UK average of 48.20 per cent meaning that the North-East is disproportionately vulnerable to any negative changes in the trading relationship between the UK and the EU.
“Another concern is the huge increase in customs declarations that will be required, deal or no-deal, from 2021 onwards for moving goods between the UK and the European Union.
“Currently, UK companies complete around 50 million customs declarations each year and from 2021 this is set to increase to around 250 million.
“This is a huge increase and there are serious concerns as to whether there are enough people in the country who are trained sufficiently to be able to complete all of these declarations correctly.
“Government has provided £50m of funding to upskill members of staff for this purpose as well as for buying any required equipment or hiring a customs expert to complete declarations on your behalf but there are still serious concerns.”
Mr Kennedy said around half of UK companies who export goods to the EU do so exclusively meaning they will not have had to complete customs declarations like the ones that will be required from next year.
He said: “Even if businesses do complete their declarations correctly moving forward, this is still an additional business cost that they did not face previously.
“If mistakes are made on customs declarations, along with checks of goods and other barriers to trade, it is likely that there will be delays at the border on both EU and UK sides.
“This has serious ramifications for businesses that already sit within complex international supply chains, especially in sectors such as chemicals and the automotive industry.
“Plenty of these supply chains are run on ‘just in time’ principles where goods arrive sometimes only a couple of hours before they will be needed for assembly or to be used.
“If there were significant delays at the border, then there is the risk that these well-established supply chains could no longer be feasible.”
‘No-deal’ could lead to job losses
Mr Kennedy said the Government has not published a great deal of economic assessment on the different possible relationships with the EU.
He said it was important to emphasise that the UK being less competitive than European nations will inevitably have an impact on investment decisions going forward.
Mr Kennedy said: “The North-East has the highest of jobs created by Foreign Direct Investment of all English regions, but it is important to note that much of this investment is here because they wish to sell into Europe.
“The uncertainty about what the future relationship will look like will also have impacted investment already as investors will want clarity.”
Two years ago, a Government report said the North-East would be the worst impacted region by ‘no-deal’, with a drop of over ten per cent of Gross Value Added (GVA) compared to current arrangements.
The cost of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions continues to harm businesses across the North-East, but Bank of England boss Andrew Bailey this week warned the cost ‘no-deal’ would be bigger in the long term.
He said it would cause disruption to cross-border trade and damage the goodwill between London and Brussels needed to build a future economic partnership.
Rishi Sunak, who represents Richmond in North Yorkshire, had previously said a deal was preferable but that the UK would “prosper in any eventuality”.
The North-East Chamber of Commerce has written to Government ministers, the Prime Minister and Lord Frost, the chief negotiator for the UK with its concerns.
Brexit deal only possible if EU respects UK sovereignty
Mr Kennedy said: “We have been clear that our region needs a deal with the EU to continue trading as frictionless as possible.
“A deal is still significantly better than no-deal.
“Ultimately any deal will have to compared to the current relationship we have with the EU.
“As we leave the EU we will also have the ability to strike new trade deals with other countries around the world and we have made it clear that we would want these to ensure market access for areas of strength in the North-East economy.”
The Northern Echo | Durham
Newcastle spends £8,067,000 on street lights, one of UK’s highest – North-East areas compared
NEWCASTLE spends more on street lights than anywhere else in the North-East, new data reveals, while Durham spends just £7 per person. The Northern Echo | Durham …
Fun Arts Program For The Elderly To Continue Enriching Lives in 2021
A successful community arts programme that offers fun and friendship to older people is being expanded this year and has received national recognition for its efforts. Artful Age provides opportunities for older people in East Durham to make friends and grow their appreciation of the arts, from singing and dancing, to creating their own art […]
The post Fun Arts Program For The Elderly To Continue Enriching Lives in 2021 appeared first on Durham Magazine – Durham Deserves Good News. Durham Magazine…
County Durham deaths: Police warn of dangerous heroin
POLICE have warned that a particularly dangerous batch of heroin may be in circulation following the deaths of two people this week. The Northern Echo | Durham …
MP Richard Holden Continues His Campaign To Ban Virginity Testing
Richard Holden, Member of Parliament for North West Durham, has today continued his campaign to see virginity testing banned in the UK as he joined BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour to talk about the issue on the national stage in the run-up to his Bill returning to the House of Commons. Crucially, today, Richard’s Bill […]
The post MP Richard Holden Continues His Campaign To Ban Virginity Testing appeared first on Durham Magazine – Durham Deserves Good News. Durham Magazine…
Work Being Undertaken At Durham Town Hall To Preserve Its History
Work is set to be carried out at a historic Durham City building to preserve its heritage for centuries to come. Durham Town Hall has been central to the city from as far back as the 14th century and is a popular site to learn about County Durham’s heritage. The building has attracted almost 16,000 […]
The post Work Being Undertaken At Durham Town Hall To Preserve Its History appeared first on Durham Magazine – Durham Deserves Good News. Durham Magazine…
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The Working Forest - Your #1 source for forestry and forest industry news.
Spruce beetle infestation raises more forestry alarms
By: Business Vancouver
An explosive outbreak of spruce beetles in northern B.C. forests is wreaking havoc on one of the key timber species remaining in the wake of the mountain pine beetle disaster.
A recent provincial survey of spruce stands in the Omineca region north of Prince George shows spruce beetle populations have mushroomed from 2013, when they covered 76 square kilometres of timber, to 1,560 square kilometres today. That 20-fold increase has set off alarm bells for both the government and the forest industry.
Climate change is one of the prime factors fuelling the outbreak of the new threat to the northern forests, said Allan Caroll, professor of entomology at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of forestry. Warmer winters mean some of the spruce beetles are completing their development over a one-year period rather than two, and drier summers are stressing the spruce trees, making them more vulnerable to attack, he said.
“We certainly have been saying for quite some time that the next big one on the radar will be the spruce beetle after the mountain pine beetle fades from the spotlight, simply because of the amount of mature spruce that’s available on the landscape,” he said.
With the pine stands decimated, the Interior forest industry is now heavily dependent upon spruce.
“We are taking it seriously,” said Archie MacDonald, general manager of forestry at the Council of Forest Industries. “The area in which the spruce beetle infestation is taking place is an area that was also hit by the mountain pine beetle. The forests in those areas are of great concern for us, not only for supplying timber for our manufacturing facilities, but also for maintaining environmental and ecological values.”
The mountain pine beetle infestation, which was also fuelled in part by climate change, killed more than 50% of the province’s pine inventory.
To combat the spruce beetle, a close relative of the mountain pine beetle, the provincial Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations announced $1 million in new funding last week for an aggressive control program. Forest companies are also working together to develop management plans. To access the spruce stands, loggers are re-activating old roads and bridges that haven’t been used since the pine beetle infestation.
Heather Wiebe, manager of the province’s Omineca spruce beetle project, said the province has been monitoring the beetle for some time. The recent surge in numbers prompted the decision to combat it while it’s still just the beginning of the outbreak, she said.
Although the spruce beetle poses a threat to the forestry sector and to forest health, she said it’s not likely to cause as much widespread damage as the pine beetle. There was 10 times as much pine as there is spruce, she said, and spruce tends to grow in stands that are isolated from one another.
Pine was one contiguous forest presenting an endless buffet for the pine beetle. Further, the spruce beetle is a bulkier insect about half a centimetre long. It can’t fly as far as the pine beetle. Wiebe described the spruce beetle as a “flying tank,” capable of spreading in vast numbers to nearby trees, but not able to travel long distances.
Despite those differences, she said, the ministry still views the beetle as a serious threat.
“We are at the brink of seeing the population take off,” she said. “But there is still time for us to have a significant successful impact on the population growth.”
To combat the beetle, foresters first identify stands already killed by the beetle and then go into the surrounding stands to identify and cut down green trees that are under attack. Those logs are “hot-milled,” meaning that they are immediately transported to sawmills, killing the beetles inside the trees before they can spread.
The ministry is also cutting down spruce and leaving it defenceless on the ground, mimicking trees blown down by the wind. That attracts beetles like water to a sponge, and those logs are then removed.
To gain a better understanding of the beetle’s impact, the province intends to form a public advisory committee of First Nations, hunters and trappers, academics, local government officials and recreational users.
“The public advisory committee will really bring attention to other values at risk,” Wiebe said.
Prince George, Vanderhoof, Mackenzie and Fort St. James are the most affected communities. Forest companies operate 15 sawmills, two pulp mills and three pellet plants within the region. •
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“Mercy” singer Duffy reveals secret anguish: “I was raped and drugged and held captive”
Dave M. Benett/Getty Images
Dave M. Benett/Getty ImagesIf you don’t remember Welsh singer Duffy, you probably remember her hit, “Mercy” — a contestant just used it to audition for American Idol this past Sunday. After her 2010 album Endlessly was released, she dropped out of the spotlight, and now she’s revealed the horrifying reason why.
On Instagram, Duffy writes, “Many of you wonder what happened to me, where did I disappear to and why. A journalist contacted me, he found a way to reach me and I told him everything this past summer. He was kind and it felt so amazing to finally speak.”
She then reveals, “The truth is, and please trust me I am ok and safe now, I was raped and drugged and held captive over some days. Of course I survived. The recovery took time. There’s no light way to say it. But I can tell you in the last decade, the thousands and thousands of days I committed to wanting to feel the sunshine in my heart again, the sun does now shine.”
“You wonder why I did not choose to use my voice to express my pain?” Duffy continues. “I did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes. I asked myself, how can I sing from the heart if it is broken? And slowly it unbroke.”
Duffy says soon, she’ll post what she calls a “spoken interview,” and says she’s willing to answer fans’ questions.
“I have a sacred love and sincere appreciation for your kindness over the years,” she notes. “You have been friends. I want to thank you for that.”
But, Duffy warns, “Please respect this is a gentle move for me to make, for myself…Please support me to make this a positive experience.”
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Tackling the Many Dangers of China's State Capitalism
The biggest commercial problem the U.S. faces today is the pervasive power of China's state-owned capitalism. A new book says the U.S. is getting seriously out-maneuvered by the Chinese, and there's little Americans can do about it. John Bussey explains on The News Hub. (Photo: Prospecta Press)
By John Bussey
Updated Sept. 27, 2012 8:20 pm ET
Here's an easy bet:
The U.S. won't solve the problems created by China's economic juggernaut until it finds a way to tackle the big issue rather than sideshows like the country's currency rate.
The big issue is China's state capitalism, the tens of thousands of state-owned enterprises that dominate half of China's economic output and that the government heavily subsidizes and protects. Foreign competitors—which threaten these near monopolies—are restricted by government rules, forced to "share" their technology in joint ventures with state enterprises, and denied lucrative government business, which goes instead to the state champions.
"We haven't faced this kind of problem of this size before," says Robert Hormats, who heads economic policy at the State Department and has raised alarms about China's commercial statism.
If the U.S. needs another wake-up call, it will get one this week with the publication of a bracing account of the danger that China's state capitalism poses to global business—and to China itself. James McGregor's new book, "No Ancient Wisdom, No Followers: The Challenges of Chinese Authoritarian Capitalism," dissects the complex policies and state structures that produced China's novel system. And it describes the limited recourse the U.S. and other nations have. (Full disclosure: Mr. McGregor is a friend and former colleague at the Journal.)
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Cutting Costs at Culinary School
By Dawn Fallik
Aug. 12, 2009 11:48 am ET
When Hubert Sawyers signed up for a cooking class last June, he thought it would help make for great date nights for him and his new wife.
Then he got laid off from his job as an executive assistant at a real estate appraisal company. The $58-a-person "Sautéed Salmon" class all of a sudden seemed like an unnecessary splurge for the 28-year-old, whose cooking skills were mostly limited to grilling. But the tutorial turned out to be a long-term money saver: The couple went from eating out at a restaurant four times a week to once a week, utilizing Mr. Sawyer's newfound cooking skills as he sought to find a job.
"My sauté game is definitely on now," says Mr. Sawyers, who lives in Royal Oak, Mich. "We save between $25 and $50 a week. The class made cooking at home a lot easier."
Nationwide, restaurant diners and take-out folks are turning to the home kitchen, hoping to cut costs and save money during the downturn. But many, like Mr. Sawyers, need some help discerning a simmer from a sauté.
At the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., administrators increased their five-day, $2,095 "Basic Training" boot camp to 14 classes a year, up from 10 three years ago. The Whole Foods in the Soho neighborhood of New York City saw enrollment in the store's cooking classes increase 46% between 2009 and 2008, says a company spokeswoman. The number of classes at that store -- ranging in price from free to $75 -- rose as well, to 247 in 2009 from 184 in 2008. Whole Foods does not collect nationwide data on its stores's cooking classes, but a spokeswoman says there's been an overall rise in interest.
In Recession, Would-Be Chefs Look to Chop Costs
With the economy in recession, people are turning to the kitchen to keep costs down. WSJ's Dawn Fallik visits the Culinary Institute of America in New York, where would-be chefs learn everything from knife skills to sauteing at a beginners cooking class.
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Israel Threatens Wider Separation From Palestinians
Sharon Says He Would Act
Unilaterally if 'Road Map'
To Peace Proves Fruitless
By Guy ChazanStaff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal
Dec. 19, 2003 1:30 am ET
JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Israel would separate itself unilaterally from the Palestinians unless there is real progress in reviving the stalled "road map" peace plan.
Mr. Sharon's much-anticipated speech contained both a promise and a threat for the Palestinians: If the peace process breaks down, he said, Israel would withdraw from parts of the occupied territories and evacuate some Jewish settlements. But the territory left to the Palestinians for their future state, he warned, would be much less than they would acquire in a negotiated agreement.
Speaking at a security conference in the coastal town of Herzliya, Mr. Sharon said he remained committed to the road map, which envisages the creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.
He said Israel will continue to abide by its pledges under the road map, such as dismantling unauthorized settler outposts. But he said that if "in a few months" it was clear the Palestinians were still failing to dismantle terror groups, as they are obliged to do under the U.S.-backed peace plan, Israel would be forced to take unilateral action.
Such action would, he said, involve redeploying troops from Palestinian areas and moving settlements, so as to "reduce as much as possible the number of Israelis located in the heart of the Palestinian population."
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College of Arts, Sciences, Business and Education
Department of Communication and Media Studies
Communication and Media Studies focuses on the emerging digital forms of media in the 21st Century, with emphasis on human and social communication. Students have opportunities to produce innovative media products that increase and enhance global-intercultural awareness.
Courses emphasize the liberal arts and humanities by focusing on critical thinking, research, production, public speaking, and constantly evolving social diversity issues. The curriculum is designed to construct a foundational framework in the areas of communication, law, education, management, international affairs and other relevant fields of study. The viable framework prepares students for distinguished graduate studies and successful entrepreneurial and professional careers.
Contact Department
Student Involvement, Media, and Organizations
In its effort to promote quality global learning experiences, the department partners with various organizations to create experiential study-abroad and internship opportunities. Departmental faculty advise the following student clubs/organizations.
The News Argus
The News Argus is produced by and for the students of WSSU, and the target audience is the WSSU campus and surrounding communities. The Argus mission is to fulfill the seven traditional goals and responsibilities of news: inform, educate, entertain, advertise, serve as a watchdog, persuade, and provide a forum.
Provide students with opportunities to produce good-quality productions.
Provide students with fundamental experiences in researching, interviewing, writing, videography.
Provide students the opportunity to make a positive contribution to the University.
Provide an outlet for students to express their creativity.
Provide opportunities for students to demonstrate organizational and time management skills by meeting deadlines completely, correctly, and on time.
Provide students with opportunities to submit their work in national collegiate journalism competitions.
In addition, more experienced staff members or staff members with expertise in electronic media will assist less experienced staff members with performing multimedia assignments. Any WSSU full-time student is entitled to become an Argus staff member.
RAM-TV
RAM-TV is a student media group which provides Winston-Salem State University with non-commercial information, news, educational, and entertainment programming. The organization provides WSSU students, particularly those in the Department of Communication and Media Studies with the opportunity to participate in television production operations and to create television/video programming that encourages the creation of ideas and free expression of issues and concerns. Watch RAM-TV on the campus digital cable channel 69.1.
RAM-TV is designed to provide Winston-Salem State University students with hands-on experience in the television broadcasting/video production field. Toward the goal, the department’s digital HD television production studio located in Hall-Patterson 209 and editing suite located in Hall-Patterson 132 provide students with the tools they need to produce quality programming. RAM-TV is a place where students come together to learn, teach, and share skills they have learned in classes taught by the department. There are no restrictions to being a member of RAM-TV. Any student in good standing with the University can become a member of RAM-TV by attending meetings and expressing an interest.
You can also join by logging on to the RAMSync website for WSSU student organizations, use your WSSU campus email address and password to login, then go to the Organizations menu at the top of the page to find RAM-TV.
SU Radio
SU Radio is an intranet-based, student-operated station designed to give students enrolled at WSSU the opportunity to gain valuable experience in the field of radio broadcasting. Under the supervision of the Department of Communication and Media Studies and WSNC-FM (an NPR affiliate), students gain real-world training in every aspect of the radio industry. The professional staff members of WSNC advise and guide the transitional learning experiences of interested students who would like to become student staff members at the NPR affiliate. SU Radio is open to students from all majors and classifications and are encouraged to join its staff. Please contact Mr. Brian Anthony, General Manager at anthony.b@wssu.edu or call (336) 750-2321 for more information.
The Dow Jones News Fund and American City Business Journals are offering college juniors, seniors and graduate students the opportunity to spend a week in the financial capital of the world before reporting to work at paid summer internships as business reporters.
American City Business Journals
Interns attend a week of training led by journalists from Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) refining skills like making Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, learning computer-assisted reporting and analyzing and cleaning data in order to tell rich, often hidden, stories before starting internships where they apply these skills to issues like education, government, criminal justice and the economy
Dow Jones News Fund - the Fund mentors the next generation of newsroom leaders, promoting journalism fundamentals while advancing new storytelling methods using data and digital innovation.
Data Journalism Internships
Paid, Prestigious Internships in Data Journalism, Digital Media, Multi-Platform Editing and Business Reporting.
National Communication Association Student Club
The National Communication Association Student Club (NCASC) provides a forum for interaction among students, faculty, and others interested in the study, research, criticism, training, and application of the artistic, humanistic, and scientific principles of communication. Upon meeting the academic requirements (appropriate GPA and earned credit hours), NCASC members are encouraged to join one of NCA’s honor societies, Lambda Pi Eta and Sigma Chi Eta. LPH and SCH local chapters sponsor a variety of scholarly and service oriented activities that NCASC members are welcome to attend. For more information, please contact the faculty advisers, Dr. Althea Bradford at bradfordab@wssu.edu and Dr. Andrea Patterson-Masuka at pattersona@wssu.edu.
External Student Organizations
Students participate additionally in other national and local organizations:
National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ)
Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ)
National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)
Broadcast Education Association (BEA)
Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA)
Black College Communication Association (BCCA)
Associated Collegiate Press (ACP)
North Carolina College Media Association (NCCMA)
Department of History, Politics and Social Justice
Department of Psychological Sciences
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Police: Laughing babysitters taunted crying baby with Taser in Snapchat video
Updated: 8:40 AM EDT Jul 11, 2018
Warning: The video above may be upsetting to some viewersThree teenage girls have been arrested in Arkansas after a Snapchat video allegedly showed them terrorizing a baby.According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, police became aware of the incident when they were called to Conway Regional Medical Center for a report of child abuse. The mother of a 1-year-old girl had brought her child in after seeing a disturbing video on social media. The video "appeared to depict three female teens laughing hysterically while taunting the baby girl with a Taser, which caused the child to scream and sob in uncontrollable fear," according to a police report."In the video, you can see and hear the electric prongs on the Taser lighting up," Officer Brittani A. Little wrote in the report. One of the teens then "walks to the end of the bed and stretches her arm out and zaps the Taser two more times in the child's direction," police said. Little notes that the child appears "out of breath from crying so hard."At one point, the teens continue to laugh and joke as one of them hits the child in the back of the head. Doctors evaluated the child and determined she was unhurt. The teens, who were not identified because they are minors, were booked into the Faulkner County juvenile detention center. Each faces a charge of first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor.
Conway, Arkansas —
Warning: The video above may be upsetting to some viewers
Three teenage girls have been arrested in Arkansas after a Snapchat video allegedly showed them terrorizing a baby.
According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, police became aware of the incident when they were called to Conway Regional Medical Center for a report of child abuse.
The mother of a 1-year-old girl had brought her child in after seeing a disturbing video on social media. The video "appeared to depict three female teens laughing hysterically while taunting the baby girl with a Taser, which caused the child to scream and sob in uncontrollable fear," according to a police report.
"In the video, you can see and hear the electric prongs on the Taser lighting up," Officer Brittani A. Little wrote in the report.
One of the teens then "walks to the end of the bed and stretches her arm out and zaps the Taser two more times in the child's direction," police said.
Little notes that the child appears "out of breath from crying so hard."
At one point, the teens continue to laugh and joke as one of them hits the child in the back of the head.
Doctors evaluated the child and determined she was unhurt.
The teens, who were not identified because they are minors, were booked into the Faulkner County juvenile detention center. Each faces a charge of first-degree endangering the welfare of a minor.
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NOWCAST WYFF News 4 at 11pm
Suspected drunk driver tells police she's a 'clean, thoroughbred, white girl’
Updated: 12:05 PM EDT Aug 8, 2018
Beaufort County Detention Center SOURCE: Beaufort County Detention Center
A woman seen speeding through a stop sign at 60 mph told officers they shouldn’t arrest her because she’s a “very clean, thoroughbred, white girl,” police said.Her eyes glossy and bloodshot, Lauren Elizabeth Cutshaw was slurring her words and a breathalyzer showed her blood-alcohol level at .18 percent, according to police in Bluffton, South Carolina.But Cutshaw, 32, told the arresting officer she shouldn’t be jailed because she was a cheerleader, a dancer and a sorority girl who graduated from a “high accredited university.”Taken to the police station in handcuffs, she described herself as a white “thoroughbred” and “went on to say ‘I’m a white, clean girl,’” the officer wrote in his report.“I asked what that had to do with anything?” wrote the officer, who also is white.She replied, “You’re a cop, you should know what that means,” and, “You’re a cop, you should know based on the people that come in this room.”Also, “she repeatedly stated, ’my partner is a cop,’” and said she’d been trying to get to her boyfriend’s house when she was pulled over early Saturday.Cutshaw, a real estate agent, told the officer that she’d had two glasses of wine at The Bluffton Room, an upscale restaurant of gracious service and table-side preparations, its website advertises.How full were the wine glasses? “I mean I was celebrating my birthday,” she replied.After another officer found marijuana and rolling papers in her car, she said she “may have” smoked pot earlier that evening as well, the report said.Cutshaw was jailed on charges including drunken driving, speeding and marijuana possession, based in part on her own statements.“Making statements such as these as a means to justify not being arrested are unusual in my experience as a law enforcement officer and I believe further demonstrate the suspect’s level of intoxication,” the officer wrote.
A woman seen speeding through a stop sign at 60 mph told officers they shouldn’t arrest her because she’s a “very clean, thoroughbred, white girl,” police said.
Her eyes glossy and bloodshot, Lauren Elizabeth Cutshaw was slurring her words and a breathalyzer showed her blood-alcohol level at .18 percent, according to police in Bluffton, South Carolina.
But Cutshaw, 32, told the arresting officer she shouldn’t be jailed because she was a cheerleader, a dancer and a sorority girl who graduated from a “high accredited university.”
Taken to the police station in handcuffs, she described herself as a white “thoroughbred” and “went on to say ‘I’m a white, clean girl,’” the officer wrote in his report.
“I asked what that had to do with anything?” wrote the officer, who also is white.
She replied, “You’re a cop, you should know what that means,” and, “You’re a cop, you should know based on the people that come in this room.”
Also, “she repeatedly stated, ’my partner is a cop,’” and said she’d been trying to get to her boyfriend’s house when she was pulled over early Saturday.
Cutshaw, a real estate agent, told the officer that she’d had two glasses of wine at The Bluffton Room, an upscale restaurant of gracious service and table-side preparations, its website advertises.
How full were the wine glasses? “I mean I was celebrating my birthday,” she replied.
After another officer found marijuana and rolling papers in her car, she said she “may have” smoked pot earlier that evening as well, the report said.
Cutshaw was jailed on charges including drunken driving, speeding and marijuana possession, based in part on her own statements.
“Making statements such as these as a means to justify not being arrested are unusual in my experience as a law enforcement officer and I believe further demonstrate the suspect’s level of intoxication,” the officer wrote.
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NOWCAST WLKY News at 4:30am
Payroll CEO accused of $70 million bank fraud after company's sudden collapse
Updated: 5:07 PM EDT Sep 28, 2019
By Michael Williams, Times Union
PAUL? PAUL: THIS IS AFFECTING HUNDREDS, MAYBE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE HERE IN WESTERN P.A IT INVOLVES A NEW YORK FIRM CALLED MY PAYROLL HR THAT HANDLES PAYROLL FOR HUNDREDS OF COMPANIES. MY PAYROLL HR SHUT DOWN SUDDENLY LAST WEEK, AND WHEN IT DID, THE MONEY THAT IT HAD DEPOSITED IN PEOPLE’S BANK ACCOUNTS DISAPPEARE >> I CHECKED MY BANK ACCOUNT AGAIN. THE MONEY WAS GONE. THEY TOOK IT BACK. PAUL: JUST HOURS AFTER CINDY FOREBACK’S PAY WAS DEPOSITED INTO HER BANK LAST WEEK, IT DISAPPEARED. CINDY IS ONE OF 130 EMPLOYEES AT LIKEN HOMECARE IN FOREST HILLS WHOSE PAYCHECKS VANISHED. >> PEOPLE CAN’T PAY THEIR RENT. THEY CAN’T FIVE FOOD FOR THEIR KIDS. PAUL: IT ALL HAPPENED AROUND THE SAME TIME SHE GOT AN EMAIL FROM THEIR PAYROLL COMPANY, MYPAYROLLHR, SAYING THEY WERE SHUTTING DOWN. >> I THOUGHT, WHAT? THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING. PAUL: SHE CALLED THE COMPANY AND GOTTEN NO ANSWERS. SO COMPANY PRESIDENT BOB LIKEN HAD TO WRITE PAYROLL CHECKS THE OLD-FASHIONED WAY FOR EMPLOYEES DESPERATE TO BE PAID. >> A LOT OF PEOPLE LIVE PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK AND THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE MONEY IN THEIR ACCOUNT TO COVER THE REVERSAL. THEY HAVE BEEN GETTING HIT WITH FEES LEFT AND RIGHT. PAUL ONE OF THEM WAS NICOLE FROM LATROBE. >> THAT WILL CREATE MORE LATE PAYMENTS, LATE FEES THAT MAY ACCRUE AND THAT WILL AFFECT YOUR CREDIT. PAUL: WE TRIED TO REACH MY PAYROLL HR BUT NO ONE RESPONDED. THE WEBSITE FOR THE PARENT COMPANY WAS SHUT DOWN. NEW YORK GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO OPENED AN INVESTIGATION, SAYING THE COMPANY’S RECKLESS ACTIONS LEFT EMPLOYEES WITH NEGATIVE BANK ACCOUNTS AND THE DESERVE ANSWERS. >> IT IS BATTLE AROUND. THESE PEOPLE NEED THEIR MONEY. PAUL CINDY AND NICOLE SAID THEY ASKED PNC TO REIMBURSE THEIR ACCOUNTS FOR THE MISSING PAYCHECKS, BUT SO FAR THE BANK REFUSED. A PNC SPOKESPERSON SAYS THE BANK REFUNDED OVERDRAFT AND OTHER
The businessman at the center of the collapse of MyPayrollHR has been charged with using fake companies to fraudulently obtain up to $70 million in loans and lines of credit. Michael Mann, the 49-year-old owner of the now-shuttered company based in Clifton Park, New York, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday afternoon with his attorney Michael Koenig, a week after FBI agents searched his lakefront home in Edinburg. Mann, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, appeared reserved during his brief court appearance.He spoke only a few times, greeting U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel J. Stewart with "good afternoon," and answering, "Yes, your honor," to a series of procedural questions.He was charged with bank fraud in a criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent that was unsealed during his appearance and subsequently released on $200,000 bond, secured by his home and two cars.Stewart ordered Mann to avoid interactions with law enforcement, submit to a DNA sample and stay in the Northern District of New York unless he receives prior approval to leave. Stewart also ordered Mann to surrender his passport, which Koenig said Mann had already done.The judge asked Mann whether he owned any guns. Mann said no.An affidavit that forms the bulk of the complaint against Mann states that he and his attorney visited the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District on Sept. 10 and, under questioning, "stated that he wished to accept responsibility for his conduct, and confess to a fraudulent scheme that he had been running for years."According to the complaint, Mann began borrowing "large sums of money" around 2010.Mann insisted that MyPayrollHR was a legitimate company, but admitted to creating other companies "that had no purpose other than to be used in fraud," according to the complaint.Mann began representing to several banks that his fraudulent businesses "had certain receivables that they did not have," and used those receivables to obtain loans and lines of credit, the complaint said."He claimed that he committed the fraud in response to business and financial pressures, and that he used almost all of the fraudulently obtained funds to sustain certain businesses, and purchase and start new ones," the complaint said.As part of the conditions for his release, Stewart ordered Mann to not open lines of credit without prior approval.The demise of MyPayrollHR and its parent company, ValueWise Corp., in early September resulted in financial chaos for thousands of workers at hundreds of companies around the nation who found their direct deposits reversed — in some cases, more than once. Many found themselves with negative balances that left them scrambling to cover basic expenses.Several companies that did business with Mann have described themselves as victims of possible fraud.One was Pioneer Bank, which the federal complaint described as Mann's largest creditor. Mann said the payroll reversals were the result of his decision to route payroll funds for MyPayrollHR clients into a Pioneer account instead of an account at Cachet Financial Services, which moved funds into employee accounts for MyPayrollHR.Mann said he moved the funds "to temporarily reduce the amount of money he owed to Pioneer," the complaint said. Pioneer froze Mann's accounts, causing the deficiency in thousands of bank accounts nationwide.Pioneer Bank had previously revealed that it was the lead bank in a $36 million loan provided to Mann's company. The syndicate behind that loan also included Berkshire Bank and Chemung Canal Trust Co., which operates Capital Bank. Berkshire Bank and Pioneer Bank each provided $16 million, while Chemung Canal Trust says its exposure was $4.2 million. All three banks are expected to take losses from the loans that will hurt their quarterly profits, although the exact dollar amounts are not yet clear.Cachet Financial Services, MyPayrollHR's California-based payroll processor, has made similar claims, citing what it has described as the apparent rerouting of payments intended for workers. Cachet has, however, admitted that its initial attempt to claw back those funds contained coding errors that ended up causing the multiple withdrawals, and an industry trade group has said the company's tactics were not in compliance with industry standards.MyPayrollHR and Cachet are now facing class-action suits brought by affected workers. Wendy Slavkin, a lawyer for Cachet's parent company, FBG Holdings, told the Times Union earlier this month that somebody from MyPayrollHR tampered with the electronic money-transfer system, rerouting funds that were meant to pay employees into a separate account at Pioneer Bank controlled by Mann or MyPayrollHR.The National Automated Clearing House Association, the trade group that has criticized Cachet, said about 8,000 employees from 400 companies were affected by the reversals. Mann had not been seen or heard from since the fiasco became public Sept. 6.Koenig, Mann's lawyer, told the Times Union last week that his client had "proactively" contacted and was cooperating with federal authorities. "He has not vanished," Koenig said. "He is not an international fugitive. He is not in hiding."During an interview Monday, Koenig reiterated that Mann voluntarily met with the U.S. Attorney's Office and is cooperating with the investigation."I understand that there is a lot of public interest in this case, and a lot of questions," Koenig said. "But out of respect for the integrity of the investigation, Michael will not be making any public statements or answering any questions other than those asked by investigators."Staff writer Larry Rulison contributed.
ALBANY, N.Y. —
The businessman at the center of the collapse of MyPayrollHR has been charged with using fake companies to fraudulently obtain up to $70 million in loans and lines of credit.
Michael Mann, the 49-year-old owner of the now-shuttered company based in Clifton Park, New York, appeared in U.S. District Court on Monday afternoon with his attorney Michael Koenig, a week after FBI agents searched his lakefront home in Edinburg.
Mann, wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase, appeared reserved during his brief court appearance.
He spoke only a few times, greeting U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel J. Stewart with "good afternoon," and answering, "Yes, your honor," to a series of procedural questions.
He was charged with bank fraud in a criminal complaint filed by an FBI agent that was unsealed during his appearance and subsequently released on $200,000 bond, secured by his home and two cars.
Stewart ordered Mann to avoid interactions with law enforcement, submit to a DNA sample and stay in the Northern District of New York unless he receives prior approval to leave. Stewart also ordered Mann to surrender his passport, which Koenig said Mann had already done.
The judge asked Mann whether he owned any guns. Mann said no.
An affidavit that forms the bulk of the complaint against Mann states that he and his attorney visited the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District on Sept. 10 and, under questioning, "stated that he wished to accept responsibility for his conduct, and confess to a fraudulent scheme that he had been running for years."
According to the complaint, Mann began borrowing "large sums of money" around 2010.
Mann insisted that MyPayrollHR was a legitimate company, but admitted to creating other companies "that had no purpose other than to be used in fraud," according to the complaint.
Mann began representing to several banks that his fraudulent businesses "had certain receivables that they did not have," and used those receivables to obtain loans and lines of credit, the complaint said.
"He claimed that he committed the fraud in response to business and financial pressures, and that he used almost all of the fraudulently obtained funds to sustain certain businesses, and purchase and start new ones," the complaint said.
As part of the conditions for his release, Stewart ordered Mann to not open lines of credit without prior approval.
The demise of MyPayrollHR and its parent company, ValueWise Corp., in early September resulted in financial chaos for thousands of workers at hundreds of companies around the nation who found their direct deposits reversed — in some cases, more than once. Many found themselves with negative balances that left them scrambling to cover basic expenses.
Payroll company abruptly folds, leaving thousands of employees without paychecks
Several companies that did business with Mann have described themselves as victims of possible fraud.
One was Pioneer Bank, which the federal complaint described as Mann's largest creditor. Mann said the payroll reversals were the result of his decision to route payroll funds for MyPayrollHR clients into a Pioneer account instead of an account at Cachet Financial Services, which moved funds into employee accounts for MyPayrollHR.
Mann said he moved the funds "to temporarily reduce the amount of money he owed to Pioneer," the complaint said. Pioneer froze Mann's accounts, causing the deficiency in thousands of bank accounts nationwide.
Pioneer Bank had previously revealed that it was the lead bank in a $36 million loan provided to Mann's company. The syndicate behind that loan also included Berkshire Bank and Chemung Canal Trust Co., which operates Capital Bank. Berkshire Bank and Pioneer Bank each provided $16 million, while Chemung Canal Trust says its exposure was $4.2 million. All three banks are expected to take losses from the loans that will hurt their quarterly profits, although the exact dollar amounts are not yet clear.
Cachet Financial Services, MyPayrollHR's California-based payroll processor, has made similar claims, citing what it has described as the apparent rerouting of payments intended for workers. Cachet has, however, admitted that its initial attempt to claw back those funds contained coding errors that ended up causing the multiple withdrawals, and an industry trade group has said the company's tactics were not in compliance with industry standards.
MyPayrollHR and Cachet are now facing class-action suits brought by affected workers.
Wendy Slavkin, a lawyer for Cachet's parent company, FBG Holdings, told the Times Union earlier this month that somebody from MyPayrollHR tampered with the electronic money-transfer system, rerouting funds that were meant to pay employees into a separate account at Pioneer Bank controlled by Mann or MyPayrollHR.
The National Automated Clearing House Association, the trade group that has criticized Cachet, said about 8,000 employees from 400 companies were affected by the reversals.
Mann had not been seen or heard from since the fiasco became public Sept. 6.
Koenig, Mann's lawyer, told the Times Union last week that his client had "proactively" contacted and was cooperating with federal authorities.
"He has not vanished," Koenig said. "He is not an international fugitive. He is not in hiding."
During an interview Monday, Koenig reiterated that Mann voluntarily met with the U.S. Attorney's Office and is cooperating with the investigation.
"I understand that there is a lot of public interest in this case, and a lot of questions," Koenig said. "But out of respect for the integrity of the investigation, Michael [Mann] will not be making any public statements or answering any questions other than those asked by investigators."
Staff writer Larry Rulison contributed.
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Quiet Chaos
Quiet Chaos is what Pietro Paladini has felt in his heart ever since his wife's sudden death. Pietro is a successful executive, happily married and father of a 10-year old daughter, Claudia. One day, after having saved the lives of two women who were drowning, he arrives home only to discover his wife has suddenly died. From that moment on his life changes radically. Pietro takes Claudia to school on her first day back and decides spontaneously to wait for her until classes are over. He sits in his car, wanders in the park and has coffee at a nearby cafe. He decides to do the same the following day and the days after that. Pietro waits each day for the pain to arrive. His bosses, fellow workers and relatives all come to console him but end up confiding their own pain and difficulties, surrendering to his incomprehensible calm.Gradually, Pietro begins to look at the world through new eyes. In the end, it is through his love for his daughter that Pietro finds the key to a kind of spiritual rebirth and emerges from this journey with a newfound love of life.
New Wave Films
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Must see Christmas Movies!
If you are looking for some Christmas movies to get you in the Christmas spirit, we have got your covered!
Our curated list below includes 25 naughty and nice Christmas selections for you and yours, get the popcorn on and enjoy!
1. ELF (2003)- Rated PG
Comedy starring Will Ferrell, James Can, Bob Newhart.
🎅🎄
A post shared by Buddy The Elf 🎄 (@elfmovie) on Dec 23, 2013 at 9:34am PST
2. HOME ALONE (1990)- Rated PG
Comedy starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern.
3. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) - Rated PG
Drama starring James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore.
4. NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION (1989) - Rated PG
Comedy starring Chevy Chase, Beverly D’Angelo and Juliette Lewis.
5. THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS (1993) - Rated PG
Animation/Family/Fantasy starring Danny Elfman, Chris Sarandon and Catherine O’Hara.
6. DIE HARD (1988) - Rated 18+
Action starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman and Bonnie Bedelia.
7. LOVE ACTUALLY (2003) - Rated MA
Comedy/drama starring Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Keira Knightly, and Emma Thompson.
8. BAD SANTA (2003) - Rated MA
Comedy/crime drama starring Billy Bob Thornton, Bernie Mac and Lauren Graham.
9. SCROOGED (1988) - Rated PG
Comedy/drama starring Bill Murray, Karen Allen and John Forsythe.
10. DR. SEUSS’ HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (2000) - Rated PG
Comedy/family starring Jim Carrey and Taylor Momsen.
11. THE HOLIDAY (2006) - Rated M
Comedy/romance starring Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Jack Black.
12. FOUR CHRISTMASES (2008) - Rated M
Comedy/romance starring Reese Witherspoon, Vince Vaughn and Mary Steenburgen.
13. THE FAMILY MAN (2000) - Rated M
Comedy/drama starring Nicholas Cage, Tea Leonie and Don Cheadle.
14. THE SANTA CLAUSE (1994) - Rated PG
Comedy/drama starring Tim Allen, Judge Reinhold and Wendy Crewson.
15. MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (1947) - Rated PG
Comedy/drama starring John Payne, Maureen O’Hara and Edmund Green.
16. THE POLAR EXPRESS (2004) - Rated PG
Animation/adventure starring Tom Hanks, Chris Coppola and Michael Jeter.
17. DECK THE HALLS (2006) - Rated PG
Comedy/family starring Matthew Broderick, Danny Devito, Kristen Chenoweth.
18. CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS (2004) - Rated PG
Comedy/family starring Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Aykroyd.
19. JINGLE ALL THE WAY (1996) - Rated PG
Comedy/family starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sinbad and Phil Hartman.
20. GREMLINS (1984) - Rated M
Comedy/fantasy/horror starring Zach Galligan and Phoebe Cates.
21. ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (2011) - Rated PG
Animation/adventure/comedy/family/fantasy starring James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy
22. A CHRISTMAS STORY (1983) - Rated PG
Comedy/family starring Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon, Darren McGavin
23. THE NIGHT BEFORE (2015) - Rated R
Comedy/fantasy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Jillian Bell
24. THE KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS (2019) - Rated PG
Adventure/comedy/drama/fantasy/romance starring Vanessa Hudgens, Josh Whitehouse, Emmanuelle Chriqui
25. SURVIVING CHRISTMAS (2004) - Rated PG-13
Comedy/romance starring Ben Affleck, Christina Applegate, James Gandolfini
Image credit 1: Bigstock
Severe thunderstorms likely across parts of the Sunshine Coast
Wild weather is predicted to...
Man dies in crash near Gympie
A man has died after a motorbike and car...
Lifeguards save woman caught in rip at unpatrolled beach
Rough surf and rips have left a man clinging to...
Have you seen this missing man?
We are being urged to keep an eye out for...
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NGO urges Singapore to allow opposition leader’s visit
Deutsch Press Agency
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/news/archives/taiwan/2007111/99707.htm
A US-based non-government organization (NGO) called Wednesday on Singapore’s government to allow an opposition party leader to attend a meeting of democracy activists in Taiwan.
The appeal from the nongovernmental international steering committee (ISC) of the Community of Democracies coincided with the third day of bankrupt Chee Soon Juan’s trial for attempting to leave the city-state without official permission from the Insolvency and Public Trustee’s Office.
Chee, the 44-year-old head of the Singapore Democratic Party, is one of 20 members of the committee, a network of activists claiming to support “the freedom of people in all parts of the world.” “We call on the government of Singapore to permit him to travel to attend the January 22-23 meeting of the ISC” to be held in Taipei and the January 23-24 Roundtable on Democracy in Asia, members said in a statement.
It further urged the government “to fully respect and restore Chee’s civil rights including his right to travel abroad without restriction.”
Among the signatories were 14 leaders and representatives of civil society groups in South Africa, the Philippines, Russia, the United States, Chile, Mali, Tunisia, Italy, Romania, Egypt, France and Cameroon. Chee’s lawyer has maintained that the travel restrictions imposed on his client were unconstitutional. Chee was stopped at Changi Airport while trying to board a flight bound for Istanbul, Turkey, where he planned to attend a World Movement for Democracy meeting.
He was declared bankrupt early last year for failing to pay S$500,000 (US$331,000) in damages to Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Singapore’s founding father Lee Kuan Yew for defaming them during the 2001 general election.
Chee, who emerged from a three-week stint in jail last month, faces a fine of S$10,000, jail for up to one year, or both if convicted in the current case.
He had opted to go to jail instead of paying a S$5,000 fine after he was convicted in November for speaking in public without a permit last April in the run-up to the general election. The People’s Action Party, which has dominated Singapore politics since independence in 1965, captured 82 of the 84 parliamentary seats.
It was the fifth time in seven years that Chee went to jail instead of paying a fine.
Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have criticized the city-state for strictly limiting speech to muzzle its critics.
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Three historically black Baptist churches have burned within 10 days in one Louisiana parish
Within ten days, three historically black churches in one Louisiana parish have burned.
Authorities are still investigating, as they’ve identified “suspicious elements” in each case; investigators haven’t ruled out arson, or whether the fires are connected. But given the United States’ long, racist history of burning black places of worship, people are understandably anxious.
“There is clearly something happening in this community,” said Louisiana State Fire Marshal H. “Butch” Browning, “That’s why it’s imperative that the citizens of this community be part of our effort to figure out what it is.”
The first of three fires was reported at the St. Mary Baptist Church in St. Landry Parish on March 26. Just over ten miles southwest, a second fire was reported at the Greater Union Baptist Church on April 2. Two days later and roughly seven miles away, a third fire at the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church was reported. There were no reported deaths or injuries, as the churches were vacant at the time of the conflagrations.
Each of the churches involved is over 100 years old and linked through the District Missionary Baptist Association, according to KLFY. Rev. Gerald Toussaint, the pastor at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, told the New York Times he learned his church was ablaze on his way to work; his wife called him after she saw the news on social media. The church, founded in the 19th century, was practically gone except for one brick wall and the remains of a front corridor.
“I’m trying to find out who did it, why they did it, did it have anything to do with me,” Toussaint, who also drives trucks to make a living, told the Times.
“I don’t know none of this,” he added.
Separately, a fourth fire was “intentionally set,” officials say, at a predominately white church in Caddo Parish on March 31.
In addition to local authorities, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Federal Bureau of Investigation are investigating the fires.
“Our churches are sacred, central parts of our communities and everyone should feel safe in their place of worship. We do not know the cause of these fires in St. Landry and Caddo parishes, but my heart goes out to each of the congregations and all of those who call these churches home,” said Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), in a statement.
The black community has long relied on churches for organizing and advocacy, which is why they’ve so often been targeted. There have been at least 100 church burnings since the 1950s, according to the Huffington Post — with the caveat that this is far from an exhaustive list because many burnings, bombings, and other acts of domestic terrorism went unreported during the Civil Rights era.
Fires by arson at places of worship are a not-uncommon hate crime. In 1996, in the wake of church attacks, Congress passed the Church Arson Prevention Act, which makes it a federal crime to intentionally deface, damage, or destroy any religious property.
Terrorizing black churches isn’t limited to arson. In 2015, nine black churchgoers were murdered by a white supremacist at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina — an act of domestic terrorism that shocked the nation.
Despite the fact that homegrown terrorism is on the rise and right-wing extremist movements have been tied to the majority of the most lethal acts of terror, the Department of Homeland Security recently disbanded a group of analysts focused on this issue, according to the Daily Beast.
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ID:6138 Section: Place
Updated:Monday 13th October 2014
Europe Definition
(Wikipedia) - Europe This article is about the continent. For the political union, see EU. For other uses, see Europe (disambiguation) .
Area 10,180,000 km2 (3,930,000 sq mi)
Population 742,452,000 (2013, 3rd)
Pop. density 72.9/km2 (about 188/sq mi)
Demonym European
Countries 50 (and 6 partially recognised) (list of countries)
Languages List of languages
Time zones UTC to UTC+6
Internet TLD .eu (European Union)
Metropolitan areas in Europe
Europe (i/ˈjʊərəp/ or /ˈjɜrəp/) is a continent that comprises the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia. It is generally divided from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting the Black and Aegean Seas.
Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and the Black Sea and connected waterways to the southeast. Yet the borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary, as the primarily physiographic term "continent" also incorporates cultural and political elements.
Europe is the world''s second-smallest continent by surface area, covering about 10,180,000 square kilometres (3,930,000 sq mi) or 2% of the Earth''s surface and about 6.8% of its land area. Of Europe''s approximately 50 countries, Russia is by far the largest by both area and population, taking up 40% of the continent (although the country has territory in both Europe and Asia), while Vatican City is the smallest. Europe is the third-most populous continent after Asia and Africa, with a population of 739-743 million or about 11% of the world''s population. The most commonly used currency is the euro.
Europe, in particular ancient Greece, is the birthplace of Western culture. It played a predominant role in global affairs from the 15th century onwards, especially after the beginning of colonialism. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European nations controlled at various times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania, and the overwhelming majority of Asia. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain around the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe, and eventually the wider world. Demographic growth meant that, by 1900, Europe''s share of the world''s population was 25%.
Both world wars were largely focused upon Europe, greatly contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the United States and Soviet Union took prominence. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east. European integration led to the formation of the Council of Europe and the European Union in Western Europe, both of which have been expanding eastward since the revolutions of 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Union nowadays has growing influence over its member countries. Many European countries are members of the Schengen Area, which abolishes border and immigration controls among its members.
3.1 Prehistory
3.2 Classical antiquity
3.3 Early Middle Ages
3.4 Middle Ages
3.5 Early modern period
3.6 18th and 19th centuries
3.7 20th century to the present
4.2 Geology
4.2.1 Geological history
4.3 Biodiversity
5 Political geography
6 Integration
7.1 Pre–1945: Industrial growth
7.2 1945–1990: The Cold War
7.3 1991–2007: Integration and reunification
7.4 2008–2010: Recession
8.1 Language
Definition Further information: List of transcontinental countries Further information: Boundaries between continents
Clickable map of Europe, showing one of the most commonly used continental boundaries Key: blue: states which straddle the border between Europe and Asia; green: states not geographically in Europe, but closely associated politically
Alb.And.AustriaArmeniaAzer.BelarusBelgiumBiHBulgariaCroatiaCyprusCzech Rep.DenmarkEstoniaFinlandFranceGermanyGeorgiaGreeceGreenland (Dk)HungaryIcelandIrelandItalyS. Mar.KazakhstanKos.LatviaLiech.LithuaniaLux.Mac.MaltaMoldovaMon.Mont.Neth.NorwaySvalbard (Nor)PolandPortugalRomaniaRussiaSerbiaSlovakiaSlo.SpainSwedenSwitz-erlandTurkeyUkraineUnited KingdomFar. (Dk)Vat.
Adr-iaticSeaArctic OceanBaltic SeaAegeanSeaBarents SeaBay of BiscayBlack SeaAzov SeaCaspian SeaCeltic SeaGreenland SeaBaffin BayGulf of CádizLigurian SeaMediterranean SeaNorth Atlantic OceanNorth SeaNorwegian SeaStrait of GibraltarReconstruction of Herodotus'' world mapA medieval T and O map from 1472 showing the three continents as domains of the sons of Noah — Asia to Sem (Shem), Europe to Iafeth (Japheth), and Africa to Cham (Ham)Europa regina map from Münster (1570). The British Isles and Scandinavia are not included in Europe proper.
The use of the term "Europe" has developed gradually throughout history. In antiquity, the Greek historian Herodotus mentioned that the world had been divided by unknown persons into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya (Africa), with the Nile and the River Phasis forming their boundaries—though he also states that some considered the River Don, rather than the Phasis, as the boundary between Europe and Asia. Europe''s eastern frontier was defined in the 1st century by geographer Strabo at the River Don. The Book of Jubilees described the continents as the lands given by Noah to his three sons; Europe was defined as stretching from the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar, separating it from North Africa, to the Don, separating it from Asia.
A cultural definition of Europe as the lands of Latin Christendom coalesced in the 8th century, signifying the new cultural condominium created through the confluence of Germanic traditions and Christian-Latin culture, defined partly in contrast with Byzantium and Islam, and limited to northern Iberia, the British Isles, France, Christianized western Germany, the Alpine regions and northern and central Italy. The concept is one of the lasting legacies of the Carolingian Renaissance: "Europa" often figures in the letters of Charlemagne''s court scholar, Alcuin. This division—as much cultural as geographical—was used until the Late Middle Ages, when it was challenged by the Age of Discovery. The problem of redefining Europe was finally resolved in 1730 when, instead of waterways, the Swedish geographer and cartographer von Strahlenberg proposed the Ural Mountains as the most significant eastern boundary, a suggestion that found favour in Russia and throughout Europe.
Europe is now generally defined by geographers as the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, with its boundaries marked by large bodies of water to the north, west and south; Europe''s limits to the far east are usually taken to be the Urals, the Ural River, and the Caspian Sea; to the southeast, including the Caucasus Mountains, the Black Sea and the waterways connecting the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
Islands are generally grouped with the nearest continental landmass, hence Iceland is generally considered to be part of Europe, while the nearby island of Greenland is usually assigned to North America. Nevertheless, there are some exceptions based on sociopolitical and cultural differences. Cyprus is closest to Anatolia (or Asia Minor), but is usually considered part of Europe both culturally and politically and currently is a member state of the EU. Malta was considered an island of North Africa for centuries.
Sometimes, the word ''Europe'' is used in a geopolitically limiting way to refer only to the European Union or, even more exclusively, a culturally defined core. On the other hand, the Council of Europe has 47 member countries, and only 28 member states are in the EU. In addition, people in the British Isles may refer to "continental" or "mainland" Europe as Europe.
EtymologyEuropa and the bull on a Greek vase. Tarquinia Museum, c. 480 BC
In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus abducted after assuming the form of a dazzling white bull. He took her to the island of Crete where she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Sarpedon. For Homer, Europe (Ancient Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē; see also List of Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation.
The etymology of Europe is uncertain. One theory suggests that it is derived from the Greek εὐρύς (eurus), meaning "wide, broad" and ὤψ/ὠπ-/ὀπτ- (ōps/ōp-/opt-), meaning "eye, face, countenance", hence Eurṓpē, "wide-gazing", "broad of aspect" (compare with glaukōpis (γλαυκῶπις ''grey-eyed'') Athena or boōpis (βοὠπις ''ox-eyed'') Hera). Broad has been an epithet of Earth itself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion. Another theory suggests that it is based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" (in reference to the sun), cognate to Phoenician ''ereb "evening; west" and Arabic Maghreb, Hebrew ma''arav (see also Erebus, PIE *h1regʷos, "darkness"). However, Martin Litchfield West states that "phonologically, the match between Europa''s name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor".
Whatever the origin of the name of the mythological figure, Εὐρώπη is first used as a geographical term in the 6th century BC, by Greek geographers such as Anaximander and Hecataeus. Anaximander placed the boundary between Asia and Europe along the Phasis River (the modern Rioni) in the Caucasus, a convention still followed by Herodotus in the 5th century BC. But the convention received by the Middle Ages and surviving into modern usage is that of the Roman era used by Roman era authors such as Posidonius, Strabo and Ptolemy, who took the Tanais (the modern Don River) as the boundary. The term "Europe" is first used for a cultural sphere in the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century. From that time, the term designated the sphere of influence of the Western Church, as opposed to both the Eastern Orthodox churches and to the Islamic world. The modern convention, enlarging the area of "Europe" somewhat to the east and the southeast, develops in the 19th century.
Most major world languages use words derived from "Europa" to refer to the "continent" (peninsula). Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲); a similar Chinese-derived term Ōshū (欧州?) is also sometimes used in Japanese such as in the Japanese name of the European Union, Ōshū Rengō (欧州連合?), despite the katakana Yōroppa (ヨーロッパ?) being more commonly used. However, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan (land of the Franks) is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa.
History Main article: History of Europe Prehistory Main article: Prehistoric EuropeĠgantija, MaltaThe Lady of Vinča, neolithic pottery from SerbiaStonehenge, EnglandThe Nebra sky disk from Bronze Age Germany
Homo erectus georgicus, which lived roughly 1.8 million years ago in Georgia, is the earliest hominid to have been discovered in Europe. Other hominid remains, dating back roughly 1 million years, have been discovered in Atapuerca, Spain. Neanderthal man (named after the Neandertal valley in Germany) appeared in Europe 150,000 years ago and disappeared from the fossil record about 28,000 BC, with this extinction probably due to climate change, and their final refuge being present-day Portugal. The Neanderthals were supplanted by modern humans (Cro-Magnons), who appeared in Europe around 43 to 40 thousand years ago.
The European Neolithic period—marked by the cultivation of crops and the raising of livestock, increased numbers of settlements and the widespread use of pottery—began around 7000 BC in Greece and the Balkans, probably influenced by earlier farming practices in Anatolia and the Near East. It spread from the Balkans along the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine (Linear Pottery culture) and along the Mediterranean coast (Cardial culture). Between 4500 and 3000 BC, these central European neolithic cultures developed further to the west and the north, transmitting newly acquired skills in producing copper artefacts. In Western Europe the Neolithic period was characterised not by large agricultural settlements but by field monuments, such as causewayed enclosures, burial mounds and megalithic tombs. The Corded Ware cultural horizon flourished at the transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. During this period giant megalithic monuments, such as the Megalithic Temples of Malta and Stonehenge, were constructed throughout Western and Southern Europe. The European Bronze Age began c. 3200 BC in Greece.
The European Iron Age began around 1200 BC. Iron Age colonisation by the Greeks and Phoenicians gave rise to early Mediterranean cities. Early Iron Age Italy and Greece from around the 8th century BC gradually gave rise to historical Classical antiquity.
Classical antiquity Main article: Classical antiquity See also: Ancient Greece and Ancient RomeThe Parthenon in Athens
Ancient Greece had a profound influence on Western civilisation. Western democratic and individualistic culture are often attributed to Ancient Greece. The Greeks invented the polis, or city-state, which played a fundamental role in their concept of identity. These Greek political ideals were rediscovered in the late 18th century by European philosophers and idealists. Greece also generated many cultural contributions: in philosophy, humanism and rationalism under Aristotle, Socrates and Plato; in history with Herodotus and Thucydides; in dramatic and narrative verse, starting with the epic poems of Homer; in medicine with Hippocrates and Galen; and in science with Pythagoras, Euclid and Archimedes.
The Roman Empire at its greatest extent
Another major influence came on Europe that would impact Western civilisation from the Roman Empire which left its mark on law, politics, language, engineering, architecture, government and many more aspects in western civilisation. During the pax romana, the Roman Empire expanded to encompass the entire Mediterranean Basin and much of Europe.
Stoicism influenced Roman emperors such as Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius, who all spent time on the Empire''s northern border fighting Germanic, Pictish and Scottish tribes. Christianity was eventually legitimised by Constantine I after three centuries of imperial persecution.
Early Middle Ages Main articles: Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages See also: Dark Ages (historiography) and Age of MigrationsEurope c. 650Charlemagne''s empire in 814: Frankia, Tributaries
During the decline of the Roman Empire, Europe entered a long period of change arising from what historians call the "Age of Migrations". There were numerous invasions and migrations amongst the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Goths, Vandals, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Slavs, Avars, Bulgars and, later on, the Vikings, Pechenegs, Cumans and Magyars. Renaissance thinkers such as Petrarch would later refer to this as the "Dark Ages". Isolated monastic communities were the only places to safeguard and compile written knowledge accumulated previously; apart from this very few written records survive and much literature, philosophy, mathematics, and other thinking from the classical period disappeared from Europe.
From the 7th century, Byzantine history was greatly affected by the rise of Islam and the Caliphates. Muslim Arabs first invaded historically Roman territory under Abū Bakr, first Caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate, who entered Roman Syria and Roman Mesopotamia. Under Umar, the second Caliph, the Muslims decisively conquered Syria and Mesopotamia, as well as Roman Palestine, Roman Egypt, and parts of Asia Minor and Roman North Africa. This trend continued under Umar''s successors and under the Umayyad Caliphate, which conquered the rest of Mediterranean North Africa and most of the Iberian Peninsula. Over the next centuries Muslim forces were able to take further European territory, including Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily and parts of southern Italy. In the East, Volga Bulgaria became an Islamic state in the 10th century.
The Muslim conquest of Hispania began when the Moors (mostly Berbers with some Arabs) invaded the Christian Visigothic kingdom of Iberia in the year 711, under their Berber leader Tariq ibn Ziyad. They landed at Gibraltar on 30 April and worked their way northward. Tariq''s forces were joined the next year by those of his superior, Musa ibn Nusair. During the eight-year campaign most of the Iberian Peninsula was brought under Muslim rule — save for small areas in the northwest (Asturias) and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees, with the exception of the Basque Banu Qasi Muslim dynasty. This territory, under the Arabic name Al-Andalus, became part of the expanding Umayyad empire.
Roland pledges fealty to Charlemagne, Holy Roman EmperorDelegations of Croats and Serbs at Byzantine court of Basil I
The unsuccessful second siege of Constantinople (717) weakened the Umayyad dynasty and reduced their prestige. After their success in over-running Iberia, the conquerors moved northeast across the Pyrenees, but were defeated by the Frankish leader Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732, though they continued to raid and capture cities as far as Avignon. The Umayyads were overthrown in 750 by the ''Abbāsids and most of the Umayyad clan massacred.
A surviving Umayyad prince, Abd al-Rahman I, escaped to Iberia and founded a new Umayyad dynasty in the Emirate of Cordoba, (756). Charles Martel''s son, Pippin the Short retook Narbonne, and his grandson Charlemagne established the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. The Umayyads in Iberia proclaimed themselves caliphs in 929.
During the Dark Ages, the Western Roman Empire fell under the control of various tribes. The Germanic and Slav tribes established their domains over Western and Eastern Europe respectively. Eventually the Frankish tribes were united under Clovis I. Charlemagne, a Frankish king of the Carolingian dynasty who had conquered most of Western Europe, was anointed "Holy Roman Emperor" by the Pope in 800. This led in 962 to the founding of the Holy Roman Empire, which eventually became centred in the German principalities of central Europe.
East Central Europe saw the creation of Slavic states and the adoption of Christianity (circa 1000 AD). Powerful West Slavic state of Great Moravia spread its territory all the way south to the Balkan Slavs. Moravia reached its largest territorial extent under Svatopluk I and caused a series of armed conflicts with East Francia. Further south, placed between the Frankish Empire and the Byzantines, the first South Slavic states emerged in the late 7th and 8th century: First Bulgarian Empire, Serbian Principality (later Kingdom and Empire) and Duchy of Croatia (later Kingdom of Croatia).
The predominantly Greek speaking Eastern Roman Empire retroactively became known in the West as the Byzantine Empire. Its capital was Constantinople. Emperor Justinian I presided over Constantinople''s first golden age: he established a legal code, funded the construction of the Hagia Sophia and brought the Christian church under state control. Fatally weakened by the sack of Constantinople in 1204, during the Fourth Crusade, Byzantium fell in 1453 when it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire.
Middle Ages Main articles: High Middle Ages, Late Middle Ages and Middle Ages See also: Medieval demography
The economic growth of Europe around the year 1000, together with the lack of safety on the mainland trading routes, made possible the development of major commercial routes along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. In this context, the growing independence acquired by some coastal cities gave the Maritime Republics a leading role in the European scene.
Tancred of Sicily and Philip II of France, during the Third Crusade
The Middle Ages on the mainland were dominated by the two upper echelons of the social structure: the nobility and the clergy. Feudalism developed in France in the Early Middle Ages and soon spread throughout Europe. A struggle for influence between the nobility and the monarchy in England led to the writing of the Magna Carta and the establishment of a parliament. The primary source of culture in this period came from the Roman Catholic Church. Through monasteries and cathedral schools, the Church was responsible for education in much of Europe.
The Papacy reached the height of its power during the High Middle Ages. An East-West Schism in 1054 split the former Roman Empire religiously, with the Eastern Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire and the Roman Catholic Church in the former Western Roman Empire. In 1095 Pope Urban II called for a crusade against Muslims occupying Jerusalem and the Holy Land. In Europe itself, the Church organised the Inquisition against heretics. In Spain, the Reconquista concluded with the fall of Granada in 1492, ending over seven centuries of Islamic rule in the Iberian Peninsula.
The sacking of Suzdal by Batu Khan in 1238, during the Mongol invasion of Europe.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, constant incursions by nomadic Turkic tribes, such as the Pechenegs and the Cuman-Kipchaks, caused a massive migration of Slavic populations to the safer, heavily forested regions of the north and temporarily halted the expansion of the Rus'' state to the south and east. Like many other parts of Eurasia, these territories were overrun by the Mongols. The invaders, who became known as Tatars, were mostly Turkic-speaking peoples under Mongol suzerainty. They established the state of the Golden Horde with headquarters in Crimea, which later adopted Islam as a religion and ruled over modern-day southern and central Russia for more than three centuries. After the collapse of Mongol dominions, the first Romanian states (principalities) emerged in the 14th century: Moldova and Walachia. Previously, these territories were under the successive control of Pechenegs and Cumans.
The Great Famine of 1315–1317 was the first crisis that would strike Europe in the late Middle Ages. The period between 1348 and 1420 witnessed the heaviest loss. The population of France was reduced by half. Medieval Britain was afflicted by 95 famines, and France suffered the effects of 75 or more in the same period. Europe was devastated in the mid-14th century by the Black Death, one of the most deadly pandemics in human history which killed an estimated 25 million people in Europe alone—a third of the European population at the time.
The plague had a devastating effect on Europe''s social structure; it induced people to live for the moment as illustrated by Giovanni Boccaccio in The Decameron (1353). It was a serious blow to the Roman Catholic Church and led to increased persecution of Jews, foreigners, beggars and lepers. The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 18th century. During this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.
Early modern period Main article: Early modern period See also: Renaissance, Protestant Reformation, Scientific Revolution and Age of DiscoveryThe School of Athens by Raphael: Contemporaries such as Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci (centre) are portrayed as classical scholars
The Renaissance was a period of cultural change originating in Florence and later spreading to the rest of Europe. in the 14th century. The rise of a new humanism was accompanied by the recovery of forgotten classical Greek and Arabic knowledge from monastic libraries, often translated from Arabic into Latin. The Renaissance spread across Europe between the 14th and 16th centuries: it saw the flowering of art, philosophy, music, and the sciences, under the joint patronage of royalty, the nobility, the Roman Catholic Church, and an emerging merchant class. Patrons in Italy, including the Medici family of Florentine bankers and the Popes in Rome, funded prolific quattrocento and cinquecento artists such as Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo da Vinci.
Political intrigue within the Church in the mid-14th century caused the Western Schism. During this forty-year period, two popes—one in Avignon and one in Rome—claimed rulership over the Church. Although the schism was eventually healed in 1417, the papacy''s spiritual authority had suffered greatly.
Martin Luther initiated the Protestant Reformation
The Church''s power was further weakened by the Protestant Reformation (1517–1648), initially sparked by the works of German theologian Martin Luther, a result of the lack of reform within the Church. The Reformation also damaged the Holy Roman Empire''s power, as German princes became divided between Protestant and Roman Catholic faiths. This eventually led to the Thirty Years War (1618–1648), which crippled the Holy Roman Empire and devastated much of Germany, killing between 25 and 40 percent of its population. In the aftermath of the Peace of Westphalia, France rose to predominance within Europe.
The 17th century in southern, central and eastern Europe was a period of general decline. Central and Eastern Europe experienced more than 150 famines in a 200-year period between 1501 to 1700. From the 15th to 18th centuries, when the disintegrating khanates of the Golden Horde were conquered by Russia, Tatars from the Crimean Khanate frequently raided Eastern Slavic lands to capture slaves. The Battle of Vienna in 1683 broke the advance of the Ottoman Turks into Europe, and marked the political hegemony of the Habsburg dynasty in central Europe. The Nogai Horde and Kazakh Khanate had frequently raided the Slavic-speaking areas of Russia, Ukraine and Poland for at least a hundred years until the Russian expansion and conquest of most of northern Eurasia (i.e. Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Siberia).
The Renaissance and the New Monarchs marked the start of an Age of Discovery, a period of exploration, invention, and scientific development. Among the great figures of the Western scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries were Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Isaac Newton. According to Peter Barrett, "It is widely accepted that ''modern science'' arose in the Europe of the 17th century (towards the end of the Renaissance), introducing a new understanding of the natural world." In the 15th century, Portugal and Spain, two of the greatest naval powers of the time, took the lead in exploring the world. Christopher Columbus reached the New World in 1492 and Vasco da Gama opened the ocean route to the East in 1498, and soon after the Spanish and Portuguese began establishing colonial empires in the Americas and Asia. France, the Netherlands and England soon followed in building large colonial empires with vast holdings in Africa, the Americas, and Asia.
18th and 19th centuries Main article: Modern history See also: Industrial Revolution, French Revolution and Age of EnlightenmentNapoleon''s retreat from Russia in 1812. Napoleon''s Grande Armée had lost about half a million men.
The Age of Enlightenment was a powerful intellectual movement during the 18th century promoting scientific and reason-based thoughts. Discontent with the aristocracy and clergy''s monopoly on political power in France resulted in the French Revolution and the establishment of the First Republic as a result of which the monarchy and many of the nobility perished during the initial reign of terror. Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power in the aftermath of the French Revolution and established the First French Empire that, during the Napoleonic Wars, grew to encompass large parts of Europe before collapsing in 1815 with the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleonic rule resulted in the further dissemination of the ideals of the French Revolution, including that of the nation-state, as well as the widespread adoption of the French models of administration, law, and education. The Congress of Vienna, convened after Napoleon''s downfall, established a new balance of power in Europe centred on the five "Great Powers": the UK, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia. This balance would remain in place until the Revolutions of 1848, during which liberal uprisings affected all of Europe except for Russia and the UK. These revolutions were eventually put down by conservative elements and few reforms resulted. The year 1859 saw the unification of Romania, as a nation-state, from smaller principalities. In 1867, the Austro-Hungarian empire was formed; and 1871 saw the unifications of both Italy and Germany as nation-states from smaller principalities.
Ottoman Europe in 1856
In parallel, the Eastern Question grew more complex ever since the Ottoman defeat in the Russo-Turkish War (1768–1774). As the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire seemed imminent, the Great Powers struggled to safeguard their strategic and commercial interests in the Ottoman domains. The Russian Empire stood to benefit from the decline, whereas the Habsburg Empire and Britain perceived the preservation of the Ottoman Empire to be in their best interests. Meanwhile, the Serbian revolution and Greek War of Independence marked the birth of nationalism in the Balkans. Formal recognition of the de facto independent principalities of Montenegro, Serbia and Romania ensued at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
Marshall''s Temple Works, the Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain
The Industrial Revolution started in Great Britain in the last part of the 18th century and spread throughout Europe. The invention and implementation of new technologies resulted in rapid urban growth, mass employment, and the rise of a new working class. Reforms in social and economic spheres followed, including the first laws on child labour, the legalisation of trade unions, and the abolition of slavery. In Britain, the Public Health Act of 1875 was passed, which significantly improved living conditions in many British cities. Europe''s population increased from about 100 million in 1700 to 400 million by 1900. The last major famine recorded in Western Europe, the Irish Potato Famine, caused death and mass emigration of millions of Irish people. In the 19th century, 70 million people left Europe in migrations to various European colonies abroad and to the United States.
20th century to the present Main articles: Modern era and History of Europe See also: World War I, Great Depression, Interwar period, World War II, Cold War and History of the European Union
Leaders of the Central Powers (left to right):
Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany;
Kaiser and King Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary;
Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire;
Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria.
Two World Wars and an economic depression dominated the first half of the 20th century. World War I was fought between 1914 and 1918. It started when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated by the Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip. Most European nations were drawn into the war, which was fought between the Entente Powers (France, Belgium, Serbia, Portugal, Russia, the United Kingdom, and later Italy, Greece, Romania, and the United States) and the Central Powers (Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire). The War left more than 16 million civilians and military dead. Over 60 million European soldiers were mobilised from 1914 to 1918.
Ruins of Guernica (1937). The Spanish Civil War claimed the lives of over 500,000 people.
Partly as a result of its defeat Russia was plunged into the Russian Revolution, which threw down the Tsarist monarchy and replaced it with the communist Soviet Union. Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire collapsed and broke up into separate nations, and many other nations had their borders redrawn. The Treaty of Versailles, which officially ended World War I in 1919, was harsh towards Germany, upon whom it placed full responsibility for the war and imposed heavy sanctions.
Excess deaths in Russia over the course of World War I and the Russian Civil War (including the postwar famine) amounted to a combined total of 18 million. In 1932–1933, under Stalin''s leadership, confiscations of grain by the Soviet authorities contributed to the second Soviet famine which caused millions of deaths; surviving kulaks were persecuted and many sent to Gulags to do forced labour. Stalin was also responsible for the Great Purge of 1937–38 in which the NKVD executed 681,692 people; millions of people were deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union.
Economic instability, caused in part by debts incurred in the First World War and ''loans'' to Germany played havoc in Europe in the late 1920s and 1930s. This and the Wall Street Crash of 1929 brought about the worldwide Great Depression. Helped by the economic crisis, social instability and the threat of communism, fascist movements developed throughout Europe placing Adolf Hitler of Nazi Germany, Francisco Franco of Spain and Benito Mussolini of Italy in power.
In 1933, Hitler became the leader of Germany and began to work towards his goal of building Greater Germany. Germany re-expanded and took back the Saarland and Rhineland in 1935 and 1936. In 1938, Austria became a part of Germany following the Anschluss. Later that year, following the Munich Agreement signed by Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, Germany annexed the Sudetenland, which was a part of Czechoslovakia inhabited by ethnic Germans, and in early 1939, the remainder of Czechoslovakia was split into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, controlled by Germany, and the Slovak Republic. At the time, Britain and France preferred a policy of appeasement.
Burned-out buildings in Hamburg, 1944 or 45
With tensions mounting between Germany and Poland over the future of Danzig, the Germans turned to the Soviets, and signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, which allowed the Soviets to invade the Baltic states and parts of Poland and Romania. Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, prompting France and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany on 3 September, opening the European Theatre of World War II. The Soviet invasion of Poland started on 17 September and Poland fell soon thereafter. On 24 September, the Soviet Union attacked the Baltic countries and later, Finland. The British hoped to land at Narvik and send troops to aid Finland, but their primary objective in the landing was to encircle Germany and cut the Germans off from Scandinavian resources. Around the same time, Germany moved troops into Denmark. The Phoney War continued.
In May 1940, Germany attacked France through the Low Countries. France capitulated in June 1940. By August Germany began a bombing offensive on Britain, but failed to convince the Britons to give up. In 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in the Operation Barbarossa. On 7 December 1941 Japan''s attack on Pearl Harbor drew the United States into the conflict as allies of the British Empire and other allied forces.
The "Big Three" at the Yalta Conference in 1945; seated (from the left): Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin
After the staggering Battle of Stalingrad in 1943, the German offensive in the Soviet Union turned into a continual fallback. The Battle of Kursk, which involved the largest tank battle in history, was the last major German offensive on the Eastern Front. In 1944, British and American forces invaded France in the D-Day landings, opening a new front against Germany. Berlin finally fell in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The war was the largest and most destructive in human history, with 60 million dead across the world. More than 40 million people in Europe had died as a result of World War II, including between 11 and 17 million people who perished during the Holocaust. The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people (mostly civilians) during the war, about half of all World War II casualties. By the end of World War II, Europe had more than 40 million refugees. Several post-war expulsions in Central and Eastern Europe displaced a total of about 20 million people.
The Schuman Declaration led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. It began the integration process of the European Union. (9 May 1950, at the French Foreign Ministry)
World War I and especially World War II diminished the eminence of Western Europe in world affairs. After World War II the map of Europe was redrawn at the Yalta Conference and divided into two blocs, the Western countries and the communist Eastern bloc, separated by what was later called by Winston Churchill an "Iron Curtain". The United States and Western Europe established the NATO alliance and later the Soviet Union and Central Europe established the Warsaw Pact.
The two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, became locked in a fifty-year long Cold War, centred on nuclear proliferation. At the same time decolonisation, which had already started after World War I, gradually resulted in the independence of most of the European colonies in Asia and Africa. In the 1980s the reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev and the Solidarity movement in Poland accelerated the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the end of the Cold War. Germany was reunited, after the symbolic fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the maps of Central and Eastern Europe were redrawn once more.
European integration also grew after World War II. The Treaty of Rome in 1957 established the European Economic Community between six Western European states with the goal of a unified economic policy and common market. In 1967 the EEC, European Coal and Steel Community and Euratom formed the European Community, which in 1993 became the European Union. The EU established a parliament, court and central bank and introduced the euro as a unified currency. In 2004 and 2007, more Central and Eastern European countries began joining, expanding the EU to its current size of 28 European countries, and once more making Europe a major economical and political centre of power.
European development
Territorial development of the Roman Empire 264 BC-192 AD
Europe in 814 AD
Europe in 1000 AD
Europe in 1430
Europe and German Confederation in 1820
Geography Main article: Geography of EuropeRelief map of Europe and surrounding regions
Europe is a peninsula that makes up the western fifth of the Eurasian landmass. It has a higher ratio of coast to landmass than any other continent or subcontinent. Its maritime borders are made up of the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas to the south Land relief in Europe shows great variation within relatively small areas. The southern regions are more mountainous, while moving north the terrain descends from the high Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathians, through hilly uplands, into broad, low northern plains, which are vast in the east. This extended lowland is known as the Great European Plain, and at its heart lies the North German Plain. An arc of uplands also exists along the north-western seaboard, which begins in the western parts of the islands of Britain and Ireland, and then continues along the mountainous, fjord-cut spine of Norway.
Land use map of Europe with arable farmland (yellow), forest (dark green), pasture (light green), and tundra or bogs in the north (dark yellow)
This description is simplified. Sub-regions such as the Iberian Peninsula and the Italian Peninsula contain their own complex features, as does mainland Central Europe itself, where the relief contains many plateaus, river valleys and basins that complicate the general trend. Sub-regions like Iceland, Britain, and Ireland are special cases. The former is a land unto itself in the northern ocean which is counted as part of Europe, while the latter are upland areas that were once joined to the mainland until rising sea levels cut them off.
Climate Main article: Climate of EuropeBiomes of Europe and surrounding regions: tundra alpine tundra taiga montane forest temperate broadleaf forest mediterranean forest temperate steppe dry steppe
Europe lies mainly in the temperate climate zones, being subjected to prevailing westerlies.
The climate is milder in comparison to other areas of the same latitude around the globe due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream is nicknamed "Europe''s central heating", because it makes Europe''s climate warmer and wetter than it would otherwise be. The Gulf Stream not only carries warm water to Europe''s coast but also warms up the prevailing westerly winds that blow across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean.
Therefore the average temperature throughout the year of Naples is 16 °C (60.8 °F), while it is only 12 °C (53.6 °F) in New York City which is almost on the same latitude. Berlin, Germany; Calgary, Canada; and Irkutsk, in the Asian part of Russia, lie on around the same latitude; January temperatures in Berlin average around 8 °C (15 °F) higher than those in Calgary, and they are almost 22 °C (40 °F) higher than average temperatures in Irkutsk.
Geology Main article: Geology of Europe
The Geology of Europe is hugely varied and complex, and gives rise to the wide variety of landscapes found across the continent, from the Scottish Highlands to the rolling plains of Hungary.
Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in the European Union (Mount Elbrus is the highest in Europe as a whole).The Adriatic Sea contains over 1300 islands and islets.Europa Point as seen from the Strait of Gibraltar.
Europe''s most significant feature is the dichotomy between highland and mountainous Southern Europe and a vast, partially underwater, northern plain ranging from Ireland in the west to the Ural Mountains in the east. These two halves are separated by the mountain chains of the Pyrenees and Alps/Carpathians. The northern plains are delimited in the west by the Scandinavian Mountains and the mountainous parts of the British Isles. Major shallow water bodies submerging parts of the northern plains are the Celtic Sea, the North Sea, the Baltic Sea complex and Barents Sea.
The northern plain contains the old geological continent of Baltica, and so may be regarded geologically as the "main continent", while peripheral highlands and mountainous regions in the south and west constitute fragments from various other geological continents. Most of the older geology of western Europe existed as part of the ancient microcontinent Avalonia.
Geological history Main article: Geological history of Europe
The geological history of Europe traces back to the formation of the Baltic Shield (Fennoscandia) and the Sarmatian craton, both around 2.25 billion years ago, followed by the Volgo-Uralia shield, the three together leading to the East European craton (≈ Baltica) which became a part of the supercontinent Columbia. Around 1.1 billion years ago, Baltica and Arctica (as part of the Laurentia block) became joined to Rodinia, later resplitting around 550 million years ago to reform as Baltica. Around 440 million years ago Euramerica was formed from Baltica and Laurentia; a further joining with Gondwana then leading to the formation of Pangea. Around 190 million years ago, Gondwana and Laurasia split apart due to the widening of the Atlantic Ocean. Finally, and very soon afterwards, Laurasia itself split up again, into Laurentia (North America) and the Eurasian continent. The land connection between the two persisted for a considerable time, via Greenland, leading to interchange of animal species. From around 50 million years ago, rising and falling sea levels have determined the actual shape of Europe, and its connections with continents such as Asia. Europe''s present shape dates to the late Tertiary period about five million years ago.
Biodiversity See also: Fauna of EuropeBiogeographic regions of Europe and bordering regions
Having lived side-by-side with agricultural peoples for millennia, Europe''s animals and plants have been profoundly affected by the presence and activities of man. With the exception of Fennoscandia and northern Russia, few areas of untouched wilderness are currently found in Europe, except for various national parks.
The main natural vegetation cover in Europe is mixed forest. The conditions for growth are very favourable. In the north, the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Drift warm the continent. Southern Europe could be described as having a warm, but mild climate. There are frequent summer droughts in this region. Mountain ridges also affect the conditions. Some of these (Alps, Pyrenees) are oriented east-west and allow the wind to carry large masses of water from the ocean in the interior. Others are oriented south-north (Scandinavian Mountains, Dinarides, Carpathians, Apennines) and because the rain falls primarily on the side of mountains that is oriented towards the sea, forests grow well on this side, while on the other side, the conditions are much less favourable. Few corners of mainland Europe have not been grazed by livestock at some point in time, and the cutting down of the pre-agricultural forest habitat caused disruption to the original plant and animal ecosystems.
Probably 80 to 90 percent of Europe was once covered by forest. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Ocean. Though over half of Europe''s original forests disappeared through the centuries of deforestation, Europe still has over one quarter of its land area as forest, such as the taiga of Scandinavia and Russia, mixed rainforests of the Caucasus and the Cork oak forests in the western Mediterranean. During recent times, deforestation has been slowed and many trees have been planted. However, in many cases monoculture plantations of conifers have replaced the original mixed natural forest, because these grow quicker. The plantations now cover vast areas of land, but offer poorer habitats for many European forest dwelling species which require a mixture of tree species and diverse forest structure. The amount of natural forest in Western Europe is just 2–3% or less, in European Russia 5–10%. The country with the smallest percentage of forested area is Iceland (1%), while the most forested country is Finland (77%).
Floristic regions of Europe and neighbouring areas, according to Wolfgang Frey and Rainer Lösch
In temperate Europe, mixed forest with both broadleaf and coniferous trees dominate. The most important species in central and western Europe are beech and oak. In the north, the taiga is a mixed spruce–pine–birch forest; further north within Russia and extreme northern Scandinavia, the taiga gives way to tundra as the Arctic is approached. In the Mediterranean, many olive trees have been planted, which are very well adapted to its arid climate; Mediterranean Cypress is also widely planted in southern Europe. The semi-arid Mediterranean region hosts much scrub forest. A narrow east-west tongue of Eurasian grassland (the steppe) extends eastwards from Ukraine and southern Russia and ends in Hungary and traverses into taiga to the north.
Glaciation during the most recent ice age and the presence of man affected the distribution of European fauna. As for the animals, in many parts of Europe most large animals and top predator species have been hunted to extinction. The woolly mammoth was extinct before the end of the Neolithic period. Today wolves (carnivores) and bears (omnivores) are endangered. Once they were found in most parts of Europe. However, deforestation and hunting caused these animals to withdraw further and further. By the Middle Ages the bears'' habitats were limited to more or less inaccessible mountains with sufficient forest cover. Today, the brown bear lives primarily in the Balkan peninsula, Scandinavia, and Russia; a small number also persist in other countries across Europe (Austria, Pyrenees etc.), but in these areas brown bear populations are fragmented and marginalised because of the destruction of their habitat. In addition, polar bears may be found on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago far north of Scandinavia. The wolf, the second largest predator in Europe after the brown bear, can be found primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, with a handful of packs in pockets of Western Europe (Scandinavia, Spain, etc.).
Once roaming the great temperate forests of Eurasia, European bison now live in nature preserves in Białowieża Forest, on the border between Poland and Belarus.
European wild cat, foxes (especially the red fox), jackal and different species of martens, hedgehogs, different species of reptiles (like snakes such as vipers and grass snakes) and amphibians, different birds (owls, hawks and other birds of prey).
Important European herbivores are snails, larvae, fish, different birds, and mammals, like rodents, deer and roe deer, boars, and living in the mountains, marmots, steinbocks, chamois among others. A number of insects, such as the small tortoiseshell butterfly, add to the biodiversity.
The extinction of the dwarf hippos and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on the islands of the Mediterranean.
Sea creatures are also an important part of European flora and fauna. The sea flora is mainly phytoplankton. Important animals that live in European seas are zooplankton, molluscs, echinoderms, different crustaceans, squids and octopuses, fish, dolphins, and whales.
Biodiversity is protected in Europe through the Council of Europe''s Bern Convention, which has also been signed by the European Community as well as non-European states.
Political geography Main article: Politics of Europe See also: List of sovereign states and dependent territories in Europe and Regions of Europe
European states European territory of transcontinental states Modern political map of Europe and the surrounding region Regional grouping used by the United Nations Statistics Department.
Regional grouping according to The World Factbook European Union and its candidate countries Europe according to EuroVoc (the thesaurus of the European Union): Blue - Northern Europe Green - Western Europe Red - Central and Eastern Europe Yellow - Southern Europe Grey - Territories not considered part of Europe
Council of Europe nations Map showing European membership of the EU and NATO Subdivision of Europe according to the cultural criteria
The list below includes all entities falling even partially under any of the various common definitions of Europe, geographic or political. The data displayed are per sources in cross-referenced articles.
Flag Arms Name Area (km²) Population Population density (per km²) Capital Name(s) in official language(s)
Albania 28,748 2,831,741 98.5 Tirana Shqipëria
Andorra 468 68,403 146.2 Andorra la Vella Andorra
Armenia 29,800 3,229,900 101 Yerevan Hayastan
Austria 83,858 8,169,929 97.4 Vienna Österreich
Azerbaijan 86,600 9,165,000 105.8 Baku Azǝrbaycan
Belarus 207,560 9,458,000 45.6 Minsk Belarus
Belgium 30,528 11,007,000 360.6 Brussels België/Belgique/Belgien
Bosnia and Herzegovina 51,129 3,843,126 75.2 Sarajevo Bosna i Hercegovina
Bulgaria 110,910 7,621,337 68.7 Sofia Bălgarija
Croatia 56,542 4,437,460 77.7 Zagreb Hrvatska
Cyprus 9,251 788,457 85 Nicosia Kýpros/Kıbrıs
Czech Republic 78,866 10,256,760 130.1 Prague Česká republika
Denmark 43,094 5,564,219 129 Copenhagen Danmark
Estonia 45,226 1,340,194 29 Tallinn Eesti
Finland 336,593 5,157,537 15.3 Helsinki Suomi/Finland
France 547,030 63,182,000 115.5 Paris France
Georgia 69,700 4,661,473 64 Tbilisi Sakartvelo
Germany 357,021 83,251,851 233.2 Berlin Deutschland
Greece 131,957 11,123,034 80.7 Athens Elláda
Hungary 93,030 10,075,034 108.3 Budapest Magyarország
Iceland 103,000 307,261 2.7 Reykjavík Ísland
Ireland 70,280 4,234,925 60.3 Dublin Éire/Ireland
Italy 301,230 59,530,464 197.7 Rome Italia
Kazakhstan 2,724,900 15,217,711 5.6 Astana Qazaqstan/Kazahstan
Latvia 64,589 2,067,900 34.2 Riga Latvija
Liechtenstein 160 32,842 205.3 Vaduz Liechtenstein
Lithuania 65,200 2,988,400 45.8 Vilnius Lietuva
Luxembourg 2,586 448,569 173.5 Luxembourg Lëtzebuerg/Luxemburg/Luxembourg
Macedonia 25,713 2,054,800 81.1 Skopje Makedonija
Malta 316 397,499 1,257.9 Valletta Malta
Moldova 33,843 4,434,547 131.0 Chișinău Moldova
Monaco 1.95 31,987 16,403.6 Monaco Monaco
Montenegro 13,812 616,258 44.6 Podgorica Crna Gora
Netherlands 41,526 16,318,199 393.0 Amsterdam Nederland
Norway 385,178 5,018,836 15.5 Oslo Norge/Noreg
Poland 312,685 38,625,478 123.5 Warsaw Polska
Portugal 91,568 10,409,995 110.1 Lisbon Portugal
Romania 238,391 21,698,181 91.0 Bucharest România
Russia 17,075,400 142,200,000 8.3 Moscow Rossiya
San Marino 61 27,730 454.6 San Marino San Marino
Serbia 88,361 7,120,666 91.9 Belgrade Srbija
Slovakia 48,845 5,422,366 111.0 Bratislava Slovensko
Slovenia 20,273 2,050,189 101 Ljubljana Slovenija
Spain 504,851 47,059,533 93.2 Madrid España
Sweden 449,964 9,090,113 19.7 Stockholm Sverige
Switzerland 41,290 7,507,000 176.8 Bern Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera/Svizra
Turkey 783,562 75,627,384 98 Ankara Türkiye
Ukraine 603,700 48,396,470 80.2 Kiev Ukrajina
United Kingdom 244,820 61,100,835 244.2 London United Kingdom
Vatican City 0.44 900 2,045.5 Vatican City Città del Vaticano
Total 10,180,000 742,000,000 70
Within the above-mentioned states are several de facto independent countries with limited to no international recognition. None of them are members of the UN:
Flag Arms Name Area (km²) Population (1 July 2002 est.) Population density (per km²) Capital
Abkhazia 8,432 216,000 29 Sukhumi
Kosovo 10,887 1,804,838 220 Pristina
Nagorno-Karabakh 11,458 138,800 12 Stepanakert
Northern Cyprus 3,355 265,100 78 Nicosia
N/A South Ossetia 3,900 70,000 18 Tskhinvali
N/A Transnistria 4,163 537,000 133 Tiraspol
Several dependencies and similar territories with broad autonomy are also found in Europe. Note that the list does not include the constituent countries of the United Kingdom, federal states of Germany and Austria, and autonomous territories of Spain and the post-Soviet republics as well as the republic of Serbia.
Name of territory, with flag Area (km²) Population (1 July 2002 est.) Population density (per km²) Capital
Åland (Finland) 13,517 26,008 16.8 Mariehamn
Faroe Islands (Denmark) 1,399 46,011 32.9 Tórshavn
Gibraltar (UK) 5.9 27,714 4,697.3 Gibraltar
Guernsey (UK) 78 64,587 828.0 St. Peter Port
Isle of Man (UK) 572 73,873 129.1 Douglas
Jersey (UK) 116 89,775 773.9 Saint Helier
IntegrationA clickable Euler diagram showing the relationships between various multinational European organisations and agreements.v • d • eEuropean Union and Commonwealth of Independent StatesMain article: European integration See also: International organizations in Europe
European integration is the process of political, legal, economic (and in some cases social and cultural) integration of states wholly or partially in Europe. In the present day, European integration has primarily come about through the Council of Europe and European Union in Western and Central Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States in Central and Eastern Europe and most of former Soviet countries.
EconomyEuropean and bordering nations by GDP (nominal) per capita in 2012Main article: Economy of Europe
As a continent, the economy of Europe is currently the largest on Earth and it is the richest region as measured by assets under management with over $32.7 trillion compared to North America''s $27.1 trillion in 2008. In 2009 Europe remained the wealthiest region. Its $37.1 trillion in assets under management represented one-third of the world''s wealth. It was one of several regions where wealth surpassed its precrisis year-end peak. As with other continents, Europe has a large variation of wealth among its countries. The richer states tend to be in the West; some of the Central and Eastern European economies are still emerging from the collapse of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia.
The European Union, an intergovernmental body composed of 28 European states, comprises the largest single economic area in the world. 18 EU countries share the euro as a common currency. Five European countries rank in the top ten of the world''s largest national economies in GDP (PPP). This includes (ranks according to the CIA): Germany (5), the UK (6), Russia (7), France (8), and Italy (10).
There is huge disparity between many European countries in terms of their income. The richest in terms of GDP per capita is Monaco with its US$172,676 per capita (2009) and the poorest is Moldova with its GDP per capita of US$1,631 (2010). Monaco is the richest country in terms of GDP per capita in the world according to the World Bank report.
Pre–1945: Industrial growth
Capitalism has been dominant in the Western world since the end of feudalism. From Britain, it gradually spread throughout Europe. The Industrial Revolution started in Europe, specifically the United Kingdom in the late 18th century, and the 19th century saw Western Europe industrialise. Economies were disrupted by World War I but by the beginning of World War II they had recovered and were having to compete with the growing economic strength of the United States. World War II, again, damaged much of Europe''s industries.
1945–1990: The Cold War
After World War II the economy of the UK was in a state of ruin, and continued to suffer relative economic decline in the following decades. Italy was also in a poor economic condition but regained a high level of growth by the 1950s. West Germany recovered quickly and had doubled production from pre-war levels by the 1950s. France also staged a remarkable comeback enjoying rapid growth and modernisation; later on Spain, under the leadership of Franco, also recovered, and the nation recorded huge unprecedented economic growth beginning in the 1960s in what is called the Spanish miracle. The majority of Central and Eastern European states came under the control of the Soviet Union and thus were members of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).
Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The states which retained a free-market system were given a large amount of aid by the United States under the Marshall Plan. The western states moved to link their economies together, providing the basis for the EU and increasing cross border trade. This helped them to enjoy rapidly improving economies, while those states in COMECON were struggling in a large part due to the cost of the Cold War. Until 1990, the European Community was expanded from 6 founding members to 12. The emphasis placed on resurrecting the West German economy led to it overtaking the UK as Europe''s largest economy.
1991–2007: Integration and reunification
With the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe in 1991, the post-socialist states began free market reforms: Poland, Hungary, and Slovenia adopted them reasonably quickly, while Ukraine and Russia are still in the process of doing so.
After East and West Germany were reunited in 1990, the economy of West Germany struggled as it had to support and largely rebuild the infrastructure of East Germany.
Unemployment in the European Union in 2010, according to Eurostat.
By the millennium change, the EU dominated the economy of Europe comprising the five largest European economies of the time namely Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain. In 1999, 12 of the 15 members of the EU joined the Eurozone replacing their former national currencies by the common euro. The three who chose to remain outside the Eurozone were: the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden. The European Union is now the largest economy in the world.
2008–2010: Recession Main articles: Late 2000s recession in Europe and European sovereign-debt crisis
Figures released by Eurostat in January 2009 confirmed that the Eurozone had gone into recession in the third quarter of 2008. It impacted much of the region. In early 2010, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed concerning some countries in Europe, especially Greece, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal. As a result, measures were taken, especially for Greece, by the leading countries of the Eurozone.
The EU-27 unemployment rate was 10.3% in April 2012. Recent university graduates have been unable to find work. In April 2012, the unemployment rate in the EU27 for those aged 15–24 was 22.4%.
Demographics Main article: Demographics of Europe See also: List of European countries by population, Ethnic groups in Europe, Immigration to Europe, Emigration from Europe and Ageing of EuropePopulation growth and decline in and around Europe in 2010
Since the Renaissance, Europe has had a major influence in culture, economics and social movements in the world. The most significant inventions had their origins in the Western world, primarily Europe and the United States. Approximately 70 million Europeans died through war, violence and famine between 1914 and 1945. Some current and past issues in European demographics have included religious emigration, race relations, economic immigration, a declining birth rate and an ageing population.
In some countries, such as Ireland and Poland, access to abortion is limited. It remains illegal on the island of Malta. Furthermore, three European countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland) and the Autonomous Community of Andalusia (Spain) have allowed a limited form of voluntary euthanasia for some terminally ill people.
The Moravian Slovak costumes during festival
In 2005, the population of Europe was estimated to be 731 million according to the United Nations, which is slightly more than one-ninth of the world''s population. A century ago, Europe had nearly a quarter of the world''s population. The population of Europe has grown in the past century, but in other areas of the world (in particular Africa and Asia) the population has grown far more quickly. Among the continents, Europe has a relatively high population density, second only to Asia. The most densely populated country in Europe (and in the world) is Monaco. Pan and Pfeil (2004) count 87 distinct "peoples of Europe", of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities. According to UN population projection, Europe''s population may fall to about 7% of world population by 2050, or 653 million people (medium variant, 556 to 777 million in low and high variants, respectively). Within this context, significant disparities exist between regions in relation to fertility rates. The average number of children per female of child bearing age is 1.52. According to some sources, this rate is higher among Muslims in Europe. The UN predicts a steady population decline in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of emigration and low birth rates.
Galician bagpipers or gaiteiros in Spain
Europe is home to the highest number of migrants of all global regions at 70.6 million people, the IOM''s report said. In 2005, the EU had an overall net gain from immigration of 1.8 million people. This accounted for almost 85% of Europe''s total population growth. The European Union plans to open the job centres for legal migrant workers from Africa. In 2008, 696,000 persons were given citizenship of an EU27 member state, a decrease from 707,000 the previous year.
Emigration from Europe began with Spanish and Portuguese settlers in the 16th century, and French and English settlers in the 17th century. But numbers remained relatively small until waves of mass emigration in the 19th century, when millions of poor families left Europe.
Today, large populations of European descent are found on every continent. European ancestry predominates in North America, and to a lesser degree in South America (particularly in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Brazil, while most of the other Latin American countries also have a considerable population of European origins). Australia and New Zealand have large European derived populations. Africa has no countries with European-derived majorities (or with the exception of Cape Verde and probably São Tomé and Príncipe, depending on context), but there are significant minorities, such as the White South Africans. In Asia, European-derived populations predominate in Northern Asia (specifically Russians), some parts of Northern Kazakhstan and Israel. Additionally, transcontinental or geographically Asian countries such as Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cyprus and Turkey have populations historically closely related to Europeans, with considerable genetic and cultural affinity.
Language Main article: Languages of EuropeMap of major European languages
European languages mostly fall within three Indo-European language groups: the Romance languages, derived from the Latin of the Roman Empire; the Germanic languages, whose ancestor language came from southern Scandinavia; and the Slavic languages.
Slavic languages are most spoken by the number of native speakers in Europe, they are spoken in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. Romance languages are spoken primarily in south-western Europe as well as in Romania and Moldova, in Central or Eastern Europe. Germanic languages are spoken in Northern Europe, the British Isles and some parts of Central Europe.
Many other languages outside the three main groups exist in Europe. Other Indo-European languages include the Baltic group (that is, Latvian and Lithuanian), the Celtic group (that is, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton), Greek, Armenian, and Albanian. In addition, a distinct group of Uralic languages (Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian) is spoken mainly in Estonia, Finland, and Hungary, while Kartvelian languages (Georgian, Mingrelian, and Svan), are spoken primarily in Georgia, and two other language families reside in the North Caucasus (termed Northeast Caucasian, most notably including Chechen, Avar and Lezgin and Northwest Caucasian, notably including Adyghe). Maltese is the only Semitic language that is official within the EU, while Basque is the only European language isolate. Turkic languages include Azerbaijani and Turkish, in addition to the languages of minority nations in Russia.
Multilingualism and the protection of regional and minority languages are recognised political goals in Europe today. The Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe''s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages set up a legal framework for language rights in Europe.
ReligionSt. Peter''s Basilica in Rome, the largest European Roman Catholic churchMain article: Religion in Europe
Historically, religion in Europe has been a major influence on European art, culture, philosophy and law. The largest religion in Europe is Christianity, with 76.2% of Europeans considering themselves Christians, including Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Churches. Following these is Islam concentrated mainly in the Balkans and eastern Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, North Cyprus, Turkey, Azerbaijan, North Caucasus, and the Volga-Ural region). Other religions, including Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are minority religions (though Tibetan Buddhism is the majority religion of Russia''s Republic of Kalmykia). The 20th century saw the revival of Neopaganism through movements such as Wicca and Druidry.
Europe has become a relatively secular continent, with an increasing number and proportion of irreligious, atheist and agnostic people, actually the largest in the Western world. There are a particularly high number of self-described non-religious people in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Sweden, Germany (East), and France.
Culture Main article: Culture of Europe See also: European artDance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The culture of Europe can be described as a series of overlapping cultures; cultural mixes exist across the continent. There are cultural innovations and movements, sometimes at odds with each other. Thus the question of "common culture" or "common values" is complex.
According to historian Hilaire Belloc, for several centuries the peoples of Europe based their self-identification on the remaining traces of the Roman culture and on the concept of Christendom, because many European-wide military alliances were of religious nature: the Crusades (1095–1291), the Reconquista (711-1492), the Battle of Lepanto (1571).
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Europe Media
Europe Terms
1. Europeanyouthtrifestival.lt : Europeanyouthtrifestival.lt
2. Europecoupondeals.com : Europecoupondeals.com
3. Asia–Europe : آسیا-اروپا
4. Europeanunion.ws : Europeanunion.ws
5. Persian embassy to Europe (1599–1602) : اعزام سفیر ایران به اروپا(1599–1602)م
6. Europeactive.eu : Europeactive.eu
7. Iran – European Union relations : روابط ایران - اتحادیه اروپا
8. Persian embassy to Europe (1609 : سفارت ایران در اروپا (۹۸۸–۹۹۴)
9. Europeanunion.mobi : Europeanunion.mobi
10. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe : سازمان امنیت و همکاری اروپا
11. Europeanfreedom.com : Europeanfreedom.com
12. Europeanunion.rs : Europeanunion.rs
13. Persian embassy to Europe (1609–1615) : اعزام سفیر ایران به اروپا (1609-1615)م
14. Europeanpost.co : Europeanpost.co
15. Western European : اروپای غربی
16. Iran–Turkey–Europe : ایران-ترکیه-اروپا
17. Asia–Europe Meeting : مجمع آسیا-اروپا
18. Western Europe : اروپای غربی
19. European-carphunter.com : European-carphunter.com
20. European : اروپایی
بیشتر اروپا
Europe Articles
Europe Your Feedback
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DOCTOR EVIDENCE
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HomeBartholomew's ViewsThe Fundamental Divide Between Continental Europe and the UK Was Forged in the Roman Empire
The Fundamental Divide Between Continental Europe and the UK Was Forged in the Roman Empire
10th May 2020 Bartholomew Chiaroscuro
The fundamental divide between the British and Continental Europeans is a psychological one and an ancient one which has two sources.
Firstly, every continental European has a history behind them suffused with the memory of the Roman Empire. Peace, security and power is identified with a unified Europe roughly based on the borders of the Roman Empire and ruled by a version of Roman law. Ambitious Europeans have harked back to this again and again. Whether Charlemagne, or the Holy Roman Empire, or Napoleon, or the EU, this is an inherited and powerful memory of what security is.
By contrast we were the furthest outpost of the Roman Empire, and whilst integrated for 400 years retained many pre-Roman features including a mythology of resistance to imposed rule. The legend of Boadicea lingered (for some reason I hate the now dominant Boudicca spelling). Large parts of the British Isles were of course never conquered by the Romans. We were told to fend for ourselves as the Roman Empire collapsed, and some significant part of British consciousness was formed by that. Even before that point we had launched rebellious claims on the Roman ‘throne’ (such as that by Clodius Albinus in the 2nd century AD), and spent years separated from Roman rule under Carausius in the late third century AD.
Secondly, Continental European engagement with land empire in Europe itself was constant and unavoidable. Ours was by contrast limited to the period from the Norman Conquest through the Angevin Empire and was finally extinguished by the loss of Calais under Mary Tudor in 1558. Certainly this was a significant period of time, but our greatest success and power would come after it. Our ambitions became maritime and global, not landlocked and European.
Europeans are quick to point to the British Empire and its loss as an explanation of supposed British pigheadedness and refusal to share the European dream. They call it British exceptionalism and imply that our own recognition of our difference is somehow arrogant, ignorant or racist. They ignore the fact that their own psychology is shaped by a far older imperial project, that of Rome, one which was defined more by conquest than trade, by conformity rather than adventure, by static mental boundaries rather than by imaginative invention.
In every way the difference in this Roman experience had lasting effects, just as powerful on Continental European psychology and assumptions as Anglo-Saxon liberty was for British assumptions. Neither were ever actually looking for the same things whilst sharing membership of the EU.
When Good People Are Driven Underground…
A Short Epistle From Little England
All Must Submit to NewSpeak
24th October 2019 Bartholomew Chiaroscuro
The language used is always revealing. We are told that the UK has requested an extension and the EU is likely to grant it.
A Lament For What Once Was
I have a dream. In my dream I live in a democracy. It is an ancient land, and a happy one. It is a place where generations have known and defended the flame of freedom, and hold it dearer then their lives.
Britain isn’t racist, her detractors are.
The British and particularly the English are now routinely subject to demonisation and racism towards them. They are told that they are ignorant and backwards.
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Saudi Arabia Forms 34-State Coalition to Combat Terrorism
Al Arabiya Reuters Saudi Press Agency (SPA)16.12.2015 KSA
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday formed a 34-state military coalition to combat terrorism, according to a joint statement published on Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
Egypt, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are among the Arab countries in the alliance, together with Islamic countries Turkey, Malaysia and Pakistan, as well as African states.
“The countries here mentioned have decided on the formation of a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism, with a joint operations center based in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations,” the statement said.
The news agency said the coalition’s formation was “a duty to protect the Islamic nation from the evils of all terrorist groups and organizations whatever their sect and name which wreak death and corruption on earth and aim to terrorize the innocent.”
The 34 countries participating in the alliance along with Saudi Arabia are: Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Turkey, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, Djibouti, Senegal, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Gabon, Guinea, Palestine, Comoros, Qatar, Cote d'Ivoire, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Mali, Malaysia, Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Yemen.
Saudi Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman (photo) told reporters on Tuesday, in a rare press conference, that the campaign would “coordinate” efforts to fight terrorism in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan.
“There will be international coordination with major powers and international organizations ... in terms of operations in Syria and Iraq. We can't undertake these operations without coordinating with legitimacy in this place and the international community,” Prince Mohammed said without elaborating.
Asked if the new alliance would focus just on Islamic State, bin Salman said it would confront not only that group but “any terrorist organization that appears in front of us.”
ISIS, which has launched attacks on several Western targets in recent months, has issued warnings to Gulf States and has mounted a series of attacks on mosques and security forces in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been leading a Gulf alliance fighting in Iranian-backed Houthi militias in neighboring Yemen since March. A ceasefire is set to take hold in Yemen on Tuesday alongside United Nations-backed peace talks.
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Saudi Arabia, South Korea Discuss Cooperation in Defense
Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Defense, met in Riyadh Sunday with
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Carl Pierson
Carl Pierson was an American film editor who cut more than 200 films (primarily low-budget Westerns for Monogram and Republic) and television episodes over the course of his lengthy career in Hollywood. He also produced and directed a handful of movies.[1][2]
Carl Leo Pierson
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Film editor, director, producer
Minerva Jane Sherwood (div.)
Mary (div.)
BiographyEdit
Carl Pierson was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. He was married at least twice: first Minerva Jane Sherwood in 1924, who filed for divorce in 1930;[3] and then to an actress Mary; she sued for divorce in 1939.[4] He had a daughter, Lois, with his first wife.[3]
Filmography (as editor)Edit
That Tennessee Beat (1966)
Hand of Death (1962)
Womanhunt (1962)
The Two Little Bears (1961)
The Silent Call (1961)
The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (1961)
Sniper's Ridge (1961)
Diamond Safari (1958)
She Devil (1958)
Stagecoach to Fury (1956)
Naked Gun (1956)
Yaqui Drums (1956)
The Black Pirates (1954)
Sins of Jezebel (1953)
The Great Jesse James Raid (1952)
Leave It to the Marines (1951)
Savage Drums (1951)
Little Big Horn (1951)
Pier 23 (1951)
Roaring City (1951)
Mask of the Dragon (1951)
Fingerprints Don't Lie (1951)
Three Desperate Men (1951)
Bandit Queen (1950)
Border Rangers (1950)
Train to Tombstone (1950)
Gunfire (1950)
I Shot Billy the Kid (1950)
Western Pacific Agent (1950)
Radar Secret Service (1950)
Roaring Westward (1949)
Brand of Fear (1949)
Gun Law Justice (1949)
Courtin' Trouble (1948)
Outlaw Brand (1948)
Cowboy Cavalier (1948)
Why Girls Leave Home (1945)
Dangerous Intruder (1945)
Minstrel Man (1944)
Block Busters (1944)
Return of the Ape Man (1944)
Follow the Leader (1944)
Voodoo Man (1944)
Million Dollar Kid (1944)
Raiders of the Border (1944)
Death Valley Rangers (1943)
The Texas Kid (1943)
Mr. Muggs Steps Out (1943)
Outlaws of Stampede Pass (1943)
Spotlight Scandals (1943)
Here Comes Kelly (1943)
The Law Rides Again (1943)
Ghosts on the Loose (1943)
Wings Over the Pacific (1943)
The Stranger from Pecos (1943)
Sarong Girl (1943)
Clancy Street Boys (1943)
The Ape Man (1943)
Kid Dynamite (1943)
You Can't Beat the Law (1943)
Dawn on the Great Divide (1942)
Rhythm Parade (1942)
'Neath Brooklyn Bridge (1942)
Bowery at Midnight (1942)
City of Silent Men (1942)
Down Texas Way (1942)
Inside the Law (1942)
Ghost Town Law (1942)
Black Dragons (1942)
Mr. Wise Guy (1942)
Below the Border (1942)
Forbidden Trails (1941)
Road to Happiness (1941)
The Gunman from Bodie (1941)
Reg'lar Fellers (1941)
Arizona Bound (1941)
That Gang of Mine (1940)
Boys of the City (1940)
The Mad Empress (1939)
Sky Patrol (1939)
Stunt Pilot (1939)
Double Deal (1939)
Wolf Call (1939)
Mystery Plane (1939)
The Phantom Stage (1939)
Ghost Town Riders (1938)
King of the Sierras (1938)
Prairie Justice (1938)
Guilty Trails (1938)
Black Bandit (1938)
Rebellious Daughters (1938)
Where the West Begins (1938)
Spirit of Youth (1938)
Western Gold (1937)
The Outer Gate (1937)
The Legion of Missing Men (1937)
The Californian (1937)
Reefer Madness (1936)
I Cover Chinatown (1936)
Red River Valley (1936)
Frisco Waterfront (1935)
Lawless Range (1935)
Cappy Ricks Returns (1935)
Westward Ho (1935)
Honeymoon Limited (1935)
The Dawn Rider (1935)
The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1935)
The Desert Trail (1935)
The Nut Farm (1935)
Rainbow Valley (1935)
The Mystery Man (1935)
Texas Terror (1935)
Sing Sing Nights (1934)
'Neath the Arizona Skies (1934)
Flirting with Danger (1934)
Lost in the Stratosphere (1934)
A Girl of the Limberlost (1934)
Tomorrow's Youth (1934)
Happy Landing (1934)
The Star Packer (1934)
Randy Rides Alone (1934)
Monte Carlo Nights (1934)
The Man from Utah (1934)
Manhattan Love Song (1934)
House of Mystery (1934)
Mystery Liner (1934)
West of the Divide (1934)
A Woman's Man (1934)
The Lucky Texan (1934)
Sixteen Fathoms Deep (1934)
Sagebrush Trail (1933)
Broken Dreams (1933)
Riders of Destiny (1933)
The Devil's Mate (1933)
Galloping Romeo (1933)
The Gallant Fool (1933)
The Return of Casey Jones (1933)
Diamond Trail (1933)
Wine, Women and Song (1933)
The Phantom Broadcast (1933)
Breed of the Border (1933)
West of Singapore (1933)
Sensation Hunters (1933)
A Strange Adventure (1932)
The Girl from Calgary (1932)
Broadway to Cheyenne (1932)
Son of Oklahoma (1932)
Honor of the Mounted (1932)
The Man from Hell's Edges (1932)
Vanishing Men (1932)
Police Court (1932)
The Law of the Sea (1931)
The Florodora Girl (1930)
Montana Moon (1930)
The Mysterious Island (1929)
The Baby Cyclone (1928)
Rose-Marie (1928)
^ Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third series. 1952.
^ Mavis, Paul (2011-03-03). The Espionage Filmography: United States Releases, 1898 through 1999. McFarland. ISBN 9780786449156.
^ a b "Wife's Plea for Gayer Life Wins". The Los Angeles Times. 19 Dec 1930. Retrieved 2019-09-12.
^ "Says Husband Sulky". The Albuquerque Journal. 5 Aug 1939. Retrieved 2019-09-12.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Carl_Pierson&oldid=998691992"
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February 2014 / Interviews
Barbara Taylor: Out of the system
by Emma Young Comments
Read more and buy the book
Barbara Taylor’s The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in our Times is a refined and beautifully written scrapbook of a study of the mental health system in the UK. It’s also Taylor’s deeply personal account of her breakdown and, ultimately, after many years of work and therapeutic support, her triumph over severe emotional illness. It combines this warts-and-all autobiographical material with the kind of research you’d expect from the acclaimed historian of Eve and the New Jerusalem and Mary Wollstonecraft and the Feminist Imagination. The latter was praised by Judith Hawley in the Guardian as an “outstanding companion to and commentary on” Wollstonecraft’s letters and a “product of many years’ engagement with Wollstonecraft”, so I begin by asking Taylor if that is perhaps a way into understanding the approach she took when it came to writing The Last Asylum.
“It really is like any other kind of research,” she affirms. “You take notes, and of course I had this source material to draw on, too… I suppose, in a way, I was like a different person back then.”
It barely needs stating: the bright, considered and articulate Taylor I’m speaking to today couldn’t sound more different from the distressed and distraught woman who inhabits the book. The “source material” she’s referring to here are the extensive diaries she kept during her 21 years of psychoanalysis, during which time she spent three periods in Friern Hospital (the former Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum) in north London following her breakdown in 1981. Taylor is extraordinarily open and frank in talking about this period of her life, and this personal insight makes the book incredibly moving. Talking to me, a stranger, about the intimate details of this period must be difficult enough, but writing and publishing the book for anyone and everyone to read is, I can’t help but think, incredibly brave.
So how does she feel about The Last Asylum being out in the world? Does she worry about readers judging her (current or former) self or trying to compete with her, and reviewers (such as Jenny Diski in the London Review of Books) doing the same? I imagine it must have been hard being both so frank and reporting others’ criticisms of her. She is, however, surprisingly enthusiastic about the reception so far and praises Diski’s review: “Jenny Diski wrote what some other people will probably think… It did take me by surprise when I first read it, but I also found it quite touching. I haven’t read what people have been writing online as I know that can be difficult to take, but I’ve read the media coverage, which has been extensive, and the reception has been very positive.”
Taylor achieves a finely-tuned balance between the autobiographical and the investigative, and to dwell on the former at the expense of the latter would do her considerable skills a disservice. The parts that particularly stick in the mind are the section in which Taylor reports Barbara Robb’s investigation into Friern’s treatment of elderly people “deprived of their teeth, glasses and hearing aids, and subjected to verbal abuse and physical mistreatment” in the sixties, and also the remarkable sense of community that these places could sometimes foster – with in-patients even running their own radio station at one time. I ask Taylor about her research process, and I’m curious about the material that she had to leave out. She describes trawling through archives, taking lots of notes, and some personal interviews that she conducted with mental health service users, although no former Friern patients. “I met some Friern patients but they were either unwilling or unable to be interviewed,” she tells me. This is surely one of the reasons a more extensive study of the institution/system hasn’t happened, but this doesn’t stop Taylor feeling disappointed, and, I get the sense, a little frustrated too – she sincerely hopes that others will capture more Friern testimonials before it’s too late.
Taylor achieves a finely-tuned balance between the autobiographical and the investigative, and to dwell on the former at the expense of the latter would do her considerable skills a disservice.”
Taylor’s analyst – referred to simply as ‘V’ in the book – comes across as provocative, shocking and even rude at times, and yet he was clearly hugely instrumental in her recovery: she praises the “’rites of psychoanalysis” as “containers for the uncontainable, solid supports for emotional chaos.” It’s a wonderfully evocative description that suggests both how desperate a patient entering psychoanalysis can be and how necessary a process it is for them. When I tell her that I didn’t much like V, she’s characteristically warm and self-deprecating, explaining that the comments which I find offensive are in fact direct interpretations of things she is saying to V: “the person that you didn’t like was me – a part of me.” She points out that by contrast her sister, on reading the book, thought that V had been incredibly patient with her. Taylor is adamant that psychoanalysis was a vital part of her care (which also included day centres, in-patient stays and therapy): “I may have had to stop private psychoanalysis if I hadn’t had the rest of the support, but I wouldn’t have survived without it.”
She wonders aloud at the lives lost to mental illness, and we end the conversation by talking about her hopes for the future of mental health treatment and frustrations with the current psychiatric support available. We talk about how she closes the book deploring the “care in the community” and “crisis teams, acute wards, recovery strategies, care plans…” which are not providing adequate care are in many places. She does not mourn the old asylums like Friern, which she says were dreadful in many respects, but she is angered by the deficiencies of the current system, quoting Costa Award winner Nathan Filer who recently referred to it as “an utter, God-awful mess.” She’s clear that she speaks only as an observer, neither a professional nor a current service user, “but in my opinion it’s bleak right now. We need more resources… we need centres based in the community with day and in-patient options… We need good employment training and opportunities… Above all, we need to listen to service users, and at the moment they aren’t being consulted.” Indeed, for those grappling with the complexities of our current system and plotting its future, The Last Asylum might be an extremely good place to start.
The Last Asylum is published by Hamish Hamilton in hardback and eBook. Read more.
Barbara Taylor‘s previous books also include On Kindness, a defence of fellow feeling co-written with the psychoanalyst Adam Phillips. She is a longstanding editor of the History Workshop Journal, and a director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre. She teaches History and English at Queen Mary University of London.
Emma Young, a former arts publicist and literary night host, is a contributing editor and events manager at Bookanista. Follow her on twitter: @emmaryoung
Tags: Barbara Taylor, Emma Young, Hamish Hamilton, interview, madness, mental health, The Last Asylum, UK
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Angel of the Dark (English)...
by Sidney Sheldon, whose highly successful writing career spans over 50 years, has garnered international praise and recognition in four diverse fields. The winner of an Oscar, a Tony, and an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America, Sheldon has over 250 television scripts, twenty five... View More Sidney Sheldon, whose highly successful writing career spans over 50 years, has garnered international praise and recognition in four diverse fields. The winner of an Oscar, a Tony, and an Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America, Sheldon has over 250 television scripts, twenty five major motion pictures, six Broadway plays and fourteen novels (with sales figures well over 200 million) to his credit, ranking him as one of the worlds most prolific writers. One of the top three bestselling authors alive today, Sheldon is also one of the few major authors to have all his novels filmed as major motion pictures or blockbuster mini-series for television. His novels are published in 56 languages, including Russian, Turkish, Japanese, Dutch, Portuguese, Korean, Hebrew, Greek and Indonesian, in 100 countries worldwide. A master storyteller, Sheldon regards his becoming a writer as something of a miracle. Tilly Bagshawe is the internationally bestselling author of seven previous novels. A teenage single mother at 17, Tilly won a place at Cambridge University and took her baby daughter with her. She went on to enjoy a successful career in The City before becoming a writer. As a journalist, Tilly contributed regularly to the Sunday Times, Daily Mail and Evening Standard before following in the footsteps of her sister Louise and turning her hand to novels. Tilly's first book, Adored, was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic and she hasn't looked back since.
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Given that I haven't exactly held up my end of the bargain this year, I'm touched and flattered that people still read and comment from time to time. I'd like to do more in the coming year, mainly because I miss the conversation. Perhaps in the glorious sci-fi utopia of A.D. 2011, I'll find myself in a better position to fulfill my lifelong dream of prattling interminably on the Internets.
I feel as though I should say something about the past year, but my mind is blanker than usual. For me, at least, it began with a larger leap into the unknown than most, and in retrospect I begin to see how it brought me to a point where words seemed pointless. Or mine did, anyway.
Maybe I was too hasty. Or not. Who's to say?
In any case, here are a few links for Auld Lang Syne. Because as we all know, "the easy way and the inclination is toward despair and that is the great temptation."
Freshwater wildlife thrives in cleanest rivers since Industrial Revolution.
Gingrich-buster among President Obama's recess appointments.
U.S. court rules Texas cannot delay EPA-mandated greenhouse gas rules.
Paris will test a ban of high-emissions vehicles in the city center.
Far East Dallas residents welcome all neighbors – including homeless.
Seven imperiled Brazilian bird species gain endangered status.
Grazing halted to protect steelhead trout on a quarter-million acres of Malheur National Forest.
Another setback for a West Coast coal port.
Massachusetts to get "pay as you drive" auto insurance.
New study shows death penalty in decline nationwide.
Mobile technology gives Zimbabweans a voice.
Local Community Radio Act was passed.
Feel free to add more in comments. Best wishes for the new year to all of yez. See you when I get there!
(Photo at top: Eternal Flame Waterfall.)
Posted by Phila at 12:23 PM 14 comments Links
Saturday Music Blogging
Posted by Phila at 12:49 PM 0 comments Links
The European Court on Human Rights has ruled against Ireland's abortion ban:
Ireland's constitutional ban on abortion violates the rights of pregnant women to receive proper medical care in life-threatening cases, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday in a judgment that harshly criticized Ireland's long inaction on the issue.
The judgment from the Strasbourg, France-based court will put Ireland under pressure to draft a law extending limited abortion rights to women whose pregnancies represent a potentially fatal threat to their own health.
The U.S. government has filed a lawsuit against BP:
The federal government today filed suit against BP under the Clean Water Act and other laws, seeking civil penalties for the discharge of millions of gallons of oil and other pollutants into the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The lawsuit will join hundreds of other lawsuits over the Gulf oil spill disaster, including the Center for Biological Diversity’s $19 billion Clean Water Act, suit filed against the oil giant in June.
“We’ve been waiting for months for the federal government to file suit against BP for the devastating oil spill in the Gulf,” said Charlie Tebbutt, attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “With all the players now at the table, we look forward to co-prosecuting this case with the federal government to hold BP accountable for the worst environmental disaster in American history.”
Mexico is undertaking an ambitious LED streetlight project:
LED lights are coming to Mexico in a big way — Quintana Roo’s Estate Governor Félix González Canto recently announced during the UN climate change conference in Cancun that the municipality of Othón Blanco will replace 25,507 streetlights with energy-efficient LED versions. The announcement, which was made in conjunction with GE (all light bulbs will be GE Evolve LED cobrahead street lights), marks the largest LED street lighting project in Latin America.
Paterson, NJ hopes to turn an old industrial area into a public attraction:
A 10-member team of archeologists, architects and engineers in May dug under the dense brush and weeds covering the old Allied Textile Printing site to find out how many of the 40 structures and water channels could be restored and incorporated into a national historic park.
What they found was encouraging, researchers said. It included two stories of the Colt Gun Mill, home of the nation's first revolver, as well as remnants of a support base that marked where a wooden flume once carried water to power the gun mill before plunging over a bluff as a 30-foot waterfall.
Australia has issued new restrictions on illegally harvested timber:
The Australian government has announced the creation of new legislation which will put further restrictions on the import of foreign wood products in effort to halt the flow of illegally logged timber. Taking effect next year, the laws will require importers to disclose the sources of all timber products, even paper.
Researchers have found a new lemur in Madagascar:
The squirrel-sized beast is a type of fork-marked lemur, a nocturnal species that feeds on nectar and bark. It belongs to the Phaner genus (which includes four other species) and lives in Daraina, a region in northeast Madagascar that is being pillaged for rosewood, a valuable timber used for making luxury furniture in China.
Photo by Russell A. Mittermeier
A fish thought be be extinct has been rediscovered:
[A] new discovery suggests that a small population of kokanee salmon may have survived.
"I was really surprised," Tetsuji Nakabo, a professor at Kyoto University who led the team that made the discovery said, "this is a very interesting fish—it's a treasure. We have to protect it and not let it disappear again."
Finland will protect most of its remaining northern forests:
Metsahallitus, a forest enterprise controlled by the Finnish government, have agreed to preserve 80 percent of 107,000 hectares of pine forests in northern Finland. The area, which serves as a grazing land for the reindeer, includes tracts of old growth forest.
The decision comes after an 8-year battle by Greenpeace and Finland's indigenous Saami reindeer herders.
California has approved cap-and-trade regulations:
The California Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to adopt cap and trade regulations for AB32, California's 2006 climate law. The move, which establishes the first compliance carbon trading system in the United States, opens the door for carbon offsets generated via forest conservation projects.
The new rules will allow polluting industries to buy and sell emissions allowances. 90 percent of allowances would be free during the early stages of the program, but as the cap tightens, fewer allowances will be available. By 2020 the cap would limit emissions to 1990 levels.
San Jose, CA is the latest city to ban shopping bags:
In a sweeping 10-1 verdict, the San Jose City Council has officially banned all single use plastic shopping bags and barred retailers from giving away paper bags yesterday. The ban will take effect on January 1st 2012 and was pushed along by a mighty campaign by non-profit Save the Bay who estimates that over 1 million single use shopping bags end up in San Francisco Bay every year. San Jose is California’s third largest city making this the largest plastic bag ban in the state.
Also in California, a new agreement will protect 1 million acres of roadless areas from development:
Under the agreement, federal and state agencies, conservationists and ORV users will work together to improve and protect the roadless areas. The Forest Service will reconsider protecting several of the areas permanently as wilderness. Parties will identify roads and trails that are degrading roadless areas; the Forest Service will prioritize these for decommissioning and restoration. While the agency reconsiders the management plans, it will protect all roadless areas from harmful activities, including those that could prevent them from being recommended as wilderness in the future.
And the first molten salt power plant is about to be built:
The most common complaint lodged against solar power is that -- say it with me now -- it's only able to provide power when it's light outside. Solar developers have tried to solve this problem a number of ways, and using molten salt to store the heat is one of the most promising. And the technology is now ready to move beyond the drawing board -- California just approved its first molten salt solar power plant.
And the 100-watt incandescent bulb is about to be banned.
So long 100-watt incandescent light bulbs -- California is ordering them off store shelves starting Jan. 1 in an energy-saving move....
California is starting its phase-out a year early because of state regulations to reduce energy consumption.
Believe it or not, this is happening despite the disapproval of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.
New research suggests that wind turbines have the potential to benefit crops:
Wind turbines in Midwestern farm fields may be doing more than churning out electricity. The giant turbine blades that generate renewable energy might also help corn and soybean crops stay cooler and dryer, help them fend off fungal infestations and improve their ability to extract growth-enhancing carbon dioxide from the air and soil.
Black segregation is at a 100-year low:
New Census figures from 2005 to 2009...show that black residential segregation has decreased since to a 100-year low. The average black person lives in a neighborhood that is 46 percent black (down from 49 percent in 2000). Residential segregation is by no means a thing of the past—it actually increased in 25 of the 100 largest metropolitan areas—but the numbers are encouraging.
The EPA is accepting public comments on a proposed ban on triclosan:
Triclosan is an antimicrobial substance used in pesticide products, hand sanitizers, toothpaste, and other consumer products. The petitioners claim that the "pervasive and widespread use'' of triclosan poses significant risks to human health and the environment. In addition, the petitioners claim that the agency failed to address the impacts posed by triclosan's degradation products on human health and the environment, failed to conduct separate assessments for triclosan residues in contaminated drinking water and food, and is complacent in seriously addressing concerns related to antibacterial resistance and endocrine disruption. EPA has established a public docket, which contains a copy of the petition and will contain all comments received in response to this notice.
A new study emphasizes the importance of Social Security for women:
Without Social Security, research indicates that about half of women age 65 and older would be living in poverty. With the program in place, the poverty rate for women falls to 12 percent.
History's shadow. The true history of Deacon Giles' Distillery. Photos by Candace Plummer Gaudiani. Photos by Lucy Helton. And assorted frost crystals.
Chalk talk. Photos by Terry Evans. Images from the Abita Mystery House. An early vocoder. Niagara Falls, minus the water. A Thump over the Head with Sampson’s Jawbone. And photos by Maria Gruzdeva.
The Shellackophile. Lunar reconaissance. Sounds of Enceladus. A deserted colony. Retrofuturological prognostications (via Peacay). And photos by Sabine Delcour.
Also, a short seasonal film.
And a much shorter bonus feature.
Alright? Alright.
(Photo at top: "A mixture of 'Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda), Borax, and the stain Orange G' between crossed polars" by Richard Howey.)
Posted by Phila at 10:40 AM 3 comments Links
Florida's tomato pickers have won an important battle:
Fair trade is finally coming to the tomato fields of Florida, where farmworkers have won a remarkable victory in a 15-year struggle for better pay and working conditions. Last month, they struck a deal with growers to raise workers’ pay and to create an industry code of conduct, a health and safety program and a system to resolve worker complaints.
An Amazon tribe has created an indigenous forest carbon fund:
“Indigenous peoples have an outstanding track record in terms of forest stewardship, as has been demonstrated time and again by studies of conservation and deforestation rates, but they generally have less experience with managing the sorts of finance and investments that carbon market transactions entail,” says Jacob Olander, who is providing technical support as head of the Katoomba Incubator, a project of environmental non-profit Forest Trends (publisher of Ecosystem Marketplace). The incubator is designed to help local groups around the world develop expertise in payments for ecosystem services (PES), which are schemes designed to reward good land stewardship by recognizing the economic value of nature’s services.
A Canadian federal judge has ruled "that the Canadian government cannot rely on voluntary protocols and guidelines to protect orca critical habitat."
The judge brought acoustics into his decision by stressing that critical habitat protections must include ecosystem features, including prey availability and and noise impacts.
Apropos of which, Canada's House of Commons has voted to ban oil supertankers from the coast of British Columbia:
British Columbia is now one step closer to having a full legislated ban on supertankers off its north and central coasts. The opposition is sending a clear message to the Conservatives to legislate a formal moratorium.
Today's ban could seriously impact Enbridge, who has plans to develop a $5.5 billion 1,170-kilometre pipeline to carry dirty tar sands bitumen to Kitimat, B.C., where it would be loaded onto supertankers bound for growing energy markets in Asia.
And a federal appeals court has ruled that California air regulators can impose fees on developers to maintain air quality:
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld the local air district's rule requiring developers to reduce emissions from new housing projects by building features like bicycle lanes and energy-efficient cooling systems. If they don't do enough to preserve air quality, they must pay fees that have averaged about $500 per house.
A species of albatross previously thought to be extinct is alive and well and living in Hawaii:
For the first time ever, the birds have been found nesting on two tiny islands in the U.S., in the northwestern Hawaiian island chain. One nest with a couple of eggs inside was found on the Kule atoll, accompanied by two female birds; the other, on Midway atoll, contained fresh eggs and was guarded by both a male and female albatross.
The vermilion darter has won habitat protections in Alabama:
In response to litigation brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today designated 13 miles of stream in the Turkey Creek watershed in Jefferson County, Alabama, as critical habitat for the endangered vermilion darter, a beautiful, brightly colored fish....
Alabama’s rivers contain more unique species than anywhere else in the country, hosting hundreds of endemic freshwater species, including fish, mussels, snails, crayfish and turtles. The state also ranks second in the nation in terms of the number of species that have been lost to extinction.
Mountain gorilla populations have increased in the Virunga massif region:
"The survey results provide us with an excellent demonstration of how strong law enforcement efforts put in place to safeguard flagship species can advance species conservation, benefit local communities, and provide important revenue to governments," David Greer, African Great Ape Coordinator with WWF said.
The census, conducted between March and April of this year, found 480 gorillas, whereas 7 years ago there were only 380. The only other population of mountain gorillas occurs in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in southern Uganda, which is thought to number 302 individuals and 4 orphans, making a total of 786 wild mountain gorillas surviving.
An Israeli company is attempting to harvest energy from passing trains:
Piezoelectric technology generates energy from pressure and stress on certain surfaces, and we’ve seen it harvest electricity from roads and dance floors to power lights and signs. Recently Israeli company Innowattech unveiled a new use for this versatile energy tech – they’re planning to install piezoelectric pads throughout the country’s railways to generate electricity....
A prototype of the energy-generating system was installed last year by the Technion University and Israel Railways in order to show the benefits of the technology. The project discovered that a railway track with trafficked by 10 to 20 ten-car trains could produce as much as 120 kWh, which could be used to power infrastructural systems such as signs and lights. Any surplus energy would then be uploaded to the country’s power grid.
Sail-powered cargo ships seem to be making a comeback:
Initially intended to operate within European waters, particularly in the North Sea and Baltic, the ship will carry 9,000 tons of cargo--about one-tenth of typical modern container ships but roughly five times the capacity of typical sail-powered cargo vessels at the height of the age of sail in the nineteenth century.
A huge PV plant has opened in Nevada:
The plant is located 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas, in Boulder City and features more than 775,000 First Solar panels spread out over an area of 380 acres. The project was so large that it required 350 workers to fully install the units. The plant’s completion means that it has now broken the country’s previous record of the largest PV plant which was held by the 20-MW DeSoto PV plant in Arcadia, Florida.
The tobacco mosaic virus may increase the storage capacity of lithium batteries:
Scientists in the U.S. had already worked out how to coat the tiny rod-like cells of the virus with conductive materials. But the recent breakthrough has seen the nanorods incorporated into battery technology, with astonishingly beneficial results. The tobacco mosaic virus is a perfect candidate because it's the right size and shape to aid construction of battery electrodes, and it's self-replicating and self-assembling and can bind to metal.
Tierstimmen. An official global warming debunking tool. High-speed photos by Edward Horsford. A working Lego version of the Antikythera Mechanism. And a very small chameleon:
India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka movies, 1929-1947. Yokohama prints, 1859–1870s. CriticalPast (via The Bioscope). Related: The biggest girl. Cartoons from the Weekly Freeman. Tree windmills and automata. And photos by Elliot Erwitt:
Greasy Christmas. Exploding cameras. Sun Ra's 1971 Berkeley lectures. The ghost of subways past. Filling the Frame. Sunrise at the Spiral Jetty. And a 1969 photo essay on IBM computers.
And not only that, but also — in addition — here's a movie as well, too.
(Photo at top: "Seasons change and people change" by chomdee.)
It's another busy week for yours truly, but I'm going to see how many stories I can get listed in the next hour or two. As always, you're welcome — if not obliged — to add links of your own in comments.
Sixty-nine women were elected to the Afghan parliament:
Women candidates in particular faced threats, violence, and intimidation from insurgents during this parliamentary election, which was the fourth election since the Taliban's fall. The Independent Election Commission deemed nearly one quarter of the ballots invalid and received nearly 5,000 complaints about election irregularities.
Nevertheless, Fazel Ahmad Manawi, Chairman of the Independent Election Commission, clarified, "With all the shortcomings, it was a major success for us, the Afghan government, people of Afghanistan and our international friends."
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill against child marriage:
This morning, the U.S. Senate passed the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act, an important bill which would help change the fact that every day girls as young as eight or nine are forced to marry men who are often decades older....
It might seem like passing this bill would be a no-brainer, but folks have actually been working really hard in DC for six years just to get this thing passed. It’s a big day for women’s rights groups on the Hill, and I congratulate them on this big win.
The Illinois senate has passed a civil union bill:
Increased rights include the right to inherit, the right to visit partners in a hospital, the ability to share a room in a nursing home and the power to make end-of-life decisions for a partner.
Some people were against it, of course. Here's an entertaining response to them from Sen. Ricky Hendon (via Truth Wins Out).
NASA has discovered a new life form in Mono Lake:
A team of NASA scientists studying bacteria in Mono Lake in California have discovered a microorganism that substitutes arsenic — a chemical that is toxic to almost all living organisms — for all parts of a cell that in every other life form are built from phosphate. Not only has this discovery made it necessary to re-edit every science textbook in use, but researchers say it could revolutionize green energy and toxic waste cleanup.
It's interesting news, definitely, but the description is a bit overwrought for my tastes. Cheryl has a more...measured response.
This is a pretty amazing statistic, if true:
Just 15 of the worlds largest ships pump out as much pollution as every car on earth (760 million cars). The reason is that these ships burn enormous amounts of very very dirty fuel.
And this is a pretty good idea regardless:
[The] EPA is setting up a 230 mile buffer zone around the US, with Canada expected to follow, that would keep this pollution farther out to sea....
The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates the buffer zone, which could be in place by next year, will save more than 8,000 lives a year with new air quality standards cutting sulfur in fuel by 98%, particulate matter by 85% and nitrogen oxide emissions by 80%.
Apropos of which, the world's largest solar-powered boat has crossed the Atlantic.
The vessel is completely fuelled by renewable energy, with its solar cells having a 22% efficiency rate. These are the highest rated cells available for purchase on the market, and the cells cover over 500 square meters of the ship. The solar cells are able to power two electric motors which are found in the hull, giving the ship at a top speed of 14 knots. Most notably, the large surface area of solar cells means that the catamaran can travel for up to three full days, even without direct sunlight – any excess energy is stored in a state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery.
In California, a rare plant has received habitat protection.
[T]he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today designated 783 acres of critical habitat for the endangered San Diego ambrosia, a plant that only grows in small parts of California and Mexico. Critical habitat is essential for recovery of this rare plant, whose numbers have declined drastically from more than 50 populations to just 18. This final designation includes three general areas in the western part of Riverside County, covering 189 acres, and four general areas, covering 594 acres, in San Diego County.
“With protection of its habitat, the San Diego ambrosia now has a chance at survival,” said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.
So has a threatened fish:
Responding to a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today designated additional critical habitat for the federally threatened Santa Ana sucker, a fish that lives only in Southern California. Today’s revised designation includes 9,331 acres of critical habitat, up from 8,305 acres in the previous designation. Importantly, this new designation includes stretches of the Santa Ana River and its tributaries that are currently occupied by the fish but had been removed from the previous flawed designation.
Polar bears won some tentative habitat protections as well:
More than 187,000 square miles (approximately 120 million acres) along the north coast of Alaska were designated today as “critical habitat” for the polar bear as a result of a partial settlement in an ongoing lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Greenpeace against the Department of the Interior. This designation under the Endangered Species Act is intended to safeguard those coastal lands and waters under U.S. jurisdiction that are vital to the polar bears’ survival and recovery.
In Tennessee, Cracker Barrel restaurants are installing charging stations for electric cars:
Cracker Barrel is going to install electric vehicle charging stations at 24 of its restaurants along three Tennessee freeways. Twelve of them will be Blink chargers that can get a Chevy Volt from dead to 80 percent in 20 minutes.
I can't wait for David Brooks to explain What It All Means.
The rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has slowed dramatically:
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell to the lowest rate on record, putting Brazil well on track to meet its targets for reducing rainforest destruction.
Analysis of satellite imagery by Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) shows that 6,450 square kilometers of rainforest were cleared in the Amazon in the 12 months ended July 31, 2010, a 14 percent drop from the year earlier period.
In related news:
The burgeoning global program REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) could do more than mitigate climate change, according to a new study in Conservation Letters by scientists with Conservation International (CI). Analyzing a sample of 2,500 forest animals, including mammals, birds and amphibians, researchers found that REDD+ could reduce the rate of extinction among these species by 46-82% over five years. The wide range in the study's findings depends on the amount of funds devoted to REDD+: more funds means greater forest preservation and, thereby, less extinction.
The World Wildlife Fund has created a new digital file format that can't be printed:
Drop by Save as WWF, Save a Tree to download software that will add a "Save as WWF" option to your print menu. Any WWFs you create can be opened by programs that open PDFs—but can't be printed.
Will you really save a tree every time you use this new file format? Obviously not. But the campaign does provide an effective reminder that a lot of paper gets wasted out of plain old carelessness.
Also: Impossibly beautiful antique radio tuning dials (via Coudal). Earth as art. A close-up view of Prunella vulgaris. Photos by Dirk Kirchner. And Phobos near the limb of Mars:
Zero to 10 in 85 seconds. Vintage Japanese political posters. A Portrait of LA. Antique circles (via Peacay). And Le Grand Blanc.
I think we have time for a movie, as well:
(Illustration at top: "vintage 19th c. marbled paper, antique straight pattern" via BibliOdyssey.)
Medicare has finalized new rules that affirm the right of hospital patients to choose their visitors:
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) today issued new rules for Medicare- and Medicaid-participating hospitals that protect patients’ right to choose their own visitors during a hospital stay, including a visitor who is a same-sex domestic partner.
“Basic human rights—such as your ability to choose your own support system in a time of need—must not be checked at the door of America’s hospitals,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “Today’s rules help give ‘full and equal’ rights to all of us to choose whom we want by our bedside when we are sick, and override any objection by a hospital or staffer who may disagree with us for any non-clinical reason.”
Arizona's racial profiling law may have cost it $45 million in convention business:
Spinoff effects bring economic losses into the hundreds of millions of dollars, according to the study, commissioned by the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington. Potential future effects of fewer convention bookings could mean Arizona will receive an overall hit of more than $750 million, the study said.
The British Beekeepers' Association will stop endorsing the use of pesticides that kill bees:
The British Beekeepers' Association has today announced plans to end its controversial practice of endorsing pesticides in return for cash from leading chemical manufacturers.
The endorsement of four products as "bee-friendly" in return for £17,500 a year caused outrage among many beekeepers because one of the companies, Bayer Crop Science, makes pesticides that are widely implicated in the deaths of honeybees worldwide.
In related news, the EPA will ban endosulfan:
Endosulfan is an antiquated, dangerous insecticide used on tomatoes, cotton and other crops that is a pervasive pollutant of waterways and a threat to numerous endangered species. It has also has been linked to endocrine disruption, reproductive disorders and other severe effects on human health. Conservationists, public health officials, farmworkers and indigenous groups have been calling for a U.S. ban on this DDT-era pesticide for years. Endosulfan is already banned in the European Union, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and other countries.
In news related to the foregoing related news:
Research shows that the benefits of environmental regulations consistently exceed costs, in part because they end up costing far less than both industry and the EPA predict.
When EPA promulgates regulations, industry often expresses concern that the regulations will cause extreme economic hardship. Now this argument is being made regarding EPA regulation of carbon pollution using existing legal authorities like the Clean Air Act. In fact, there is extensive literature showing that the costs of environmental regulations are more than offset by a broad range of economic, public health and jobs-related benefits. Additionally, initial cost estimates are consistently found to be exaggerated.
Economists and researchers who have compared actual costs with initial projections report that regulations generally end up costing far less than the dire predictions from industry and even, as an RFF study shows, below cost projections by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Xerox claims to have saved $10.2 million by asking its employees for green business ideas:
One way to dismiss sustainability and any smidgen of corporate social responsibility is to shout the antiquated argument that we only have a choice between the economy and the environment. Xerox has shown that is not the case. Last year the company announced it was working on carbon neutrality; to that end, in the push to make the company more "green," Xerox encouraged its employees to share ideas on how the organization could become more efficient....
The results from employees’ rethinking: Xerox has saved US$10.2 million this year while it eliminated 2.6 million pounds of waste.
In California, new regulations require reformulation of household cleaning products:
About 2,000 household cleaning products will be reformulated to reduce smog-forming compounds under a new regulation adopted Thursday in California.
The rule will trigger a new, mandatory wave of “green” products, including window cleaners, general purpose cleaning sprays, degreasers, oven cleaners, metal polishes, furniture sprays, heavy-duty hand soaps and spot removers.
Household cleaners, which contain highly reactive solvents known as VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, are a substantial source of smog. The new standards will reduce emissions by nearly 7 tons per day, which is the equivalent of removing half a million cars from California’s roads.
The Pentagon will stop shielding certain consultants from disclosure laws:
The Pentagon has dropped its attempt to shield some consultants from public scrutiny and will require all retired admirals and generals it hires under its "senior mentors" program to disclose their employers, earnings and stocks they own.
Under pressure from Congress, the Pentagon had required that only consultants making more than $119,553 per year disclose their finances.
But in a memo Friday, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said the disclosure rules will apply to all mentors.
Indonesia has created a large shark sanctuary:
A shark sanctuary has been declared around the Raja Ampat islands in Indonesia. Larger than Denmark, the new sanctuary covers 17,760 square miles (46,000 square kilometers) of one of the world's richest marine biodiverse region, the Coral Triangle. Protections not only cover sharks, but dugongs, marine turtles, mobulas, and manta rays as well. In addition, reef bombing and fishing for the aquarium trade are banned.
Researchers have found several new frogs in Colombia:
The newly discovered species include a cryptic beaked toad (Rhinella species), which resembles dead leaves and whose offspring skip the tadpole stage to develop directly into toadlets; an unknown toad with bright red eyes; and a new rocket frog (Silverstoneia species), a type of poison dart frog.
Photo: Robin Moore/iLCP
South Africa is deploying its military to stop rhino poaching:
Rhino poaching keeps taking on such alarming proportions in South Africa that the country's defence force has now been called in to help fight the ruthless killers who are mostly using assault weapons and often other sophisticated equipment to carry out their crime.
The request has come from South African National Parks (SANParks), which has been engaged in its own growing battle to stem rhino poaching in Kruger National Park, the country's flagship reserve that is home to about 10,000 white rhinos and 350 black rhinos.
Researchers in Hong Kong have created a solar air conditioning system for cars:
The system consists of a roof-mounted photovoltaic panel that collects solar energy and stories it in a custom battery supported by an optimized control system. The power collected will then be able to support a stand-alone electric air-conditioner, which can be switched on when the vehicle engine is not running. If the weather is dark, then stored energy can be used to power the system.
Currently the system can only produce enough power to sustain a standalone electric air conditioner, but the researchers are currently working on other projects that can benefit from the system, such as implementing them on the streets of Hong Kong to power shop A/C units and refrigerators.
Cheryl alerts me to these heartening Nunn-Lugar statistics:
The Nunn-Lugar scorecard now totals 7,599 strategic nuclear warheads deactivated, 791 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) destroyed, 498 ICBM silos eliminated, 180 ICBM mobile launchers destroyed, 651 submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) eliminated, 492 SLBM launchers eliminated, 32 nuclear submarines capable of launching ballistic missiles destroyed, 155 bomber eliminated, 906 nuclear air-to-surface missiles (ASMs) destroyed, 194 nuclear test tunnels eliminated, 493 nuclear weapons transport train shipments secured, upgraded security at 24 nuclear weapons storage sites, built and equipped 20 biological monitoring stations, and neutralized 1569.5 metric tons of Russian & Albanian chemical weapons agent. Perhaps most importantly, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus are nuclear weapons free as a result of cooperative efforts under the Nunn-Lugar program. Those countries were the third, fourth and eighth largest nuclear weapons powers in the world.
Apropos of which:
Enough plutonium and uranium to make 775 nuclear weapons has been removed from the BN-350 fast reactor in Kazakhstan, built to breed plutonium for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons program, and placed in a secure storage facility to keep terrorists from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The United States and Kazakhstan worked together to achieve the transfer, which was announced today by U.S. and Kazakh officials at the storage facility in Eastern Kazakhstan.
"Working closely together, we secured, packaged and removed the spent fuel that contains 10 metric tons of highly enriched uranium and three metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium, enough material for 775 nuclear weapons," said Anne Harrington, deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation with the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, NNSA.
Kentucky has canceled plans to build a coal plant:
Thanks to a powerful and growing New Power grassroots movement, a broad alliance of Kentucky activists sent an electrifying message across the nation today: A just transition to a clean energy future, even in the heartland of coal country Kentucky, is possible.
Recognizing the spiraling costs of coal-fired plant construction and more practical energy efficiency and renewable energy options, the East Kentucky Power Cooperative (EKPC) has agreed to halt its once fervent plans to construct two coal-burning power plants in Clark County.
I heartily endorse this event and/or product:
House Democrats are exploiting an embarrassing moment for the GOP earlier this week to highlight the hypocrisy of Republicans' relentless opposition to health care reform.
Four members -- Joe Crowley (NY), Linda Sanchez (CA), Donna Edwards (MD), and Tim Ryan (OH) -- are rounding up signatures for a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Speaker-to-be John Boehner, encouraging them to press their members to refuse their federal health benefits based on the same principles underlying their opposition to health care reform.
Sixteen studies from vegetable locomotion (1975). Eight films by Alexander Kluge. Seven hours of a train ride through Norway. Three abandoned churches. And an unspecified number of photos by Clarence John Laughlin:
Celestial mechanics. Vintage coupons. Calling the time lady. "The picturesque dress of the Newhaven fish-women will not escape the notice of a stranger." Graphic Presentation (via things). Neverends. Molecular animation (via Peacay). Photos by Abelardo Morell. Photos by David Vestal (via wood s lot). And home from above:
Redrawing our borders. Related: John Wesley Powell's watershed maps. The bright lights of the big city. The unified lunar control network. And strange images from the Nottingham Caves Survey:
Here's a cartoon, too:
(Image at top: "The small object featured in this exhibition is the oldest surviving Anglo-American star map. It was made in 1780 by Simeon De Witt, a surveyor for George Washington and the Continental army. The map shows the stars visible from De Witt’s post in New Jersey. Drawing such a map, as De Witt himself later said, fostered an appreciation of 'the ever shifting scenery of the skies and all the gorgeous drapery of heaven.'")
A North Carolina jury has found the anti-choice radical Flip Benham guilty of stalking doctors:
The director of a conservative Christian group was found guilty Monday of stalking N.C. doctors who perform abortions.
Rev. Flip Benham was sentenced in Mecklenburg court to two years probation and plans to appeal the decision, WSOC-TV reported. Benham, director of Operation Save America, which opposes abortion, homosexuality and Islamic violence, was accused of posting Wild West-style "Wanted" posters with the doctors' names and home addresses.
According to a recent study, lesbian households have an enviably low child-abuse rate:
The U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study (NLLFS) just released its results on its 24-year long study on families with lesbian parents, finding that not one of the 78 adolescents in the study had reported being sexually or physically abused by their parents. This compares to 26% of American adolescents overall who report parent or caregiver physical abuse. 8.3% report sexual abuse.
Additionally, only 2.8% of the adolescents in the study identified themselves as gay. Apparently the majority of them didn’t catch their parents’ gayness.
Caterpillar has suspended sales of D9 bulldozers to Israel:
The Israeli press is reporting that Caterpillar is withholding the delivery of tens of D9 bulldozers—valued at $50 million—to the Israeli military. These are weaponized bulldozers that are used to illegally destroy homes and orchards of Palestinian families.
(h/t: Karin)
A federal judge has ruled against warrantless cellphone tracking:
The court reached this conclusion both because cell tracking reveals information about constitutionally protected spaces such as the home, and because the prolonged nature of such surveillance is very invasive. The court likened the records sought by the government to “a continuous reality TV show, exposing two months’ worth of a person’s movements, activities, and associations in relentless detail.”
San Francisco has formally enacted the country's first open data law:
One year ago, San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing the city’s departments to make their data public. Yesterday, the city’s board of supervisors turned that order into law. As far as we could establish, this is the first time any city in the U.S. has implemented an open data law....
In the year since Newsom opened the data treasure troves, 200 sets of data have been released, and at least 50 apps have been built using them. Among the apps: EcoFinder, which helps people find recycling locations for all sorts of odds and ends; SpotCrime, which plots crime incidents and sends alerts to residents; and, possibly the favorite of the city's transportation-beleaguered residents, Routesy, which lets people plan tips on public transportation and provides real-time information about when the next bus or train is coming.
A new study suggests that organic strawberry farms produce better crops than conventional farms:
Strawberries from the conventional and organic farms had similar levels of minerals such as potassium, phosphorous and calcium. However, organically grown berries had higher levels of antioxidants and polyphenols, nutrients linked to preventing cancer. They also had higher dry weight, or “more berry in the berry,” said Reganold.
Arizona Public Service Co. may shut down part of the Four Corners power plant:
The Environmental Protection Agency last month unveiled a proposal for environmental upgrades at the plant to improve air quality in the region, and APS officials estimated they would cost about $1 billion.
Rather than pay for all that work at the five-generator power plant, APS proposes closing the first three generators, which it owns, and buying Southern California Edison out of its share of units 4 and 5, which don't need as much investment to meet EPA standards.
PNC Bank will stop funding mountaintop removal mining:
“This move makes PNC bank number seven to issue a position on MTR,” the Rainforest Action Network’s Amanda Starbuck writes, “following in the footsteps of Bank of America, Citi, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Credit Suisse.” PNC’s decision leaves UBS and GE Capital the only major banks that support mountaintop removal.
Italy is launching the world's first solar motorway:
Road testing is due in November, while on 1st January 2011 the Catania-Siracusa motorway will open to the public. By then, 100 percent of its electricity needs will be met by the PV panels installed along the road: 80 thousand of them. Lights, tunnel fans, road signs, emergency telephones, all the services and street furniture installed on the A18 will be run with solar power: distributed over a surface of 20 hectares, the photovoltaic array was obtained through the construction of 3 artificial tunnels on a 100m wide, 2.8km long stretch of road, a project with an overall cost of €60 million. Annual solar electricity production is estimated at about 12 million kWh, which will save — constructors claim — the equivalent of around 31 thousand tons of oil and 10 thousand tons worth of CO2 emissions every year.
An interesting new lightbulb will allegedly be available in 2011:
The 10,000-hour, mercury-free ESL bulb is purportedly just as energy-efficient as both LEDs and CFLs — and it’s dimmable. Vu1 claims that its bulb can disposed of without worrying about toxic elements, and it produces 50% less heat than incandescents to boot.
Doctors have restored a man's vision with an electronic chip:
A man left blind by a devastating eye disease has been able to read letters, tell the time and identify a cup and saucer on a table after surgeons fitted him with an electronic chip to restore his vision.
(h/t: Karin again)
A group of scientists has launched a massive effort to catalog and preserve old scientific data:
Old records have more than proved their worth by now. Data from ships’ logbooks, for example, have been used to study the history of whaling, climate change and the planet’s magnetic field. Zooniverse—which in the past has harnessed the power of bored people with computers to search through pictures of the sky for supernovae and cosmic mergers—has unleashed their horde of citizen scientists on record books from Royal Navy vessels from World War I to gather data and improve a database of weather extremes.
Coffee can archaeology. Map art by Fernando Vicente. Photos by Agustín Casasola (via wood s lot).
Colonial Film (via The Bioscope). Mollusca. Phonebook carvings. The Oya stone museum. And a visit to a nuclear reactor.
And selected short subjects.
(Photo at top: "Last week, NASA's robotic EPOXI spacecraft whizzed past Comet 103P/Hartley, also known as Comet Hartley 2, and recorded images and data that are both strange and fascinating. EPOXI was near its closest approach -- about 700 kilometers away -- when it snapped the above picture")
According to the Global Gender Gap Index, the United States actually made a little progress toward gender equality in 2009:
The world is moving toward greater equality between men and women, with Iceland keeping its lead in a ranking of 134 nations and the U.S. climbing into the top 20, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.
The U.S. rose to No. 19 -- jumping 12 positions -- in part because women now hold 33 percent of leading jobs in the administration of President Barack Obama, compared with 24 percent in 2009, the report showed. Still, the country ranked 40th in political empowerment, with Iceland claiming the top spot.
The European Court on Human Rights has fined Russia for banning gay pride parades in Moscow:
The European Court of Human Rights has fined Russia for banning gay parades in Moscow, in an important victory for the country's gay community.
A leading activist, Nikolai Alexeyev, brought the case after the city authorities repeatedly rejected his requests to organise marches....
"This is a crippling blow to Russian homophobia on all accounts," Mr Alexeyev said after the verdict was announced.
In related news, let's hear it for gay embryos!
It looks as though the United States has finally scrapped its plans for an "invisible" border fence:
The Department of Homeland Security, apparently ready to cut its losses on a so-called invisible fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, has decided not to exercise a one-year option for Boeing to continue work on the troubled multibillion-dollar plan involving high-tech cameras, radar and vibration sensors.
The USGS has drastically lowered its estimate of Alaska's NPRA oil reserves:
The National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska (NPRA) is a piece of land owned by the United States federal government located west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). While it gets less press than ANWR, it is another target of the "drill baby drill!" crowd. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has just released a revised estimate on the amount of "undiscovered" oil and gas that is likely to be found in the area, and let's just say that it is a cold shower for fans of more drilling in Alaska....
Considering that the world consumption of oil has been hovering around 85 million barrels per day, and the U.S. represents about a quarter of that, there's only enough oil in NPRA to fuel the world for about 10-12 days, or the US for about 45 days.
Drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation is on hold, temporarily:
Governor Rendell declared the Marcellus Shale tax dead for 2010 last week, due to Republicans being assholes who wouldn’t agree to anything higher than a 1.5% tax. One-point-five percent. Jesus. That’s what we get for subjecting our state to fracking and the threat of erupting natural gas wells?
Anyway, the Governor today decided that if we’re not taxing it, they’re not drilling it, so he signed an executive order at Penn Treaty Park today halting new drilling in Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania.
(h/t: Karin.)
Geothermal energy is expected to grow 78 percent by 2015:
According to ABS Energy's research, only 10 projects, totaling 405-megawatts, were commissioned in 2009. The geothermal power projects were located in the United States (181 MW), Indonesia (137 MW), Turkey (47 MW), and Italy (40 MW). The report states the requirement of high up-front investment along with high risk associated with developing geothermal projects as the chief catalysts for the tough year.
Nevertheless, the Geothermal Report says the overall outlook for the geothermal industry is positive. ABS Energy expects the global geothermal market to increase 78% between 2010 and 2015; this would bring global capacity to 19,016 MW.
England may use its old waterwheels to generate power:
[O]ver the next ten years, thousands of homes and communities will be encouraged to restore dilapidated water wheels and mills – or build small-scale hydro-electric power plants as part of a drive for green energy.
According to Climate Change Minister Greg Barker, our rivers and streams are ‘a great untapped source of power’ and could generate as much electricity as a nuclear power station.
A federal judge has ruled that the US Army must inform residents of Oahu's Makua Valley about the environmental effects of its live-fire training:
U.S. District Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway ruled that the Army failed to give the community crucial information on how military training at Makua Military Reservation on the island of Oahu could damage Native Hawaiian cultural sites and contaminate marine resources on which area residents rely for subsistence.
Palestine and Israel have both signed a cooperative agreeement on climate change:
Israel and the Palestinian Authority are among 15 Mediterranean nations who have just signed a historic agreement to work together to combat the effects of climate change, one month ahead of the next United Nations conference on climate change, meeting at Cancun in November....
Both Israel and Palestine are acutely aware of their vulnerability to climate change, which is expected to make water resources even more scarce for what is already the most water-stressed highly populated area in the world.
Sierra Leone has withdrawn its flag of convenience for fishing vessels:
Sierra Leone is closing its international shipping registry to foreign-owned fishing vessels in a move intended to reduce illegal catches in its seas and around the world, the fisheries minister said on Thursday.
Officials said the West African country -- notorious as a so-called "flag of convenience" with minimum enforcement of maritime regulations -- was the first such nation in the world to implement the measure.
Palau has established a huge new marine sanctuary:
Dolphins, whales, and dugongs will be safe from hunting in the waters surrounding the Pacific nation of Palau. At the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, Palau's Minister of the Environment, Natural Resources and Tourism, Harry Fritz, announced the establishment of a marine mammal sanctuary covering over 230,000 square miles (600,000 square kilometers) of the nation's waters, an area the size of Ukraine....
"Palau, which once supported the Japanese position on commercial whaling, now supports conserving marine mammals, along with sharks and other species. By aiding economic development through ecotourism, Palau recognizes the importance of keeping these species alive and thriving," Dr. Susan Lieberman, director of international policy for the Pew Environment Group, said in a statement, adding that "we call on other countries large and small to follow Palau's example."
Worldwide cases of polio are dropping:
The world's largest, most intractable source of polio may be on the brink of elimination. In India the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have produced more polio cases this decade—nearly 5,000—than any other location worldwide that has an active immunization campaign. Nigeria saw a handful more cases than the two Indian states because it effectively ceased immunizing in 2003 for a time due to false fears of the vaccine.
Now, even at the peak of polio season, new cases in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and indeed all of India hover near zero—unprecedented, historic lows.
No Tech Magazine directs our attention to a modest proposal for a value extracted tax:
In our society, high taxes on labor drive businesses to minimize the number of employees. Resources remain untaxed, so we use them unconstrained. This system causes both unemployment and scarcity of resources.
Eckart Wintzen (1939-2008) proposed a system change called Value Extracted Tax. VET brings tax on resources up and tax on labor down. This creates an incentive to use abundant and recycled materials. Lower taxes on labor make services more affordable. Every sector requiring manpower, craftsmanship and creativity will benefit from lower labor costs.
Russia has donated copies of ten American silent films to the Library of Congress, none of which are in US archives:
Russia tended to keep the films that were sent to it for distribution, whereas American studios all too often disposed of their silent features once they no longer had any commercial value. The Library of Congress is negotiating not only with Russia but with archives in France, Czechoslovakia and the Netherlands, so we can look forward to many more such happy homecomings.
Also, luminous Orientalism. Bird photos by Gerry Sibell. Animated mechanisms. Anaglyphic stereoviews. And via wood s lot, the Dutch Nationaal Archief:
For sale: One 70-ton map, used only on Sundays. Metro maps and salt paper prints. Microphotography and the pigeon post. Vintage linen postcards. And collages by Kiyoshi Yamashita.
Jenny Odell's Satellite Collection (via things). A free and frank exchange of views with a tea-partier. More matchbox labels. And various subjects from the material world:
That's about as much as I can manage today, except for this:
(Photo at top: "Niagara Falls" by Hugh Lee Pattinson, 1840. Via Luminous Lint.)
Posted by Phila at 2:02 PM 5 comments Links
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Upon completing his service in the Israel Defense Forces, Kobi Zucker needed to get away from the pressures of the ongoing struggles of the Middle East. With memories of his tour of duty in the territories fresh in his mind, he comes to New York City on his way to South America. While working to earn money for his trip, Kobi meets the girl of his dreams. Beautiful and intelligent, Leila is everything that Kobi has ever wanted. But Leila is Palestinian, having come to New York from the West Bank with her family following the death of her oldest brother during the Intifada. Despite their differences, Kobi and Leila fall in love. Meanwhile, Leila’s only surviving brother, Ghazi, is having his own troubles adapting to life in his new country. Ghazi increasingly comes under the spell of a radical Muslim preacher. Ghazi sees Leila changing and fears that she is no longer an honorable Muslim woman. Ghazi is determined to prevent Leila from dishonoring her family while Leila struggles with her feelings for Kobi and her past. Can love overcome the ancient hatreds and unhealed wounds dividing Israelis and Palestinians?
Visit the Homeland Facebook Page
They Ain't Ready for Me
Sasa's Story
Copyright Brad Rothschild 2020. All Rights Reserved
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Peter Brook (1989 Television)
Television arts documentary. Melvyn Bragg interviews Peter Brook, covering the whole of his career, with specific reference to the production of The Mahabharata, but also including rare extracts from the...
Hamlet (1989 Television)
Chris Hunt; Melvyn Bragg
Anthology television documentary arts series presented by Melvyn Bragg. Documentary on Hamlet and its many performances and interpretations. The focus is on three 1989 productions directed by Richard Eyre...
Sir Peter Hall Directs Shakespeare’s Last Plays (1988 Television)
Television arts documentary. Absorbing account of Peter Hall’s final productions as director of the National Theatre, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, using the same group of actors and...
King Lear (1987 Television)
Television anthology arts series presented by Melvyn Bragg. Programme on the staging of King Lear around a rehearsal in the National Theatre of David Hare’s production with Anthony Hopkins in the title...
Ian McKellen - Diary of a Year (1985 Television)
Television arts documentary. When Ian McKellen joined the National Theatre in 1984, he was asked by The South Bank Show to keep an audiotape diary of his experiences as an actor over the next twelve months....
Isle is Full of Noises, The (1985 Television)
Jill Freeman
Anthology arts series presented by Melvyn Bragg. A documentary on electronic music. The programme also promotes a specially commissioned piece by Tim Souster based on Caliban’s speech.
Preparing to Perform Shakespeare (1984 Television, Video)
aka: Word of Mouth
A masterclass on speaking and performing Shakespeare introduced by Trevor Nunn and led by John Barton who works with Royal Shakespeare Company actors Alan Howard, Michael Pennington, David Suchet, Ian...
South Bank Show [09/05/1982] (1982 Television)
Anthology arts series presented by Melvyn Bragg. The first half of the programme features Joseph Papp. The segment, filmed in New York City, shows Papp being interviewed at various locations relevant to his...
South Bank Show, The [06/01/1980] (1980 Television)
aka: Hamlet Wolfe Stalks American Culture
Bob Bee; Geoff Dunlop
Anthology arts series presented by Melvyn Bragg. In the second part of the programme (c25mins) Jonathan Pryce and director Richard Eyre talk about the staging of Hamlet at London’s Royal Court Theatre,...
Roman Polanski (1980 Television)
Television anthology arts series. Melvyn Bragg interviews director Roman Polanski about his film-making. Polanski says that he believes Laurence Olivier to be a director of genius and admits to having seen...
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Belfast based startup to develop a mobile app, harnessing Artificial Intelligence, to provide communication tool for voice-impaired patients
Liopa secures Innovate UK Funding, along with partners Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Queen’s University of Belfast, to deploy a communications aid for tracheostomy patients, aimed at improving patient engagement and autonomy.
29 April, 2019, Belfast, UK: Liopa, a spin out of the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) has announced that it is to deliver a prototype patient/carer communications aid. It will be used by tracheostomy patients in critical care environments.
Working along with Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Queen’s University Belfast, Liopa will develop SRAVI (Speech Recognition App for the Voice Impaired). Compared to the limited alternatives available, SRAVI will provide an easy-to-use, accurate and cost effective method for communication between these patients, their family members and healthcare staff. SRAVI will integrate with LipRead, Liopa’s artificial intelligence engine for Visual Speech Recognition.
This initial project will focus at a select group of patients with tracheostomies (approximately 10,000 tracheostomies are performed annually in the UK) who currently struggle to vocalise but can move their lips normally. Whilst the initial prototype will support a limited vocabulary in English, the application can be further developed to support larger vocabularies across multiple languages.
Clinical Professor Danny McAuley at QUB’s Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine and Consultant at the Belfast Trust commented, “The inability to communicate during an ICU stay is a major source of morbidity for patients, family and staff. A patient’s non-verbal attempts to communicate are often difficult to understand which can be frustrating for patients and carers. This novel approach may allow better communication between the patient, staff and family from an early stage.”
“This is an innovative application of our proven AI-based Visual Speech Recognition (VSR) system LipRead. LipRead analyses and translates lip movements into recognisable words. The technology allows the translation of lip movement to text using a mobile app on a mobile device which will need very little training and is inexpensive,” said Liam McQuillan, Co-founder and CEO, Liopa. He continued, “SRAVI can be deployed on commodity smartphones and tablets, that can be used by multiple patients. Alternative technologies, such as ‘eye-gaze’ systems, require bespoke hardware and are generally much more expensive.”
Shondipon Laha, Consultant in Critical Care and Anaesthesia, Lancashire Teaching Hospital, explained further, “This project will address a government priority to implement new digital solutions in the NHS. SRAVI will deliver improved patient-carer communications for patients with tracheostomies, thus reducing rehabilitation times in expensive ICU settings.”
The project will run for 9 months and will include an evaluation phase, carried out in hospital critical care environments in Lancashire and Belfast. It has been funded by UK Research and Innovation – a new organisation that brings together the UK Research Councils, Innovate UK and Research England. This single organisation creates the best environment for research and innovation to flourish, to ensure the UK maintains its world-leading position in research and innovation.
ABOUT LIOPA
The company was spun out of the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) in 2015. Since then Liopa has been onward developing and commercialising research carried out within the university into the use of Lip Movements (visemes) in Speech Recognition. The company is leveraging QUB’s renowned excellence in the area of speech, speaker and dialogue modelling to position Liopa as a leading independent provider of viseme-based VSR technology.
Gillian@liopa.co.uk
info@liopa.ai
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A well known promoter in Toronto once told us, “If you don’t absolutely have to do this job, just don’t bother.” It’s this and countless other pieces of advice that push us forward.
Our first gig in 2016 seems a distant memory. We booked that show ourselves – A two hour set at “The Barrel Public House” in North York – and had family collect the $7 door charge. Since then, CYGNUS has played a slew of clubs and halls like Opera House and The Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, Ontario.
As a band, CYGNUS carries an intense respect for the great musical acts of the past and present. Artists like, Arkells, Muse, Queens Of The Stone Age, Pink Floyd, and so many others, have fueled our passion for what music can be.
The release of our self titled debut is a reflection of lessons learned, both musically and lyrically.
From the start, our aim has been to strive for a sense of quality and care in all aspects of the band. Achieving perfection might be an impossible pursuit, but we feel that the self titled EP is the strongest reflection of our music to date.
You can find it, and our new music video for ‘Everyone’s Told Me’ here.
We thank you for stopping by to explore our official site. It’s your one place for everything CYGNUS.
Check back for updates on shows, photography, blogs all right here!
Brant, Chris, Jake, Ryan, and Richard
Join our mailing list for the latest
news and upcoming shows!
©2018 Cygnus. All rights reserved.
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1619 Project Will Be Adapted To Film
By rmrd0000 on Wed, 07/08/2020 - 2:38pm |
Pulitzer Prize®-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) have chosen global content leader Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF.A, LGF.B) to be the home for a wide-ranging partnership to develop Ms. Hannah-Jones’ landmark issue of The New York Times Magazine, The 1619 Project, and hit New York Times podcast, 1619, into an expansive portfolio of feature films, television series and other content for a global audience.
As part of the ground-breaking venture, Lionsgate has partnered with media titan Oprah Winfrey as a producer who will provide stewardship and guidance to the development and production of the 1619 Project.
Lionsgate, The Times and Ms. Winfrey will join forces with Ms. Hannah-Jones, a 2020 Pulitzer Prize® winner, staff writer at The New York Times Magazine, and one of the nation’s foremost investigative journalists, who will serve as the creative leader and producer in developing feature films, television series, documentaries, unscripted programming and other forms of entertainment enlisting world-class Black creative voices to help adapt her celebrated series chronicling the ways that the original sin of slavery in America still permeates all aspects of our society today. Her colleague at The Times Magazine, Caitlin Roper, an editor of The 1619 Project and head of scripted entertainment at The Times, will also produce.
https://www.theroot.com/exclusive-oprah-winfrey-nikole-hannah-jones-lionsgat-1844299133
Would like Henry Louis Gates over Oprah. They should have Edward Baptist's research included. 1619. is where I heard of, then got, his book 'The Half has Never Been Told'. I was just looking 1619 and Baptist and came across this at National Review:
"At a congressional hearing earlier this summer, journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates enlisted another of Baptist’s claims to argue for reparations. “By 1836 more than $600 million, almost half of the economic activity in the United States, derived directly or indirectly from the cotton produced by the million-odd slaves,” Coates said.
This stunning statistic quickly became one of the most memorable sound bites of the occasion. It is also unambiguously false"
The Baptist is "unambiguously false" link goes to AIER, which pops up a link to some right wing pandemic download, and on the lead page there is this in an article bizarrely titled "H.G. Wells and the Partnership between Viruses and Humans". Probably few of us were aware viruses were our partners. The author quotes from Wells War of the Worlds extensively, almost perversely given the pandemic today, and goes on to conjecture:
"it is critical to remember that liberty only becomes meaningful in the context of our lives on this earth. Our lives are ours, and our place earned. Let not the billions before us, who battled nature not only with their hands and minds but their immune systems, genetic variations, and other evolutionary adaptations, have lived in vain."
The guy is nuts. "Genetic variations have lived in vain"? I suspect if the a virus hits his variations, whatever they are, he will sing a different tune.
The "critical" link goes to a page on " Safetyism" where it is summed up as “a culture or belief system in which safety has become a sacred value" which the author contends is a "lust for power" and "infinitely cruel."
If National Review thinks the nutjobs at AIER are the best they got to refute Baptist and 1619 on the capitalist ramifications of slavery, I will definitely stick with Baptist, not those who talk up "partnerships" with viruses, who sound like "right outta Nazi Germany's T-4 euthanasia program.
by NCD on Thu, 07/09/2020 - 12:25am
People didnt actually panic over War of the Worlds either - more marketing.
by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 07/09/2020 - 1:01am
oldenGoldenDecoy 1 hour ago
A Guy Called LULU 2 hours ago
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Mobile Suit Gundam Part 2. First 1000 units will include a Limited Edition Art Book.
Following our release of Mobile Suit Gundam Part 1 back in November last year, the time has nearly arrived for our Blu-ray release of Mobile Suit Gundam Part 2 to be available to add to your collection. 8th February is the date for you to put in you calendars for when you can get your hands on this. We wanted to take a few moments to highlight some details about this release.
Before going any further a reminder that you can pre-order this now from the likes of Amazon UK, Zavvi, Base and even our own web shop.
~ First 1000 units comes with a Limited Edition Art Book
We wanted to add something special for our release of Mobile Suit Gundam Part 2 so the first 1000 units of this Blu-ray release will come with a UK Exclusive Limited Edition 48-page art book.
This book is NOT a specific retailer exclusive item so no matter where you pre-order your copy you will receive this on day of release. The version that comes with the art book is the only version that will be available on release day.
In terms of the content in the book it will be divided into three sections, Gallery, Characters and Mechas.
~ Special Extra on this Blu-ray
A special on-disc bonus included in this Blu-ray is a 30th Anniversary Interview, that was originally included in the Japanese “Mobile Suit Gundam 30th Anniversary Documentary Memorial Box” release. It features comments from Yoshiyuki Tomino (Director), Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (Animation Director, Character Designer), Kunio Okawara (Mecha Designer) and Mitsuki Nakamura (Art Director) discussing various elements of the series and experiences working on it. It’s duration is just over 24 minutes.
And for those of you reading this who are interested in purchasing this along with our part 1 release, a few things to note:
~ A reminder that this is a remastered release of a series first broadcast in the 1970s
With any anime we are delighted to see when it’s possible to have a series or film showcased in the best quality quality and HD remasters are something we’re big fans of, but Mobile Suit Gundam is a slightly different animal. Most HD remasters that made it to the UK have been of far more recent properties, for example a series that was made in the last 15-20 years, but the original Mobile Suit Gundam first aired on Japanese television back in April of 1979. The style of animation has developed so much in the decades following Mobile Suit Gundam that for a first time viewer it can almost be a sort culture shock. Also the way animation was preserved back in the 70s was far different to how it done today.
~ Both Part 1 & Part 2 are dual language releases.
Our release of the series contains both the original Japanese audio with subtitles and the English language dub. Yes, some of you might be surprised to hear this but the series did have a brief run on television in the USA so the entire series was dubbed into English. You get both that and the original Japanese audio included in our release.
~ The original Mobile Suit Gundam series was NOT animated in 16:9
As the original Mobile Suit Gundam aired in the late 70s, this series was not animated in widescreen (16:9). This means that when watching the series will be pillarboxed, meaning it will be displayed with black bars at the side of the screen to retain the original aspect ratio (4:3) rather than stretching the image or using other techniques to make it into widescreen.
We appreciate there are a generation of fans who might not be as aware of this fact so we like to make mention of it. Pillarboxing was also utilised for our release of Cowboy Bebop and is also the case for the Season 1 and Season 2: Fumoffu episodes of Full Metal Panic in our Ultimate Edition release.
As mentioned Mobile Suit Gundam Part 1 is available now and Part 2 arrives on 8th February.
Jan 14, 2016 jeremy
All Posts, Newswire435
Newswire #54 - 13th Jan 2016
Anime at the Oscars 2016
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The 2013 study
The numbers mentioned on the poster are taken from this study by profs. Kirby, Francis and O’Flaherty from the University of Lancaster, published in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency in 2014. Should the paper be behind a paywall, then there might be some science hub where you can download it (you might think that this is an explicit invitation to visit sci-hub.tw, I couldn’t possibly comment).
In their paper, Kirby et al. use data from the Lancashire police department, with daily data on the number of reported domestic violence incidents. They look at the data during the World Cups of 2002, 2006 and 2010. As the numbers are count data, they employ the so-called negative-binomial regression model to model the influence of whether and how England played on the number of incidents reported.
I like the paper by Kirby et al. a lot. Not only is the methodology sound, they also are aware of the limitations of their work. For instance, the dataset contains only 14 match days (and only 3 days where England lost), and the violence data are from only one county in England. As they write in their abstract: “Although this is a relatively small study, it has significant ramifications due to the global nature of televised football (soccer) tournaments. If replicated, it presents significant
opportunities to identify and reduce incidents of domestic abuse associated with televised soccer games.” Remembering that the paper was published in 2014, the public call for replications is impressive.
The main findings of this study, are as follows:
Variable Relative Risk 95% Confidence Interval
Match day; win/draw 1.256 (1.128, 1.411)
Match day; lose 1.382 (1.150, 1.661)
The day after 1.107 (1.004, 1.228)
Saturdays 1.435 (1.259, 1.634)
Sundays 1.506 (1.323, 1.715)
The interpretation of these numbers is as follows. If England plays and either wins or draws, the model predicts 25.6% more incidents than on a match-free day; if England plays and loses, the model predicts 38.2% more incidents; and the day after a match, the risk goes up by 10.7%. Furthermore, in weekends there is considerably more domestic violence than during weekdays (the risks are relative to the values on Thursdays, the least violent day of the week).
It is important to keep in mind that England only lost 3 matches over these three World Cups, and won/drew 11 matches, so the estimates are based on pretty small sample sizes. This is reflected by the wide confidence intervals. Please also note that the model only talks about correlations, and by no means about causation.
Including the 2018 World Cup
Thus, the main thing that Tomas wanted to know – and after he told me about his idea, I wanted to know as well – is how the model would fit to the data were the current World Cup is included as well. (It would’ve been interesting to include the 2014 World Cup as well, even though England only played three matches there. However, we didn’t have the time to include those data as well.)
Tomas put in a freedom of information act request with the Lancashire Constabulary for the recent domestic violence statistics and the constabulary responded with the numbers within 24 hours with the data from June 1st up to July 11th. Thus, the data include everything up to the day where England lost the semi-final from Croatia. (It doesn’t include the data for Saturday’s match against Belgium, but as a match for 3rd place is a strange thing is sports anyway, we didn’t want to wait with our request until after the weekend). The football data for the English team this tournament is as follows:
18 June Tunesia 1 – England 2
24 June England 6 – Panama 1
28 June England 0 – Belgium 1
3 July Colombia 1 – England 1*
7 July Sweden 0 – England 2
11 July Croatia 2 – England 1
After adding the football and violence data to the dataset, I ran the same model that Kirby et al. ran, and obtained a model with as main features:
The match day effect win/draw was still clearly present, but slightly smaller: the relative risk was 1.194, 95% CI (1.1094, 1.302).
The match day effect after losing also became smaller: RR 1.274, 95% CI (1.110, 1.463).
The other effects were more comparable to those found by Kirby et al.
Including temperature data
As a next step, I looked for appropriate sources for temperature data. The Centre for Environmental Data analysis has daily climate data for every 5 km-by-5 km square in the U.K. , called the UKCP09 data set. From the grid, I selected the follow square, on the north side of Preston, to be representative for Lancashire.
The selected 5 km by 5 km square
From this data set, I took all values of the maximum daily temperature. As the 2018 data is not yet part of this data set, I used another source for that.
This model gave the following output:
The interpretation of the 1.024 value for temperature, is that for each additional degree (Celsius), the risk grows by 2.4%. Just as in the 2014-paper, the increase in violence risk is very clear for match days. However, the estimates are smaller. Most notably, the estimate for what happens when England loses has become much smaller and now is about the same as for when England wins or draws. The reason is that England just happened to lose some games on exceptionally warm days. When they lost (after penalties) to Portugal on 1 July 2006, it was 27 degrees Celsius and on 27 June 2010, the day of the 4-1 defeat against the Germans, it was 26 degrees. (Note that these are the temperatures in Lancashire, not the temperatures of the location of the World Cup). The average temperature is about 20 degrees, so this additional “extra violent when England loses” effect could be due to temperature effects.
A more parsimonious model
Another observation from the table is that there is a lot going on there. Now that the difference between winning/drawing and losing is negligible, we can make the model more parsionious by simply measuring whether England plays or not, without looking at who wins. Furthermore, we can simplify the day-of-week effect by only looking at whether it is weekend or not: the difference between, e.g., Wednesday and Thursday are too small to be of interest.
Therefore, I reduced the model and recieved the following, more parsimonious output:
(For the stats nerds: the overdispersion parameter theta was 116.1 (note that I used R’s glm.nb function, other software would’ve estimated theta as 1/116.1. Furthermore, the AIC = 914.5, lower than the value 919.6 of the previous model which indicates that this parsimonious model fits better.)
The main conclusions of the great paper by Kirby, Francis and O’Flaherty do replicate after taking the current World Cup into account. However, (i) the difference between the effect of winning and that of losing vanishes when you take temperature into account, (ii) the increased risk of domestic violence on England match days seems to be somewhat smaller than the values 26%-38% reported by Kirby et al.: my estimate is an increased risk of 19% (with the 95% confidence interval ranging from 10% to 28%.) I have no idea why the effect was stronger in 2002/2006/2010 than in 2018, that’s something the data don’t tell you.
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Bangalore 2030
"Why do you live in Bangalore?"
This past week, nilenso interviewed a German fellow for a software development position. As part of the routine of meeting a new stranger in this city, a variation of "Why do you live in Bangalore?" passed between us. My answer to this question is complex and usually varies based on the tone and implied subtext with which the question is asked. My immediate reasons are somewhat boring. My job is here and I like my job. My friends are here and I like my friends. The weather is pleasant.
Beyond that, however, I have wanted to capture my answer to this question in a way that could be conveyed clearly, immediately, convincingly. The complexity of the answer derives from the juxtaposition of Bangalore's past 15 years of growth against her next 15 years. I am quite convinced that anyone who knows Bangalore today only needs to think creatively about the latter half, since they are intimately familiar with the former. Hence, I plan to commission artwork (as I am no artist) which captures Bangalore's upcoming progress. This document is an open description which I intend to use for this purpose: Anticipate Bangalore 2030 and provoke both conversation and action.
Just Suppose We Juxtapose
Every feature of this commissioned artwork falls into one of two categories: The first is a quality native Bangaloreans say the city is losing or has already lost. The second is a feature which many established cities actually lack but are retrofitting onto legacy architecture and infrastructure. Features lacking in most major metropolises can be contrasted to Bangalore's present state not only to highlight where the city is going but to emphasize how Bangalore might leapfrog the models of other cities in 2015 to push toward a more effective society based, at least in part, on the pressure caused by its failing infrastructure.
Both forms of duality will become clearer by way of example, but this point cannot be stressed enough: Backpressure is a good thing. Bangalore is positioned to lead by quiet example in a very short period of time, given a concentrated effort. By way of counterexample, Chicago (the last city I lived in) has no garbage crisis. It's unlikely it ever will. Without backpressure from the system of waste disposal reaching the citizens, it will be decades (perhaps a generation) before Chicago sees a distinct shift in behaviour within every household.
Why Bangalore?
Bangalore is in a position few other cities are in at the moment. It is changing quickly. Very quickly. It is in a small flux from week to week alone and it undergoes drastic changes every few months. If I visit my family and Canada and return a month later, entire streets are sometimes unrecognizable. Some of this change is moving in the opposite direction this document proposes as the city becomes increasingly industrialized, commercialized, and modern. However, much of that change is absolutely necessary if we are to envision Bangalore as a New World City. Its metro population is that of New York and London; by 2030 it will have outstripped them. Its new workforce is largely post-industrial technology firms and supporting industries. It's not hard to imagine Bangalore as a city of the future.
Bangalore is also a cheat. The weather here supports year-round bicycling and yet much of the flora remains tropical. Choosing Bangalore when fantasizing about cities of the future circumvents a multitude of problems. The ground does not freeze. It is far from the ocean and does not suffer many natural disasters. It seems likely that many of Bangalore's immigrating technology workers choose it for this very reason, though, which in some ways validates choosing it for this thought experiment.
Lastly, Bangalore supports an array of cultures and (so far) does so in a way that they do not seem to melt together. New York is metropolitan but it doesn't always feel that way. Londoners feel like Londoners. Bangalore's masjids, bars, temples, restaurants, churches, mansions, slums, government offices, parks... they are a bizarre blend of activity that I have yet to experience in any other city. If infrastructural and behavioural change can work in Bangalore, it can work anywhere.
Our Juxtapositions
1. The traffic: Bangalore's traffic is a mess. Once a sleepy city full of retirees, old streets are now packed with trucks, buses, single-occupant cars, 2-wheelers, bicycles... and even the odd bullock cart. No one enjoys driving in Bangalore and even getting around as a passenger can feel stressful. Because the arteries of the city are clogged with every shape and size of vehicle, drivers get frustrated and address each other with incessant honking. Air and noise pollution choke the streets. A Bangalore commute often feels like traveling on a fantastic version of Mulberry Street.
The Metro: The Namma Metro is nearer and nearer to completion every day. Some of my friends already use it for a portion of their commute, despite the fact that the entire length of the metro's journey is walkable at the moment. The project seems forever-delayed, but a vision of Bangalore 2030 features the metro as its centrepiece. As long as the memory of Bangalore's traffic in 2015 is fresh in everyone's minds, there should be no shortage of public support to continue expanding the metro to new neighbourhoods. Electric feeder buses don't exist in Bangalore now, but are not hard to imagine as a staple form of transportation by 2030.
Bicycles: Copenhagen and Amsterdam were not always the cyclist's paradises they are perceived to be now. In many cities, the convenience of the car easily trumps the desire for most to choose a bicycle, even for those convinced of the environmental, health, and resource benefits. That line of thinking is hard to follow in Bangalore, though. At the moment, it's often faster to get across the city by bicycle than it is by car, simply due to agility. Bangalore is infinitely bicycle-able: The traffic is safe, due to its slowness. The weather is perfect 10 months of the year. The roads could be better, but they are constantly improving. There are very few gradients.
Bangalore has seen a small surge in its bicycle interest among the middle class. Shops like BumsOnTheSaddle, The Specialized Store, Crankmeister, and ProCycle have popped up in recent years. A bicycle culture can't be subsidized by the government and won't materialize apropos of nothing. But the sooner Bangalore's bicycle renaissance occurs, the sooner it will snowball into dedicated bicycle infrastructure whenever a new road is paved.
Fragile, Indian-made bicycles and/or those with century-old designs (Hero, Atlas) still comprise the entirety of the bicycle market for Bangalore's lower economic classes. These still fall in the Rs. 5000 to Rs. 10,000 price range... which isn't actually that affordable. Simple, reliable, single-speed steel-frame bicycles could be produced in India at that price.
Electric, Automated Taxis & Rickshaws: Though not as revolutionary as clean public transportation or a confluence of Bangalore's two bicycle cultures into the middle classes, electric and autonomous vehicles do seem the most cartoonishly futuristic. They're not. Self-driving cars are on the streets in the US and Europe. Fully-electric cars have been a reality in India for 20 years and it's not hard to imagine that within a few years the Revas and E2Os will keep the company of Bangalore's first Teslas. With the advent of just-in-time taxi services, the future of roads in any city (not only Bangalore) is obvious. Fully electric cabs can already be seen on Bangalore streets. On the streets where cars are still permitted in the Bangalore of 2030, it seems likely that many cars will carry 4 or 5 passengers but no driver. Rickshaws inhabit a different slice of the economy and may still have human operators in 2030 but the polluting two-stroke engines of today will be seen as legacy. Electric rickshaws and electric bicycle rickshaws are already common in Delhi.
While an electric, autonomous vehicle is unlikely to generate much noise pollution, I can't help but imagine that as awareness of the damage noise pollution does (to humans and animals both) goes up, clear "NO HONKING" signs will become the norm.
WFH. The late-90s dream of telecommuting has panned out differently for everyone who dreamt it. Some of us can't focus at home. Some jobs still require interacting with the physical world. But for many (including about half the nilenso office) remote and distributed are the new default. I can't actually envision how one would capture this in an art piece about Bangalore 2030, but it's a reality, all the same.
2. The Garbage Crisis: Thankfully, the citizens of Bangalore's surrounding villages have started to fight back against the dumping of garbage in their homes. The backpressure of their resistance causes Bangalore's streets to fill with Garbage. This is fantastic.
It might seem odd to think of Bangalore's garbage crisis as a good thing, but if the infrastructure existed to truck the trash of 8.5 million people far enough away from the city that no one needed to think about it... then no one would think about it. As it stands, the truth of our waste is in our faces. Every day, on every street.
Compost: The more I think about compost, the more confused I am about the fact that it isn't the default option for wet waste in every city of the world. But within Bangalore, it is obviously the right choice, since it is the only option the government currently supports. Wet waste, disposed every day, goes to a city-wide composting facility as long as it is not stored in a plastic bag. More adventurous citizens can compost easily at home.
"Dry Waste": Garbage workers pick up "dry waste" (recyclables) twice a week. Thanks to a massive labour force, Bangalore's recyclable waste is actually sorted at recycling centres... even though this should be the responsibility of every citizen. Composting and recycling is the government-requested (and desperately needed) default in 2015. In addition to basic waste segregation, it's not unlikely that "NO FIRES" signs will become commonplace as lighting roadside garbage fires becomes illegal.
Recycling: True recycling in 2030 will mean recyclables are separated at the source. Every home will wash and segregate plastic, metal, and glass from e-waste, paper, and cloth. The best implementation of this system I have ever seen was in Tokyo, where our AirBNB instructions explained that plastics were to be sorted into three categories before providing them for pickup. As long as there is a garbage crisis, there is the perfect opportunity to teach the public about proper recycling in a tangible way that directly affects their personal comfort.
3. Power Cuts: Bangalore experiences common power cuts. Some are very intentional and continue year-round. Others are based on a lack of water in the dams which feed Bangalore's primarily hydro electricity supply. For a city with a growing economy, this has meant diesel generators for large businesses and battery backups for SMBs like nilenso. Running tiny power plants in every major business contributes to Bangalore's asthma-inducing air pollution.
Solar and battery: Thanks to the emergence of lithium-ion batteries, the batteries of 2015 should quickly become relics. Currently, nilenso operates on some rather hideous batteries which require us to fill them with water periodically. They occasionally spill acid on the floor. They're huge. But the fact is: They exist. Out of necessity, businesses and homes in Bangalore already have the kind of battery backup Tesla intends to sell to every American. Whether Bangalore becomes the biggest Tesla Powerwall customer by 2030 or not, some form of lithium battery will overtake the existing market. Solar panels are increasingly affordable and not only offer freedom from the grid during power cuts but would provide homes and businesses with resilient, distributed electricity during floods or other disasters (as Chennai is currently experiencing). A Bangalore of 2030 has a cityscape of buildings blanketed in solar panels.
4. The Mud of the Monsoon: While we're on the topic of floods, we can address Bangalore's annual battle with the monsoon. The slightest rain seems to bring the city to a halt. Streets are somehow instantly clogged with both water and traffic and the power goes out in most neighbourhoods. The latter would be taken care of by building-independent power sources. The former, by proper infrastructure.
As of today, sanitary sewage and storm water are both dealt with using semi-covered and uncovered "drains". When a street floods, the sanitary sewers are overburdened and waste water (including human faeces) is ejected into the street, endangering citizens' health.
Storm sewers: Bangalore needs a massive storm sewer system, akin to the Ninja Turtles' portrayal of the storm sewers in New York: Underground, walkable for maintenance, and completely separate from sanitary sewers. Bangalore gets plenty of rain. Rather than the present nuisance, it could wash a dusty city clean, restock water tables, and irrigate nearby farmland.
Sanitary sewers: New sanitary sewers between now and 2030 need to be built underground and completely covered. Disposal will be to a proper waste water treatment plant or — preferably — to a more future-focused human waste composting plant. An image of separate storm and sanitary sewers is easy enough to imagine, though the specifics of where they go afterward is a bit more difficult to portray in a painting.
[Edit] Public toilets: I failed to include this originally, because for some reason it felt like an ephemeral change the city will implement and overcome. I was wrong. After a recent trip to Hyderabad, I was amazed to see the heavy usage of public toilets on most major streets. This is fantastic for a number of reasons. A government-installed public toilet is a perfect opportunity to dig an underground sewer where one might not yet exist. It's also an opportunity to raise awareness about where the local sewage is draining -- and where it should drain. I also traveled to Vancouver recently and was pleasantly surprised to find public toilets available in every park, where children and the elderly were making regular use of them. Public toilets are neither ephemeral, nor something we need to "overcome". In fact, I'm increasingly of the opinion that "developed" nations have far fewer public toilets than are actually required.
5. The Useless "Army Area": India, thankfully, is not a terribly violent nation. Bangalore has little use for the army any longer and it seems quite bizarre to use valuable inner-city land for military training exercises. Yet a substantial portion of the city can be seen on Google Maps as large, blank and grey: labelled "Army Area". The cadets can be seen early in the morning... running around in uniform or calling out strokes in a rowboat on Ulsoor lake. They seem... bored.
Disaster Relief: Never mind the army of 2030, the army (and navy, and airforce, and whatever other antiquated units of government you can think of) of today should serve one purpose: global safety and security. At a minimum, the military and military resources, such as land, could slowly be funnelled into government departments of greater utility, such as DART, serving all of India, at a bare minimum — and hopefully its neighbours. I'm sure there is debate to be had as to whether starvation and poor health of one's own citizens is a "disaster." Some of us might choose stronger words. But as long as I'm fantasizing, a Bangalore of 2030 would welcome its least fortunate citizens into refurbished Army Areas to serve simple meals and provide basic healthcare services.
6: Lost: Some Trees: Bangalore's old tagline of "The Garden City" is less appropriate with each new building constructed. Parks remain, but Koramangala is unlikely to be returned to the earth within our lifetime. Those who knew the old Bangalore speak words of regret. Those who see infographics describing urban density wonder what can be done (other than the childish suggestion that immigrants should stop coming here).
Aggressive Reforestation: Inside and outside of Bangalore, an appreciation and understanding of the necessity of plant life is coming. (For some, it's already here.) Augmenting the desire to maximize land usage, homes will one day be built smaller with space for trees and gardens. Rooftop gardens will fill the space not occupied by solar panels. Government-mandated green spaces in every neighbourhood will maintain some semblance of balance and reverse Bangalore's transformation into an urban heat island. Self-awareness of one's space consumption is unlikely to derive from the longing for parks; this change will require education and perseverance.
7. Lost: Some Religion: My generation is not violent and drug-addled due to its dearth of spirituality. A sagging of religious participation will not degrade our cities into dystopian hellholes. It has, however, lost some of the values and guidance religion provided our grandparents. Generosity is no longer to open one's home to any who need it but to donate a tax-refundable amount to a charity of one's liking. Forgiveness has lost a universal quality and favours a polar described by media on all scales, each running an attention deficit. Time my grandmothers dedicated to community and silence my peers dedicate to music and alcohol.
Space for Silence: Meditation, prayer, uninterrupted contemplation. These wildly different activities all carry the same characteristic: absolute silence. There are few spaces these days for anyone of any background to simply escape the din of Bangalore's public space. Universally-accessible quiet spaces do not exist yet, which makes them in some ways more fantastic and futuristic than self-driving, all-electric robot cars. Despite this, I think Bangalore is capable of constructing a building where conversation and mobile phones are not permitted. 2030 will see some such space (even if I have to build it myself) but it is hard to say how common they will be.
Space for Generosity: The recent outpouring of support from the general public for those in need of help in the Chennai floods is proof that the average citizen wants to help and will do so when required. I often wonder how to make this a daily or weekly practice for myself, rather than one I hold for unpredictable catastrophe.
In 2030, Bangalore's neediest will find space to sleep and poop — and simple meals to eat — without this assistance attached to any particular belief system. Nearest to this are the meals provided in Gurudwaras, but in time I expect to see spaces emerge for all of us who feel our free time could be spent more meaningfully.
8. Wealth Gap & Limited Resources: Bangalore is not yet a rich city. It may never be one of the wealthiest cities on Earth. The wealth gap is widening and for many people (and many industries), resources will remain scarce. This is a wonderful constraint, thanks to its realism.
Focus on necessity: Bangalore is full of clinics, hospitals, and schools. Markets for the most necessary items are walking distance from any home and India is unlikely to form food deserts like the U.S. suffers from. A continued focus on absolute necessity for all income levels will ensure that as the Bangalore of 2030 starts to look like Olympus from Appleseed, one can still buy sitaphal from a wooden cart on the side of the road while it's in season.
As Bangalore's citizens' access to personal transportation increases, clinics and hospitals risk suffering the centralization which has occurred in rural Canada. I don't yet see this happening and I hope it does not. A healthy Bangalore of 2030 still has walking-distance health clinics in almost every neighbourhood.
Schools are another matter. It is possible that progress in remote learning will mean "homeschooling" can take on a different definition, schools may be more about physical space than about colocation of teachers and students, and the trucking of children from one end of the city to the other will become a goofy story about industrial-age lifestyles for the next generation to laugh at.
Tiny houses: While hinting at my hippie granola upbringings and preferences, limited resources should push more and more people back toward sensible living accommodations — even the rich. Bangalore draws its cultural inspiration from the subcontinent's long history and mixes it with ideas from around the globe. The U.S. and its predominantly overindulgent lifestyle features heavily, but that can be balanced by the sensibilities of Osaka, Sao Paulo, and Seoul. The Tiny House Movement may very well fade away as an extremist fad, but some variation thereof could become the norm for a progressive Bangalore.
Repeatability, Repeatability, Repeatability: More valuable than any other item on this list is the ability of the rest of the world to repeat Bangalore's actions from the coming 15 years — and for Bangalore itself to repeat and refine these actions into 2045. Repeatability is hard to capture in a painting, but at its core is no doubt simplicity, which I think can be expressed artistically, even when describing an array of concepts. Indeed, the desire to see such artwork is a desire to witness these ideas expressed as simply as possible, so that anyone can understand and appreciate them.
Bangalore represents the breadth of the global economy, from the untraveled and uneducated to the owners of multinational corporations. It is a meeting ground for people of all fields and it's the perfect laboratory to run experiments predicting the global society of the future.
This is essential. The infrastructure and lifestyles of Earth's wealthiest nations are not sustainable and not repeatable. As the global economy continues to flatten itself, the behaviour of the wealthiest will need to change, from London to Los Angeles. Comparatively, the infrastructure of the Earth's poorest nations will continue to heal and mature. As every nation frees itself from conflict, it will require the tools to become a modern economy as quickly and cheaply as possible.
Bangalore 2030 is a blueprint.
amrita nambiar said...
I love this. It echoes my sentiments about this city and is so positive. Just hope the right steps are taken and Bangalore does turn into a cyclists dream city as well as continue to be full of energy and entrepreneurial. That would be nice ! Also - you totally echoe why we choose to live here too.
Your good knowledge and kindness in playing with all the pieces were very useful.
I don’t know what I would have done if I had not encountered such a step like this.
airport taxi in bangalore
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« Nightforce Optics Strengthens Commitment to U.S. Rifle Team
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PepperBall LifeLite Personal Protection Launcher Now Shipping and Available to The Public
Published August 9, 2018 | By GunLink Industry News
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According to Monte Scott, Director of Training at PepperBall, “Our system is all about simplicity and ease-of-use in a hazardous situation. Our research and customer testing with PepperBall LifeLite shows that once they have had a couple minutes of experience with the launcher, people are immediately confident that they can use it without hesitation. To them it’s not something scary—it’s a straightforward and useful tool.”
The PepperBall LifeLite is first being made available through the company website at www.pblifelite.com. The device will also be distributed through select channel partners in the RV, outdoor recreation, and commercial trucking markets. Video of the PepperBall LifeLite in use can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Cko_Lbj-yg.
PepperBall LifeLite is also ideal for the non-lethal defense of schoolchildren, teachers, and staff. The PepperBall® Protect program places the technology directly in the hands of school security officials, who can safely store it in classrooms where it can will be instantly available in the event of an attack. The program combines the PepperBall® technology with comprehensive training from company and local law enforcement officials, empowering users to operate this life-saving defense technology knowledgably and confidently. The program can be tailored to fit existing emergency and lockdown protocols.
School districts are spending millions of dollars on surveillance, lockout/lockdown and other security systems, but have not effectively addressed the dilemma of how to subdue and stop an attack in progress. PepperBall LifeLite provides a highly effective, non-lethal option that empowers rank and file staff to protect themselves and their schools. More information about this program can be found at https://pepperballprotect.com
Home and Personal Use
Home invasion is a serious threat in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, approximately 1 million burglaries occur annually with residents inside their home, with 27% of those residents becoming victims of a violent crime. According to the FBI, 1 in every 36 homes is expected to be robbed based on recent statistics. Beyond preventative measures like locks or passive measures like alarms, PepperBall LifeLite™ provides residents with a form of security they can use when a burglary is in process. It is also highly portable and can be used while walking the dog, in the outdoors generally, or while in a vehicle.
Outdoor and RV
Outdoor and RV enthusiasts can rest
assured that they have an effective, usable personal protection device should they encounter a serious threat while in transit or at a campsite. From 2002 to 2007, the U.S. National Park Service statistics show 63 homicides, 240 rapes, 309 robberies, 37 kidnappings, and 1,277 attacks on their properties. Soft body armor and guns are used today by an increasing number of national park rangers. Many would be surprised to know that per capita, violent crime rates are roughly the same everywhere—even in wilderness areas. Adding to the need for effective personal defense in these remote or rural areas is an absence of law enforcement patrols and a
ssistance. Boaters are similarly vulnerable, with piracy a rare but real danger.
Commercial truckers face a number of occupational safety hazards that include robbery and violence. A growing number of female truckers are particularly vulnerable to violence including sexual assault. While long haul trucking robberies and violence have long been problems in Mexico and throughout Latin America, the United States has also seen a significant rise in personal attacks on truckers as well as cargo hijackings.
Workplace and Office
According to the Society For Human Resources Management, some 27% of businesses have experienced at least one violent workplace incident. FBI statistics show that 80% of active shooter incidents occur in the workplace, with approximately 2 million people a year affected by some form of workplace violence. The recent lethal attack on a Maryland news organization, and countless other workplace violent acts where staff have been injured or killed, underscores the need for employers and office complexes to provide their personnel with the kind of stopping power that the PepperBall LifeLite offers.
“We’ve spent a great deal of time and effort designing, developing, testing, and perfecting PepperBall LifeLite, and it is now ready to serve the public with enhanced safety,” said United Tactical Systems CEO Ron Johnson. “We expect that there will be a significant and rising demand for this as the public and channel partners become familiar with its ease-of-use and effectiveness.”
For more information, visit www.pblifelite.com.
Posted in Industry News | Tagged press release
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Ace Records - Jackson
Ace Records, founded in 1955 by Johnny Vincent (1925-2000), was the most successful Mississippi-based label of the 1950s and 1960s. Ace’s extensive catalog of blues, R&B, pop, rock, and soul included records by Mississippi blues artists Arthur Crudup, Sam Myers, King Edward, Pat Brown, and Willie Clayton, as well as hit singles by Louisiana singers Jimmy Clanton, Frankie Ford, Huey “Piano” Smith, and Earl King. Ace was based for many years on this block of West Capitol Street.
Johnny Vincent, born John Vincent Imbraguglio (later modified to Imbragulio) on October 3, 1925, became fascinated with the blues via the jukebox at his parents’ restaurant in Laurel. After serving in the Merchant Marine he started his own jukebox business in Laurel, and in 1947 became a sales representative for a New Orleans record distributor. In the late ’40s Vincent purchased Griffin Distributing Company in Jackson and operated both Griffin and a retail business, the Record Shop, at 241 North Farish Street. He started the Champion label in the early ’50s, issuing blues singles by Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup of Forest and Jackson musicians Joe Dyson and Bernard “Bunny” Williams. In 1953 Vincent signed on as a talent scout for Los Angeles-based Specialty Records. His most notable production for Specialty was “The Things I Used to Do,” recorded in New Orleans by Guitar Slim, aka Eddie Jones, a native of Greenwood. Featuring Ray Charles on piano, the song was one of the biggest R&B hits of the 1950s. During his tenure with Specialty Vincent also supervised sessions by John Lee Hooker, Kenzie Moore, and others.
In 1955 Vincent started Ace, named after the Ace Combs brand. The label’s first hit, “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights” by New Orleans bluesman Earl King, was recorded at Trumpet Records’ Diamond Recording Studio at 309 North Farish Street. Ace became the first important regional label for New Orleans music, scoring national hits by Louisiana artists Huey Smith and the Clowns (“Don't You Just Know It”), Frankie Ford (“Sea Cruise”), and Jimmy Clanton, a “teen idol” whose “Just A Dream” topped the R&B charts in 1960. Among the Ace artists who recorded either at the New Orleans studio of Cosimo Matassa or here in Jackson in the 1950s and ‘60s were Sam Myers, Joe Tex, Bobby Marchan, James Booker, Charles Brown, Joe Dyson, Lee Dorsey, Rufus McKay, Scotty McKay, Big Boy Myles, Tim Whitsett, and Mac Rebennack, later known as “Dr. John.”
In 1962 Vincent signed a potentially lucrative distribution deal with Vee-Jay Records of Chicago, but that label’s bankruptcy in 1966 was catastrophic for Ace. In the ’70s Vincent revamped Ace, making new recordings as well as repackaging old hits, but had only limited success. He turned to various other enterprises, including a restaurant, but returned to the record business with full force in the early ’90s, as he reoriented Ace to the contemporary soul-blues market with a roster that included Mississippi-born singers Cicero Blake, Robert “The Duke” Tillman, J. T. Watkins, Pat Brown, and Willie Clayton. The latter pair had success with the duet “Equal Opportunity.” In 1997 Vincent sold Ace to the British firm Music Collection International but started a new label, Avanti, and continued to record soul-blues artists. Vincent died on February 4, 2000.
Johnny Vincent dropped his surname, Imbragulio, at the suggestion of Specialty Records owner Art Rupe, who told him “Vincent” was easier to pronounce. Vincent was known as one of the most colorful figures in the record industry. With the proceeds from his early hits on Ace Vincent was able to buy a nine-story building on Capitol Street in 1959. Another Vincent property on Northside Drive became the first offices of Jackson-based blues and soul label Malaco, whose founders Wolf Stephenson and Tommy Couch were mentored by Vincent. In the 1970s Vincent operated from other addresses on Capitol Street.
Ace and its subsidiary labels Vin and Teem released many recordings by R&B, rockabilly, and country performers, as well as down-home blues by Arthur Crudup, Frankie Lee Sims, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Lightnin’ Slim. Ace also licensed Trumpet recordings by Sonny Boy Williamson No. 2 (Rice Miller) and Elmore James.
The 1981 album Genuine Mississippi Blues featured Jackson-based artists King Edward, Sam Myers, and Big Bad Smitty, former Jackson bluesmen Elmore James, Jr., and Johnny Littlejohn, and Como, Mississippi, guitarist Fred McDowell.
Sam Myers and John “Big Bad Smitty” Smith worked together in Jackson in the 1970s, when they both recorded tracks for the Genuine Mississippi Blues LP at the Ace studio. Myers also recorded the Ace single “Sleeping in the Ground” in 1957.
Joe Dyson, the drummer on “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights,” led the house band at Stevens Rose Room, Jackson’s finest blues nightclub in the 1950s.
Photos and labels courtesy Woody Sistrunk, Scott Barretta, and Jim O'Neal, BluEsoterica Archives, Research assistance: Lynn Palmer, Woody Sistrunk, Jim Lancaster, Chrissy Wilson (Mississippi Department of Archives and History), Ed Payne, Bob Arentson, and the Blues Archive, John D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi.
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Stewart Hall Art Gallery
THE FIRST OF TWELVE OUTDOOR WORKS IS NOW INSTALLED AT STEWART HALL
Celebrations surrounding Canada 150
POINTE-CLAIRE, May 12, 2017 – Preparations for Pointe-Claire’s special cultural program for the celebrations surrounding Canada 150 are beginning to take shape with the installation of the first of a dozen outdoor works. These pieces make up the Geopoetics Exhibition that will transform Stewart Park into a creative, multi-faceted site of artistic activity.
The first of these pieces is entitled The Ten Public Works and was created this week by internationally renowned Canadian artist Giorgia Volpe, who is originally from Brazil. Members of the community joined in to collaborate with her on decorating the sculpture.
Consisting of recycled orange safety cones decorated by various people, the work celebrates the fraternity and sharing of fundamental values in the construction of Canada’s identity as a country.
The other eleven works that make up the Geopoetics Exhibition will be executed in the coming weeks and will change Stewart Park into a veritable creative path emphasizing the strengths and differences that have gone into the building of Canada from the time the country was founded.
“The year 2017 is a unique opportunity for us to highlight the integration and successful cohabitation of our multicultural/multiethnic citizens as well as the generosity and community/human fraternity of our society; it is also a chance to shine as a Canadian beacon for our entire metropolitan community,” said Pointe-Claire Mayor, Morris Trudeau.
This exhibition has received financial support from the Department of Canadian Heritage in the form of a Canada 150 Fund grant.
Source : City of Pointe-Claire Info : 514 630-1200, communications@pointe-claire.ca
From June 11 to October 15,
Monday to Friday, 1 to 5 p.m.
Wednesdays, 1 to 9 p.m.
Sunday June 11, 1 p.m.
Sunday October 15, 2 p.m.
© 2017 Ville de Pointe-Claire,
Design by geckographik
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Chenab River Railway Bridge
Sakowski (Talk | contribs)
Katra, Jammu-Kashmir, India<br />
1,053 feet high / 321 meters high<br />
1,509 foot span / 321 meter span<br />
2015<br />
[[File:1Chenabbridge.jpg|750px|center]]
Katra, Jammu-Kashmir, India
1,053 feet high / 321 meters high
1,509 foot span / 460 meter span
There is probably no other natural barrier on earth that has been more formidable to railway engineers than the Himalayan mountain range that stretches across northern India. This became all too obvious when the Indian railway decided to build a line connecting the states of Jammu and Kashmir in the Himalayan foothills of Northwestern India. When construction began in earnest in 2002, the engineers never expected extensive delays due to poor geology, access problems, tunnel excavation difficulties and labor disputes. When the 213 mile (343 kilometer) line finally opens in 2015 (or later), it will be the most expensive stretch of India’s 40,000 mile (64,374 km) railway network.
Of the many large barriers the railway crosses, the most daunting is the wide gorge of the Chenab River. With its headwaters high up in the Himalayan mountain range, the river carved a deep gash that left its elevation more than a 1,000 feet (305 mtrs) below the level of the rail line. The engineers decided the only bridge type suitable for the location would be a massive steel arch - the highest ever built for a railway at 1,053 feet (321 mtrs) from deck to water. Only an arch is capable of handling the weight of a 300 ton locomotive along with a thousand tons of passenger cars. With a length of 1,509 feet (460 mtrs), the main span will rank 7th among the world’s longest arches. Its height will also surpass both China’s Zhijinghe highway and Beipanjiang railway bridges, making it the highest arch bridge of any kind in the world.
Construction will be done by building the arch outward from both sides of the canyon using the stayed cantilever method. This technique was also used for the similar design of the New River Gorge bridge in West Virginia, U.S.A. The uneven sides of the gorge will result in one side of the arch terminating into the foundation 40 feet (12 mtrs) higher than the other side.
In September of 2008 it was announced that the Chenab bridge was canceled despite the completion of the approach viaducts in 2007. Difficult geological conditions on the steep slopes supporting the arch foundations were sited as the reason as well as the development of a lower, more direct route through tunnels. As of mid-2009, the latest word is that the original route is back on track and the bridge will be built as originally planned.
Whenever the Chenab bridge is finally completed, it will be more than just another bridge but a prestigious symbol of how far India and its railway engineers have come since the country’s first mile of railway track became operational more than 150 years ago.
Chenab and Anjikhad bridges are located less than 10 miles (16 km) north of the busy tourist town of Katra. Despite its small population, Katra is loaded with hotels and restaurants due to its proximity to the Vaishno Devi, the second most visited religious shrine in all of India after the Tirumala Venkateswara Temple. Located a mile above sea level, the large complex of white buildings steps down the side of the holy mountain of Vaishno Devi. The Hindu shrine is located about 8 miles (13 km) from Katra and is visited by millions of people a year. There is an airport in the much larger city of Jammu, located 30 miles (48 km) south of the Chenab bridge.
The Kashmir valley has always been one of the most isolated regions in India. When the rail line is finally finished, it will finally open up the area to the rest of India and the outside world. For a more extensive history of the railway and its construction visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kashmir_railway.
Chenab River Railway Bridge Elevation
The approach spans were completed several years before construction began on the main arch.
Image by Prashant Chaudhary
Retrieved from "http://highestbridges.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chenab_River_Railway_Bridge"
Categories: Bridges in India | Top 10 Highest Bridges
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JDC win gives Spieth momentum boost for St. Andrews
SILVIS, IL. – Bring on the British Open. Jordan Spieth is more than ready to claim the third leg of what could be the first modern day golf Grand Slam.
The 21-year old Masters and U.S. Open champion won the John Deere Classic for the second time without his best stuff on Sunday, then boarded a jet with a batch of other players for this week’s third major championship of the year at storied St. Andrews in Scotland.
Spieth started the final round of the JDC with a two-stroke lead but trailed by four with six holes to go. Tom Gillis, a 46-year old journeyman without a win in 171 starts on the PGA Tour, got hot early and posted a 7-under-par 64. That made him the clubhouse leader at 20-under 264 for the regulation 72 holes.
Gillis, who played four groups in front of Spieth, made a costly bogey at the 16th and Spieth made three birdies to force a playoff. The extra session went two holes, Spieth winning with a par after Gillis hit a tee shot into the right rough and his second into a pond on the left side of the fairway.
Spieth started the tournament with a par-71 round, showing rust after a two-week layoff. He was hot in rounds two and three, shooting 64 and 61, then cooled off again on Sunday.
“I didn’t have my best for the first 12 holes or so, but it’s very satisfying to have stretches like that and still come out with the win,’’ he said. “This gives me a lot of momentum to draw on.’’
Sunday wasn’t just a duel between Gillis and Spieth. Danny Lee, winner of the Greenbrier Classic – last week’s PGA Tour stop, and hometown favorite Zach Johnson also were in the hunt. Unusual circumstances derailed both.
Lee went brain-dead at the fourth hole. With the course soggy from heavy rains on Saturday, the lift, clean and place rule was invoked. That wasn’t the case on Sunday. Lee picked up his ball “without just thinking.’’ His caddie gave him the bad news – a one-stroke penalty that eventually kept him out of the playoff.
Johnson might have been in the playoff as well. He was lining up a birdie putt on the No. 16 green when what sounded like a gunshot forced him to jump back. It apparently came from a pontoon boat on the nearby Rock River and security officers quickly rushed to the scene.
“I don’t know if it was a backfire from a boat or a firecracker or what,’’ said Johnson, who was clearly shaken by the incident but didn’t blame his finish on it. He left his 35-foot birdie putt two feet short but salvaged par and wound up tied for third with Lee, one stroke out of the playoff.
Gillis was on the brink of being the latest first-time champion at the JDC – there have been seven just since 2000. He carried a No. 643 world ranking into the week and was No. 194 in the FedEx Cup standings and No. 199 on the PGA Tour’s season money list. In finishing second he earned a seat on the jet to the British Open.
“The week was a success overall,’’ he said. “I haven’t shown a whole lot of form coming back from shoulder surgery. I missed four months this year, and you start to wonder how much more is there. After what I saw this week I’d say maybe I’ve got some time left.’’
Spieth has much more of it, of course. He left for St. Andrews as the sixth player to have won the first two majors championship of the year. The only Grand Slam in golf history was by Bobby Jones in 1930, but his four wins were in different tournaments – the U.S. Amateur and British Amateur replacing the Masters and PGA Championship, which are included now. Jones’ other wins were in the U.S. Open and British Open.
“I’ve heard St. Andrews is playing softer than usual, which is kind of nice for having come from here,’’ said Spieth. He has been at St. Andrews only once, for two days over three years ago. He loved the setting, but was widely criticized the last three weeks for not skipping the JDC to allow for more preparation in Europe with such a big title on the line.
“I really didn’t care about that,’’ he said. “I came here for a reason, and we accomplished that reason. Certainly we have some momentum going into next week.’’
July 13, 2015 lenz
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About Atlantic Meeting by H. V. Morton
Commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Winston Churchill's meeting with President Roosevelt at Argentia Harbour, Placentia Bay
With a new Foreword by Lord David Owen
In August 1941 Winston Churchill (1874–1965) and President Roosevelt (1882–1945) met secretly on HMS Prince of Wales, moored just off the coast of Newfoundland.
H. V. Morton and Howard Spring (author of Fame is the Spur) were invited to accompany the Prime Minister and his entourage on this trip, which was not without its hazards. Only a handful of people knew that Churchill had left Britain and in America the press merely reported that Roosevelt was enjoying a few days’ away from Washington, fishing. The Prince of Wales set off from Scrabster on 4th August 1941 and reached her destination at Newfoundland on 9th August 1941. A routine was quickly established on board and the crew soon became used to the Prime Minister’s timetable and requirements, especially his regular film nights. Together with the Prime Minister’s bodyguard, Thompson, a number of key personnel accompanied Churchill on this mission, including Lord Beaverbrook who joined the ship by flying to Newfoundland’s Placentia Bay.
The Atlantic Treaty, whilst not achieving all that Churchill had hoped for, was a key document in the development of the war and post-war strategy. Churchill had hoped that at the resolution of the meeting America would join the war during the summer of 1941 but this was not to be. America did finally join the war in December 1941 following the Japanese attack on the US base at Pearl Harbour.
H. V. Morton’s account was not released for publication until 1943. Atlantic Meeting is a unique account of the events leading up to Churchill’s discussions with Roosevelt and a fascinating account of the practicalities – and occasionally humour – involved in such a perilous journey.
H. V. Morton
H. V. Morton (1892–1979) was one of the most popular travel writers of his time. After a brief period of military service he established a career as a journalist and became a reporter for both The Daily Express and The Daily Herald. H. V. Morton’s debut as an author came in 1927 with In Search of England, a book that became a best seller. His genial writing style endeared him to the countless readers of the books he wrote about his travels around the British Isles, Spain, Italy and the Middle East between 1927 and 1950. In 1941 H. V. Morton accompanied the delegation which travelled to Newfoundland for the meeting between President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill which established the Allied policy for post Second World War Europe, known as the Atlantic Charter. Morton was famously present at the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb by archaeologist Howard Carter and his team in 1922. After the Second World War, H. V. Morton emigrated to South Africa where he lived until his death in 1979.
Also by Morton, H. V.
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This exhibition comes as part of an overall program of showcasing Birzeit University Museum’s ethnographic and art collections. The museum’s collections have been steadily growing and expanding in size and breadth thanks to the generous donations of artists and collectors from Palestine, the Arab World and the world at large.
The theme of of this exhibition has been chosen in light of the successive changes taking place in Bilad al-Sham (Greater Syria & Palestine – the Levant). Nameley those which have continuously striven to fragment this cultural and historic whole into splinters of ethnic, sectarian, and political differences in an attempt to create new realities on the ground and revitalise outaded divisions and differences which any inquisitive mind can discern and expose. New generations have somewhat become oblivious to the deep cultural harmony that once united Bilad al-Sham over the centuries, particularly in light of the increasingsense of regionalalisation and the attempts to turn it into apermanent national identity.
By celebrating the works of four different artists from Bilad al-Sham in the University’s collections, this exhibition is a cry of defiance in the face of regionalism sectarianism, localism and tribalism. It is an attempt to retrieve and highlight our collectives similarities in Bilad al-Sham through artistic expression and talent.
Each of the three female and one male artists showcased in this exhbition reflect divergent and independent schools of thought and artistic identities. What unites them is a collective sensibility that is informed by life in exile, away from the homeland as is the case of many of the Arab world’s artists and itellectuals.
Artists’ Biographies:
Samia Halaby Born in Jerusalem in 1936 is a Palestinian abstract painter and an influential scholar of Palestinian art. Although based in the United States since 1951, Halaby is recognized as a pioneer of contemporary abstraction in the Arab World. Influenced by the abstract movements of the Russian Avant-Garde, Halaby works with the conviction that new approaches to painting can redirect ways of seeing and thinking not only from within the realm of aesthetics but also as contributions to technological and social advancement. Her work has been collected by international institutions since the 1970s. Samia Halaby has been hosted numerous times at Birzeit University since the 1990’s -as artist in residence- where she conducted art workshops for the University students. Moreover, the BZU Museum held in 2017 a special exhibition of her drawings of the Kufur Kassem massacre which she generously gifted to the University.
Marwan Kassab Bachi Born in Damascus 1934 and died in Berlin in 2016. A Syrian artist known by his artistic pen-name “Marwan”, he had studied Arabic literature in Damascus University, and later graduated from the Department of Painting at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Berlin in 1963. He lectured at the same institute and became a permanent teacher there in 1980. Influenced by his aesthetic memory of Syria, Kassab Bachi’s work is regarded among the most prominent in German expressionism. In his work, he addresses humanitarian issues by focusing on the enduring human face, which every so often transforms into the rocky and earthen scenes of nature or into a structural culmination of colours and hues. Kassab Bachi has held more than 80 solo exhibitions worldwide and he is considered one of the most exhibited Arab artists in the world. Birzeit University inaugurated in 1998 his gift of 75 works in an exhibition entitled “To the Children of Palestine” which also toured in Jerusalem, Gaza and several Palestinian towns.
Etel Adnan Born in Beirut 1925, is a Lebanese-Syrian artist who at the age of 24 traveled to Paris where she received a degree in philosophy from the University of Paris. She then traveled to the United States where she continued her graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeleyand Harvard University. From 1952 to 1978, she taught philosophy of art at the Dominican University of California in San Rafael. Upon her return from the US, worked as a journalist and cultural editor for Al-Safa a French language newspaper in Beirut. Her work was exhibited amongst other places at Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha in an exhibition entitled “Etel Adnan in all her Dimension” which included 11 different artistic dimensions of her early work including also her literary works and her woven pieces. Adnan who is the recipient of many international award says that she was lucky to visit Palestine in1966, before the whole of Palestine was occupied, and where she stayed at Musa al-'Alami’s mansion/farm in Jericho. That same year, Etel made an application for work at Birzeit collage as lecturer of cultural studies
Mona Saudi Born in Amman in 1945, is a Jordanian-Palestinian sculptor, publisher and activist. Saudi studied sculpture at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and has been living in Beirut since 1966. Saudi is one of the most renowned sculptors in the Arab world; she is widely recognized for her stone sculptures which explore the relationship between natural materials and modern forms. Mona Saudi is also known to have transformed the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis, Amru al-Qais and Sain-John Perse into drawings/prints and sculptural interpretations. Her work has been exhibited and acquired by museums around the globe, many of which are on permanent display, namely a monumental sculpture at the entrance of the Institute of Arab Art in Paris.
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The 2019 national exams are kicked off
Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport - Irina Abuladze and Director of the National Examination Center - Sophie Gorgodze got acquainted with examination center, which opened at Tbilisi Public School № 103.
"The 2019 national exams have started. The exams are underway at the examination center. The first session started at all exam centers at exactly 09:00 in the morning. There are a number of cases where the entrant may have been suspended from the examination center. I call on everyone to verify examination cards, to hold a certificate of identity and be present time. The exams will be held today in Georgian language and literature and tomorrow will continue with general skills exams. The examination period will be completed on July 23, with the examination of physics. The results will be published from August 1 onwards, and of course, the examination centers will be fully mobilized during this period. There are renovated bathrooms, cooling systems that are put into place in all exam centers across Georgia. Two more examination centers in Batumi and Khulo have been added this year since we have a little more than 41 thousand entrants compared to previous years, "said Irina Abuladze.
41 000 entrants have been registered for the unified national exams. This year, there are 23 exam centers in 11 cities throughout the country. All centers are equipped with AC system and required infrastructure. Ambulance vehicles, rescue service and patrol police are mobilized in the surrounding areas of the examination centers.
Detailed information about the 2019 exams is available on the website: www.naec.ge
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You are here: Home › Uncategorized › Fuck Your Flag! A Rare Exchange With A Prison Guard (September 2020)
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Fuck Your Flag! A Rare Exchange With A Prison Guard (September 2020)
September 28, 2020 | Filed under: Uncategorized and tagged with: Party Articles
I make a habit of not engaging officials in personal or political conversations. My role is not to “speak truth to power,” but rather to “speak truth to the powerless,” so as to prepare and enable them to seize power. However, on Sept 3, 2020, I ended up in such an exchange with a particularly patriotic prison guard as I was in the process of being transferred between prisons.
I was being “escorted” by two guards from the solitary confinement unit at Indiana’s Pendleton Correctional Facility (PCF) en route to a transport van. As we approached the area where the vehicle was parked, the guards noticed that the daily flag-raising ritual at PCF was underway, and directed me to stop in place out of respect for the event.
I looked at both guards then at the group of prisoners who were solemnly saluting and raising the U.S. flag up a flagpole, and responded almost instinctively, “Man, fuck that flag!”
Both pigs snapped their reddened necks around as if they’d been slapped, to look at me with indignant expressions. I returned their gaze with one of my own, showing how absurd I found their presumption that I might feel some sense of allegiance the U.S. rag. One pig, who had a large “1776” tattoo inside a circle of stars on his elbow, spoke up asking, “Why’d you say that?” “Fuck your flag!” I repeated. “That piece of colored toilet paper stands for nothing but genocide, robbing the entire world (especially people of color) of their labor, wealth and resources, institutionalized rape and every other known crime against humanity.”
He responded, ” No it doesn’t,” and went on to refute only my statement that it stood for slavery. He didn’t bother denying any of the other atrocities I’d mentioned.
I answered, “Amerika was founded as a racialized whites-only society just as the German Nazis tried to create a racialized Aryans-only society. It was built by slavery. Its wealth, its institutions, its Industrial Revolution that ushered in modern technology all were created and fueled by the enslaved labor of my and other Blacks’ ancestors. Also, the First Nations, who were enslaved until the agenda became to displace and exterminate them to take their land, again just as the Nazis attempted to replicate in Europe. Your founding fathers, including the ones who signed the Declaration of Independence, which that date tattooed on your elbow commemorates, were slave owners, including and especially the hypocrite who penned that Declaration, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was not just a cruel slave owner, he was also a pedophile who at nearly 50 years old began molesting a 14-year-old slave girl, Sally Hemings whom he impregnated several times. Your heroes aren’t my heroes. So, yeah, fuck your flag!”
The pig looked bewildered and finding nothing to say in reply, stated, “Well, my ancestors could be slaves too.” “In that case,” I said, “you should be saying ‘fuck that flag’ too.” He replied, “But I served this country and fought to protect us.” “Correction,” I answered, “you were USED by the wealthy and politicians in their pawn who own this country to invade and occupy the lands of innocent people who were forced to fight back against those illegal invasions to protect their communities, homes, and families. Every pretext given for invading every country since WWll has been exposed to be a lie. And every one since the 1950 Korean war (Vietnam, Cambodia, Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq) was fought against, not any military, but civilians and were in violation of international laws.”
“Would you fight back if, say, China invaded and occupied Amerika in the name of overthrowing your government to effect ‘regime change,’ or to stop Amerika’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (the U.S. has the largest nuclear, biological and chemical weapons arsenals in the world, and is the ONLY country to drop nukes on another country, targeting and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians), or that your government or its proxies killed thousands of civilians of another country on their own soil, as Amerika does no less than weekly?” “Of course I would,” he answered. “So would that make you a terrorist or evil insurgent, as you all call people who fight back against your illegal invasions, committed for the same reasons that you just said you’d fight back against if the roles were reversed?” “Well, no,” he replied. “And not a single one of those countries you invaded and occupied posed a single threat to the U.S. So you weren’t ‘defending’ anything,” I said.
“You’re wrong,” he shot back. “What about September 11?”
“What branch of the military were you in?” I asked.
“Marines.”
“Are you familiar with ordnance, explosives, demolition work?”, I asked.
” Yeah sure,” he answered with a puzzled expression. “Why?”
“So you understand building, bridge, and structural demolition work?”
“If that’s true,” I stated, “you should know if you just think about it, that the three (NOT TWO) World Trade Center (WTC) towers didn’t fall the way they did from being hit by airplanes. Those were controlled demolitions. Go back and look at them. Those buildings each fell perfectly, straight down on their footprints, they didn’t topple to either side. They just collapsed straight down, with no resistance, which can only happen if the steel skeleton running the lengths of the buildings were pulverized by perfectly timed and synchronized split-second internal ignitions and explosions.”
“I remember watching films on urban demolitions when I was in school. We had a course on job careers, one of which was on urban demolition work, where engineers and explosives experts demolish multi-story buildings inside cities so they wouldn’t topple over onto other structures. They had to rig up explosives and incendiaries perfectly timed to go off inside and up and down the buildings in perfect, split-second sequences, so the buildings would collapse straight down onto their own footprint and not break apart or fall sideways and damage nearby structures, EXACTLY like the WTC towers did. I knew the first time I saw the WTC towers collapse that they didn’t fall from the impact of those tiny planes. And how, by the way, do you explain the third tower’s collapse (WTC tower number 7), which wasn’t hit by any planes at all, but suddenly collapsed just like the Twin Towers (towers numbers 1 and 2)?
“Those were high rise buildings with heavy steel-reinforced skeletons. The notion that a plane hitting the tops of them could cause their entire skeletons to essentially vaporize, allowing the buildings to collapse straight down at free-fall speed with no resistance, is as absurd as claiming shooting someone in the head with a pistol could shatter and vaporize their entire skeleton causing their body to collapse like jelly right where they stood and not fall to either side.
“There is no liquid fuel, including jet fuel that burns hot enough to melt steel, and certainly not the intricate steel skeleton of a skyscraper. The ONLY substance that would do that is used in demolitions, called thermite, which is an incendiary that again had to be planted and set off in a controlled series of perfectly times ignitions and attendant explosions—it was a controlled demolition job.”
He looked perplexed for a long moment, obviously thinking on what I’d said, then said in a low voice, “Damn, you’re right.”
I then asked if he’d ever heard of Richard Gage.
“No,” he replied.
“Richard Gage,” I went on, “founded a group called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. This group of 1000 top of the line U.S. architects and engineers traveled the country doing public talks, calling on the people to pressure the government to allow an independent investigation into the destruction of the WTC towers. These are experts who design, construct, and demolish buildings like the towers. They studied and analyzed footage and data of the 9/11 WTC event, and concluded, just as I recognized, that those buildings didn’t and couldn’t collapse as they did from the airplane impacts. That they were professional demolition jobs. The government persecuted Gage and his group even labeled him a terrorist for contradicting the official 9/11 story. Gage and company never suggested who destroyed the towers, only that they definitely weren’t destroyed as the official story claimed.”
By this point, both guards had vacant expressions and seemed to puzzle over their own thoughts. I went on to add, “I won’t venture to say who bombed the towers either, except it certainly wasn’t some foreign plane hijackers. But I will say there was definitely a motive within the government and corporate circles to create a pretext and to incite public support to invade Afghanistan—and that being accessing the world’s largest untapped natural gas deposits. I can give you names and dates to look up right on your phone. Look up John Marescas, who was the president of UNOCAL. He made an appeal before a Congressional subcommittee on Feb 12, 1998, to build a pipeline across Afghanistan and other Asian countries from the Caspian Sea, the source of that untapped natural gas supply, through to markets in Europe.
“He called for the removal of the Taliban and the establishment of a stable Afghan government to be put in its place, so the pipeline could be built. This scheme was nothing new. Actually, the U.S. government created and enlisted the Taliban originally to control the region so that pipeline could be constructed many years before. Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott admitted this on Sept 2, 2002, on CNN’s ‘Crossfire.'”
For readers, here’s an exact quote of McDermott’s comments from that date. He stated: “But you’ve got to remember that of American policy, we put the Taliban there. We gave the money… We funded the Taliban through the Pakistanis, and all the money—we could have cut off that money and stopped what was going on. We knew what was going on there. All we wanted was a stable, quiet Afghanistan so we could put a pipeline down through there. That’s really what we were up to.”
I’d said enough to silence the guards’ blind patriotism, so I rode the rest of the way to my new place of confinement in silence. When we arrived both guards were markedly polite and wished me well.
My parting response, “Yeah, fuck your flag!”
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Is I-1631 (carbon fee) the most expensive measure in WA history?
Edited Oct 16. And Oct 20
The short answer: Yes, assuming there wasn’t a hugely funded campaign prior to 2008. As of Oct 16, the Yes and No campaigns on I-1631 have raised over $38m. The two previous biggest spending campaigns (I-1183 liquor privatization in 2011 and I-522 GMO labeling in 2013) topped out in the $32.6m range.
The long answer: The Public Disclosure Commission has data going back to 2008, so that’s what I’ll focus on. (Is it possible that there was a more expensive measure earlier than 2008? Sure. But that seems fairly unlikely because of real factors like population growth, as well as more gimmicky factors like inflation.)
I found two measures in the data set with over $20m in total spending. One was Initiative 1183 (liquor privatization) in 2011, which raised $20.1m Yes and $12.4m No, grand total of $32.5m.
The other was Initiative 522 (GMO labeling) in 2013, which is complicated:
There were 6 funded Yes campaigns, totaling $9.9m.
There were two No campaigns, one from Grocery Manufacturers Association that spent $12.9m and one from “No on 522″ that spent $22.456m. But the GMA campaign transferred most of its money to the No on 522 campaign: the C4 reports show transfers to the “No on 522″ campaign of of $472.5k on May 8, $1.75m on Aug 22, $5m on Sept 27, $2.9m on Oct 24, $877.5k on Oct 25, for a total of exactly $11m. Most of the rest of the GMA money seems to have been spent on activities unrelated to I-522: a search for “unrelated to I-522″ in the expenditures spreadsheet totals $1,671,922.32; the remaining amount that was spent on I-522 totals $11,229,499.42, of which $11m was transferred to the “No on 522″ campaign. So the total spending is $11.229m plus $22.456m minus the $11m double-counting, for a total of $22.7m.
Grand total of $9.9m plus $22.7m equals $32.6m.
Initiative 1631 (carbon fee) in 2018 reports the following as of PDC reports available on the morning of Oct 20: the Yes campaign has raised $12.5m and the No campaign has raised $25.8m, total of $38.3m.
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3. User Experience and Experience Design
By Marc Hassenzahl
I open my eyes. Lush light floods the room, birds chatter. It is only 6:30 o'clock in the morning, but I feel well-rested and alive; time to get up, to brew some coffee. Are you jealous of my morning routine? Were you startled out of your sleep by a merciless alarm clock? Was it dark outside, no birds around, and did you feel groggy and bleary-eyed?
This chapter is about experiences created and shaped through technology (aka User Experience) and how to deliberately design those. The wake-up experience created by an alarm clock substantially differs from the experience created by sunrise and happy birds. The question is whether we can create technology which understands the crucial features of sunrise and birds and which succeeds in delivering a similar experience, even when the sun refuses to shine and the birds have already left for Africa.
In fact, the experience I described in the beginning was not created by sun and birds, but by Philips' Wake-Up Light. This is a crossing of an alarm clock and a bedside lamp. Half an hour before the set alarm, the lamp starts to brighten gradually, simulating sunrise. It reaches its maximum at the set wake-up time and then the electronic birds kick in to make sure that you really get up. Admittedly, it is a surrogate experience, but so are love stories and travel novels. It is artificial, but not vulgar. And more importantly, it substantially changes the way one wakes up. It changes the experience. The object itself, its form, is rather unremarkable (see Figure 1).
Author/鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright holder: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. 鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright terms and licence: All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below.
Figure 3.1: Philips' Wake-Up Light
The Philips Wake-Up Light has nevertheless the power to "transcend its encasing" because its contribution is not one to the aesthetics of things, but to the aesthetics of experiences. This is the challenge designers and vendors of interactive products face: Experience or User Experience is not about good industrial design, multi-touch, or fancy interfaces. It is about transcending the material. It is about creating an experience through a device.
Author/鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright holder: Courtesy of Rikke Friis Dam and Mads Soegaard. 鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright terms and licence: CC-Att-ND (Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported)
Marc's introduction to User Experience and Experience Design
Marc's advice on designing with experience in mind
Marc's main guidelines and ethical considerations
I will start this chapter with a discussion of our Western societies' shift from the material to the experiential and the potential problems technology-oriented businesses have in accommodating this shift. User Experience and Experience Design can be a remedy to this by bringing experience to the fore. I then discuss Experience and User Experience to flesh out a view which has the potential to advance the way we will design future technologies. I end with some examples of Experience Design and finally offer a simple model of Why, What and How as a starting point for the enthusiastic Experience Designer.
3.1 From the material to the experiential
In Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, young Charlie faces a tough choice. He just found the last Golden Ticket in a bar of Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight. (Figure 2). It is one of only five invitations to visit Willy Wonka's legendary chocolate factory. Charlie is promised a day full of "mystic and marvellous surprises that will entrance, delight, intrigue, astonish, and perplex beyond measure. In your wildest dreams you could not imagine that such things happen to you!"
Author/鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright holder: Warner Bros. 鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright terms and licence: All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below.
Figure 3.2: Charlie Bucket discovers his Golden Ticket
But Charlie is poor. It is a freezing winter and the whole family of seven is living on not more than cabbagy meals and the occasional boiled potato. People already offered as much as $500 for the ticket. Wouldn't it be more sensible to forfeit Wonka's frivolous offer and to secure the money? In the end, Charlie took the ticket and was awarded with the most extraordinary experience of his life.
Charlie chose the experience over the material. He could have had a winter coat or fire wood instead of the experience, but he already knew that only the visit to the chocolate factory has the power to add some meaning to his life. In fact, studies show that experiential purchases (i.e., the acquisition of an event to live through, such as a concert, a dinner, a journey) make people more happy than material purchases (i.e., the acquisition of tangible objects, such as clothing, jewellery, stereo equipment) of the same value (Boven and Gilovich 2003; Carter and Gilovich 2010).
In a series of studies, Leaf van Boven and colleagues (2010) further uncovered stigmatizing stereotypes: Participants characterized people with a material orientation as self-centred, insecure, or judgmental, but people with an experiential orientation as humorous, friendly, open-minded, intelligent, caring, or outgoing. The seemingly negative stance towards the materialistic is an indication of a post-materialistic culture. Ronald Inglehart (1997) argued that societies in sustained periods of material wealth become increasingly interested in values such as personal improvement. They transform into highly individual Experience Societies (Schulze 1992; Schulze 2005) whose members equate happiness with the acquisition of positive life events. Decried as superficial and consumerist in the 80ties and 90ties of the last century, we now witness a version of the Experience Society which favours meaningful engagement to earning money and begins to dissociate experience and expenditure. Experiences are no longer supposed to be available at exotic places only. They can be close by: a day out in the sun, working the garden, a barbecue with friends, or a trip to the local flea market. In the foreword to the 2005 edition of his book, Gerhard Schulze (2005, p IX) mentions some signifiers of the new millennium's Experience Society: deceleration instead of acceleration, less instead of more, uniqueness instead of standardisation, concentration instead of diversion, and making instead of consuming. All these are not necessarily associated with material wealth. Admittedly, to develop a post-materialistic (i.e., experiential) orientation may require sufficient food, clothing, and shelter (Inglehart 1997; Maslow 1954). This is the gist of Charlie Bucket's dilemma: choosing a frivolous one-day experience in a chocolate factory over supporting his family with food and clothing seems almost immoral. However, while I agree that an experiential orientation in life requires some food, clothes and shelter as a necessary precondition (Inglehart 1997), I do not believe that it needs caviar, Gucci, and a chateau in the hills of the Cote d'Azur. Most of us in the developed countries have the basis for leading a post-materialistic life.
3.2 Experience and business
Though the transformation to a post-materialistic experience society has been recognized by business, as indicated by books such as The Experience Economy (Pine & Gilmore, 1999) or Experiential Marketing (Schmitt 1999), it still struggles with making sense of it. A good example is the music industry. While the number of concerts is still rising, record sales dropped considerably from 2000 and onwards. For example, Madonna's Confessions on a Dancefloor sold only 1.6 million copies, but her world tour generated about 200 million dollars. According to Pollstar (Bongiovann 2010), in 2009 the average ticket price for a top 100 act in the US was about $64, a CD made only $13.99. Typically, illegal digital downloads are made responsible for this effect. But the missing willingness to pay for music in the form of a tangible product may also be a consequence of shifting from a materialistic to an experiential orientation. Today the music itself matters, not ownership, argues Arthur Schock (2010), a booker for independent electronic artists, in a recent interview for Spiegel-Online. He reported on record release parties with 800 raving guests but only ten records sold afterwards. "Liking bears no relation to buying the CD," he concluded. On Creative Deconstruction Rich Huxley (2010) mused: "If we can all now make, distribute and sell music, to succeed we've got to differentiate ourselves from the crowd and give people something they can't get elsewhere. If we can give people something that isn't repeatable and isn't copyable then all the better. So, what's unique and not copyable? A feeling, or an experience." Instead of complaining about declining CD sales, the music industry must develop new, more experiential formats.
Why aren't they? One of the main reasons why the music industry dislikes the shift away from the material is the limited scalability of experience. Once produced, a CD can be copied and sold in theoretically infinite quantities, while an artist can only play a limited number of concerts a year, with a limited number of paying attendants. As long as most industries and their strategies are still geared towards earning money by mass-producing and selling tangible objects, their take on the experiential is often not more than a feeble marketing strategy. For example, the German Telekom recently made "experiencing" its marketing claim ("Erleben, was verbindet"). The promises to be a place for sharing memorable and unique experiences. But a close look reveals hardly more than the occasional sponsored live event interspersed with badly disguised attempts to sell standard products and services. Experience is considered a vehicle for marketing, but not understood as the very product that is sold. The transition from an economy of products and services to one of experience and transformation certainly requires more (Pine and Gilmore 1999). This is the challenge we face: Experience or User Experience is not about technology, industrial design, or interfaces. It is about creating a meaningful experience through a device.
3.3 The evasive beast called User Experience
Experience is an almost overwhelmingly rich concept, with a long history of debate and many attempts to "define" it (Jay 2004). I primarily focus on experiences as meaningful, personally encountered events (in German: "Erlebnis") and not so much on the knowledge gained through these events (in German: "Erfahrung"). These experiences are memorized stories of use and consumption and distinct from the immediate moment-by-moment experience (e.g., Forlizzi and Battarbee 2004; Kahneman 1999). While the immediate moment-by-moment experience is certainly interesting, memorized experience is of more practical relevance. This is simply because most of our waking time, we are feasting on vivid memories of the past (or anticipations) rather than on immediate pleasures.
The construction of experiences as stories from moment-by-moment experience is not straightforward. For example, experiences tend to improve over time. As van Boven (2005, p. 137) puts it: "As one forgets the incidental annoyances and distractions that detract from the online, momentary enjoyment of an experience, one's memory of an experience can be sharpened, levelled, and 'spun' so that the experience seems better in retrospect than it actually was." Who doesn't fall victim to a "rosy view" now and then. We are spinning - not necessarily consciously - our own experiences.
But what is in an experience? Psychologically, an experience emerges from the integration of perception, action, motivation, and cognition into an inseparable, meaningful whole. The intimate relation between those single concepts is reflected by, for example, Russell's (2003) model of emotions, which stresses the importance of cognitive processes, such as self-observation, attribution, and categorization, for the experience of emotions. And most action theories (e.g., Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006; Carver & Scheier, 1989) assume close links between actions, thoughts and emotions. In sum, I argue for understanding experience as "an episode, a chunk of time that one went through [...] sights and sounds, feelings and thoughts, motives and actions [...] closely knitted together, stored in memory, labelled, relived and communicated to others. An experience is a story, emerging from the dialogue of a person with her or his world through action" (Hassenzahl 2010, pp. 8). An experience is subjective, holistic, situated, dynamic, and worthwhile.
While an experience is a complex fabric of feelings, thoughts, and actions, I believe emotions and fulfilment of universal psychological needs to have an accentuated role. Although emotions are certainly complex, they all share an inherent evaluation, pleasure and pain, which provide "the yardstick on which qualitatively different possibilities can be compared" (Russell 2003, p. 153). This evaluation is important in shaping future behaviour and - if positive - one source of happiness. But where does the pleasure come from? Sheldon and others (2001) demonstrated the intimate link between the pleasantness of an experience and the fulfilment of universal psychological needs in that experience, such as the need for autonomy or stimulation. A specific look at technology-mediated positive experiences revealed stimulation, relatedness, competence, and popularity as the salient sources of pleasure (Hassenzahl et al. 2010). Being asked for a recent positive experience with technology, a young woman provided the following example: "I was on a short trip to Dublin. In the early hours, my mobile phone woke me up. My boyfriend, who stayed at home, had just texted a sweet 'I love you'(Figure 3). This is an example of a relatedness experience, which gets its positive meaning through fulfilling a need for social relationship and intimacy.
Author/鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright holder: Mallory Bwman. 鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright terms and licence: All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below.
Figure 3.3: A sweet 'I love you'
The mobile phone is instrumental to creating this experience, but the positive emotions and the meaning are evoked through the fulfilment of a universal psychological need. Need-fulfilment is what makes an experience pleasurable.
Usage and consumption always translate into an experience, a story of use, a story of consumption: just like a rollercoaster becomes embedded into a (hopefully) meaningful, emotion-laden story of a rollercoaster ride, full-blown with stimulation, excitement and enjoyment. Seemingly different products and situations are represented in a similar format - that of experience. Thus, as long as we focus on the experiences created and shaped by interactive products, we may not distinguish User Experience from Experience in general. User Experience is just a sub-category of experience, focusing on a particular mediator - namely interactive products. If it comes to actual Experience Design, that is the question of how to deliberately create and shape experiences, a distinction between interactive products and other mediators of experiences may be helpful, but does not seem crucial.
The perspective on Experience and User Experience developed here should not be understood as definite. It is a starting point for debate, an attempt to advance a concept of Experience and User Experience that will change the way interactive products are - hopefully to the better.
3.4 Experience Design: Designing the post-materialistic
With the sharp distinction between the experiential and the material suggested by many authors (e.g., Boven and Gilovich 2003), an "experiential interactive product" appears like a contradiction in terms. While experience is intangible, volatile, an interactive product is tangible, a mass-produced piece of technology. The "electronic gadget" is the very prototype of a material purchase. The seasoned post-materialist, though, ceases to strive for yet another novel communication device. She will rather enjoy writing a letter (Figure 4).
Author/鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright holder: Penelope Fewster. 鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright terms and licence: All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below.
Figure 3.4: Letters to an English schoolgirl
But even the post-materialist's experience is most of the time mediated. Writing a letter requires a pen, paper, and a messenger, who in turn needs a carriage, a zeppelin, or a plane. This holds for all the typical examples of experiential purchases provided by van Boven (2003): travel requires transportation, dining requires a good kitchen, and a concert requires instruments and amplification. Things are not the opposite of experiences, but create and substantially shape them. The combination of a pen and a piece of paper, and the resulting activity of writing with one's own hand, has certain features which in turn shape the resulting experience. It is, for example, relatively slow and, thus, offers time for reflection, not provided by more efficient technologies (Lindley et al 2009). Thus, the post-materialist is not necessarily a "green luddite" (Kozinets 2007) who shuns technology in general. But she is more interested in the experience created than taking pride in the ownership of the product or technology that created it. Once created, the experience is what is owned - an immaterial, personal story. The product is only of interest as it is identified as being crucial in creating the experience (Hassenzahl et al 2010).
The challenge of designing interactive products for the post-materialist is to bring the resulting experience to the fore - to design the experience before the product. Or as Buxton (2007, p. 127) puts it: "Despite the technocratic and materialistic bias of our [US-American] culture, it is ultimately experiences we are designing, not things." But what does that mean, to design an experience? For Buxton it seems a matter of how it feels to act through a product, in the moment it is used - the moment-by-moment experience. He used different orange squeezers to highlight how different usage can "feel" even if the function remains the same. This addresses the How of product use, the Aesthetics of Interaction. This notion of Experience - as focusing on how something is done - was notably sparked by the success of Apple's iPhone, featuring a so far unique aesthetic of interaction, but basically fulfilling the same tasks as any other mobile phone.
While certainly important, reducing experience to the mere "pleasure due to the feel of the action" (Buxton 2007, p. 129) is not doing justice to its multifaceted nature. Conceptually, the broad view of Experience as meaningful stories has much more to offer than a narrow view as pleasurable, moment-by-moment feeling. Take the story of the young woman on a trip to Dublin from the preceding section. The experience gets its positive feel and meaning through the fulfilment of a need for relatedness, a need for feeling close to relevant others. The story speaks of intimacy, expressed, for example, by the liberty to send the message very early in the morning. The man was confident that his girlfriend would not be annoyed by the message. And while receiving love messages is always a wonderful thing, being in a foreign place, far away from home, certainly intensified this experience. In this example, the mobile phone was used as a tool for creating a relatedness experience. But the mobile phone is neither especially adapted to this, nor does it in any way imply the creation of this experience. It is nothing more than an awkward piece of infrastructure: even with the most elegant shell or navigational structure, it does not reflect the love put into the message. To give another example: While a telephone is certainly able to connect distant lovers, it embodies a strictly conversational model. However, feeling close is not about good conversations only, it is a about a feeling of presence and emotional expression. The telephone is not exceptionally good at this - as Peter Robinson observed in All the Colours of Darkness after a late night telephone conversation between Inspector Banks and his Sophia:
'Goodnight' said Banks. And the last thing he heard was her laughter as she puts down the phone. Banks felt more alone and further away for having just talked to Sophia than he had before the call. But it was always like that - the telephone might bring you together for a few moments, but there's nothing like it for emphasising distance.
We have all experienced the awkward silence when we have run out of stories to tell while not wanting to hang up on our loved one. This is the result of a misfit between the conversational model embodied by a telephone and the psychological requirements of a relatedness experience.
This must not necessarily be so, as the prevalent research on technology-mediated intimacy demonstrates (e.g., Vetere et al 2005). An unpublished review (Heidecker et al 2010) counted 144 published concepts of alternative communication devices, most of them much better adapted to the requirements of "feeling close" than any commercially available mobile phone. In many cases, the technological innovation embedded in those novel devices is negligible - they neither feature elaborated new algorithms nor future materials or fancy interface concepts. Their superiority is due to the intimate understanding of certain experiences, feelings, situations, boundary conditions, and how those experiences can be created and shaped through a thing.
The post-materialistic interactive product is, thus, not so much a tangible object, but a story transported or told through an object - a "material tale" or "psychosocial narrative". Dunne (2006, p. 69) explains: "[... B]ehavior is a narrative experience arising from the interaction between our desire to act through products and the social and behavioural limitations imposed [...] through [their] conceptual models. " We will inevitably act through products, a story will be told, but the product itself creates and shapes it. The designer becomes an "author" creating rather than representing experiences.
So far, there are not many commercially available products, which reflect the notion of Experience Design as the creation of meaningful stories through a product. An exception is FM3's , dubbed the Anti-iPod by the Wall Street Journal in 2007 (Wagstaff 2007) - see Figure 5.
Author/鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright holder: Zhang Jian. 鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright terms and licence: All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below.
Figure 3.5: The Buddha Machine II
The Buddha Machine is an electronic device loaded with nine ambient loops (Version 2.0) produced by FM3, an experimental music duo from China. It plays back one of those loops in 8-bit quality through an inbuilt speaker, has a button to skip through the loops, a knob to change the pitch of the playback and its volume. That's it. The Buddha Machine is a meditative experience. It tells a story of contemplation rather than restless consumption and suggests a way of doing so.
In 2007, the Buddha Machine was an unexpected commercial success with over 50.000 units sold. Joshua wrote on Resident Advisor: "With the Buddha Machine, FM3 have unwittingly unleashed a real phenomenon: [...] a personal stereo, a musical toy, a Buddhist souvenir, and a conceptual commodity offering valuable lessons for our consumption-obsessed times." He quotes Christiaan Virant, one of the creators of the Buddha Machine: "That's the beauty of the Buddha Machine, it's really ... serendipity." And Rob Walker (2007) noted for the New York Times Magazine:
And of course there's the anti-iPod factor: the relief of not having to make a choice in a world awash with entertainment and self-expression options. Moreover, at a moment when the unused abilities of feature-loaded computers, cellphones and even microwave ovens pile up faster than we can keep track of them, it's satisfying to know that once you've turned the Buddha Machine on, you are using it to its full capacity.
The Buddha Machine is an example of a device, which "manages to transcend the cheap plastic frame in which it's encased" (Heater 2008). It is a technology that offers a meaningful, valuable, and aesthetic experience and not just a bunch of functions, leaving it to the users to figure out how to incorporate them into their daily lives.
The Buddha Machine is an excellent example of a full-blown post-materialistic device. However, one may easily view it a representative of a novel product genre, which coexists with more "practical" genres, but does not affect the design of those more practical products. I disagree. A post-materialistic, experiential orientation can potentially be loaded into every product. An example is Swantje Krau脽' diploma design project, which I supervised together with Olaf Barski. Krau脽 set out to design a new type of improved "bucket"聺 for the grape harvest. Typically, grapes are picked by hand, gathered in a bucket, which is then emptied into a larger container. This bucket is clearly a tool; its design a tough exercise in practicality and classical ergonomics. However, Krau脽 added an interesting feature beyond the obvious: The bucket can be transformed into a seat (see Figure 6) which allows the vintager to take a rest from her physically demanding work.
Author/鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright holder: Swantje Krauss. 鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright terms and licence: All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below.
Figure 3.6: From a tool to a place to rest
This seemingly small detail is interesting for at least three reasons. First, the bucket embeds both activities - gathering grapes and taking a rest - on an equal level, making clear that a rest is accepted as an integral part of the overall activity. Second, the bucket has to be empty to be transformed into a seat. This reflects upon the admittedly puritan ideal of "business before pleasure" and functions as a clear signal for the "appropriate"聺 moment for taking a rest. Krau脽' design makes sure that its users either pick grapes or rest, but resting and still doing a little bit of cleaning or sorting the grapes is impossible. This implies a clear separation between work and rest - an important psychological requirement for having a truly re-creative break. Third, the bucket suggests a particular way of taking that rest, namely in the vineyard, contemplating and enjoying the views or having a chat with colleagues.
Admittedly, a bucket is not a typical exemplar of an interactive product. Nevertheless, Krau脽' example shows that understanding grape picking as more than a mere task, as an experience packed with psychological needs, emotions and meaning enables the designer to become an author of stories conveyed through the product.
3.5 Why, What and How
Let me summarize my thoughts on Experience in a simple conceptual model. I distinguish three different levels, when designing an experience through the interaction with an object: The Why, What and How level.
The What addresses the things people can do through an interactive product, such as "making a telephone call," "buying a book," or "listening to a song." Reflected by a products' functionality, the What is often intimately tied to the technology itself or a certain product genre. The How in turn addresses acting through an object on an operational, sensory-motor level: Buttons pressed, knobs turned, menus navigated, touch screens stroked, or remotes waggled. The How is even more tied to the actual object to be designed and its context of use.
The How is the typical realm of the interaction designer: to make given functionality accessible in an aesthetically pleasing way. To give an example: "Making a telephone call" (a What) requires an action to select a conversional partner, as well as to initiate and to end the call. How this is done with - let's say - a mobile phone is specified by the interaction designer. The example of the different orange squeezers, Bill Buxton (2007) provided, addresses possible differences in the quality of the interaction design, the How. Even given the same functionality (i.e., squeezing oranges), performing the action "feels" better with some products. Nowadays, the bundle of What and How is typically considered the product, and an especially sensual, aesthetic, novel, or stimulating arrangement of interaction makes this product "experiential."
This view ignores peoples' actual motivation to use a product. For the couple being separated, the SMS was not primarily an SMS, it was a love message, a way to fulfil their need for relatedness. This is the Why of product use. Telephone calls are not only - technologically speaking - telephone calls. In reality, they are the glorious beginning or the sad end of a close relationship, a surrogate good-night kiss, an act of support, a way to kill time, or a pizza order. People engage in these activities out of a need to be related, to help, to be stimulated, or to ease their appetites. The telephone just happens to be instrumental, but it does not necessarily reflect upon the underlying needs, emotions, and associated practices.
Experience Design is a remedy to this. It starts from the Why, tries to clarify the needs and emotions involved in an activity, the meaning, the experience. Only then, it determines functionality that is able to provide the experience (the What) and an appropriate way of putting the functionality to action (the How). Experience Design wants the Why, What and How to chime together, but with the Why, the needs and emotions, setting the tone (see Figure 7). This leads to products which are sensitive to the particularities of human experience. It leads to products able to tell enjoyable stories through their use or consumption.
Figure 3.7: From the Why to the What and the How: Three levels to consider when designing technology-mediated experiences
3.6 Conclusion and future directions
The notion of (User) Experience as stories told through products has a potential to change the way we think and design. At the moment, the majority of commercially available interactive devices is either too practical or too open-ended. The practical view results in very obvious and uninspiring stories: how exciting is keeping a calendar on a mobile phone? The open-ended view on the other hand just provides functionality, such as texting, and leaves it to the user to come up with meaningful and inspiring usage scenarios, such as sending "love messages." In this case, the creation of meaningful experiences through appropriating a technology remains the responsibility of the "user". In contrast, Experience Design stands for technology, which suggests meaningful, engaging, valuable, and aesthetically pleasing experiences in itself. Thinking "communication experiences" rather than "mobile devices" opens up a huge design space for possible devices - even slippers (Chen et al 2006) or pillows (Laschke et al 2010).
Don't get me wrong, we still need all the wonderful technologies, dreamt up by engineers and computer scientists all over the world. But they are only materials - canvas, colours, and brushes - for the Experience Designer. From a business perspective, shifting attention from technological to experiential advancement makes sense, as long as the invention of new technologies and their marketing becomes increasingly difficult. Just take 3D television as an example: It is an innovation born out of a frantic need for re-inventing television to ensure future sales. The result is an expensive, hard to sell technology, without much power to impact our lives "The new movie by Darren Aronofsky now in 3D! So what?" Indeed, other technology-mediated innovations, such as improving the social experience of watching television as a family or over a distance, require less effort in terms of resources (both on the vendor and the consumer end), but at the same time offer a profound improvement of current practices and according experiences. We should definitely shift attention (and resources) from the development of new technologies to the conscious design of resulting experiences, from technology-driven innovations to human-driven innovations.
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3 User Experience and Experience Design
User Experience: The Beginner鈥檚 Guide
3.7 Commentary by Eric L. Reiss
For years, I have struggled to understand the difference between "user experience" and "experience". I couldn't help but smile as Marc struggled with this same problem. In fact, by the penultimate paragraph, Marc had decided to place the word "user" in parenthesis. This supports the viewpoint that both Marc and I seem to share, that both of these terms mean essentially the same thing, despite the semantic bickering in the professional community. Listen to the first few minutes of Marc's first video for some very succinct remarks on this matter.
Of course, if one really feels a need to differentiate between "user experience" and "experience", Marc has some interesting comments and observations. In the introduction, he suggests that "It is about creating an experience through a device." "It" is the elusive beast in the current debate.
Later on, Marc states, "Experience or User Experience is not about technology, industrial design, or interfaces. It is about creating a meaningful experience through a device." I agree 100% with the first statement, but I question the second part; I don't think that experience is necessarily related to a device. Certainly, Charlie's experience with the chocolate factory didn't involve "experience through a device" unless you pedantically define the golden ticket as a "device". (The presence of a device or lack thereof often lies at the heart of the "user experience vs. experience" debate.)
But let's take things a step further. If I go out to greet the sunrise - not courtesy of Philips, but standing in my garden on a glorious spring day - my experience does not depend on technology, industrial design, or interfaces. Since I like sunrises, my limbic system is busy distributing dopamine - a reward chemical that affects my mood. And my body is soaking up Vitamin D, which improves my health. There are no devices involved in this interaction between me and the sun (accompanied by soft dew on the grass between my toes, birds chirping, and that undefinable smell released by vegetation as it, too, awakes and greets the sun).
As a designer, I see user experience (鲨鱼直播) as the perception left in someone's mind following a series of interactions between people, devices, and events - or any combination thereof. "Series" is the operative word.
Some interactions are active - clicking a button on a website, giving a waiter your order at a restaurant, getting out of the rain at a picnic.
Some interactions are passive - viewing a beautiful sunrise will trigger the release of reward chemicals in our brain. This applies to any and all of our five senses.
Some interactions are secondary to the ultimate experience - the food tastes good because the chef chose quality ingredients and prepared them well. The ingredients are good quality because the farmer tended his fields. The crop interacted well with the rain that year.
Of course, all interactions are open to subjective interpretation - some people don't like celery or sunrises. Remember, a perception is always true in the mind of the perceiver; if you think sunrises are depressing, there's little I can say or do to convince you otherwise. However, this is why designers often fall back on "best practice" - most people react favorably to sunrises.
For these reasons, I think that designing a "user experience," represents the conscious act of:
coordinating interactions that are controllable (choosing food ingredients, training waiters, designing and programming buttons)
acknowledging interactions that are beyond our control (uncomfortable seats in a 100-year-old theater, lack of fresh produce in winter, low-hanging clouds that hide the sky)
reducing negative interactions (providing tents as emergency shelters at outdoor events in case of rain; making sure restaurant seating next to the noisy kitchen door is the last to be filled, putting in an extra intermission so folks can stretch their legs)
A good user-experience designer needs to be able to see both the forest and the trees. That means user experience has implications that go far beyond usability, visual design, and physical affordances. As 鲨鱼直播 designers, we orchestrate a complex series of interactions and the emotional responses and/or physical responses that these interactions generate. To look at "experience" in terms of individual service or product touchpoints is ultimately too limiting. It is the total sum of that counts.
Another interesting point is contained in Marc's example of the "I love you" SMS. Here, the phone's designer merely facilitated an interaction between two individuals. Facilitating an experience and creating one are two very different things - designers should always consider which role they being asked to play at any given time in the design process.
Finally, the value of an experience is exceptionally subjective. I was delighted to see Marc's reference to the van Boven and Gilovich work from 2003. This ties in directly to the work of Akerlof, Spence, and Stiglitz on asymmetric information, which won them the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001. Let me share some thoughts.
Despite any theoretical shift from a materialistic society that covets things, to a post-materialistic culture that nurtures experience, the value of physical items has always increased if they are accompanied by a good story. A vintage watch is worth more if it comes with all its original paperwork, receipts, etc. An antique chair's value can change dramatically depending on its provenance. (A chair previously owned by Winston Churchill is going to be worth more than a chair from my house). Yet neither watches nor wing chairs physically change because they come with a piece of paper.
As designers, dealing with the subjective nature of experience could well be our greatest challenge. This may also explain why experience is so difficult to define - which brings us back full circle to the beginning of this commentary.
3.8 Commentary by Donald A. Norman
Technologies migrate as they mature. In early childhood, their very existence is a marvel, even as people wonder what can be made of it. In early adolescence, they become more and more able to perform useful functions for us, and for a while, they are judged primarily on their ability to do more and more, better and better. Finally, in maturity, it is the quality of the experience provided by these technologies that matter. Adolescents thrust their technological underpinnings into our consciousness, even as we resisted. But once the technology becomes mature, it recedes into the background, supportive of the total experience it provides.
Design, it has been said (Krippendorff, 1989) is the creation of meaning, and as Hassenzahl points out, the essence of meaning to us people is our experiences.
The chapter by Marc Hassenzahl ought to be required reading in courses of design, and perhaps even more importantly, in engineering and computer science. Do the devices we design and produce work well? Do they do marvelous, mysterious operations, working invisibly across space and time? Yes, they do, but doing that is a means, not the end. The end is the experiences they engender, the stories we tell, and the way that they enriched our lives.
But this creates a problem. We know how to design things that accomplish particular, concrete actions. But how can experiences be designed? As Hassenzahl points out they can鈥檛 be: they can only be supported. To use another design term: we can design in the affordances of experiences, but in the end it is up to the people who use our products to have the experiences.
The product provides the "How" part of an experience. It is up to people to provide the "What" and the "Why." But designers can help here as well, setting the framework, providing the initiative, providing examples.聽
Design has moved from its origins of making things look attractive (styling), to making things that fulfill true needs in an effective understandable way (design studies and interactive design) to the enabling of experiences (experience design). Each step is more difficult than the one before each requires and builds upon what was learned before.
The first step toward experiences was to learn about and embrace emotion and products that were pleasurable. This step has just been taken, with an increasing number of books, journal articles, and conferences attesting to the interest in this topic. But these steps too were in their infancy, addressing primarily the need and desirability along with the technical difficulties of measuring the resulting emotions or pleasure.
Marc Hassenzahl throws down the gauntlet for future designs: to produce products that deliver the Why, What, and How.
Krippendorff, Klaus (1989). On the Essential Contexts of Artifacts or on the Proposition That "Design Is Making Sense (Of Things)". Design Issues, 5(2), pp. 9-39.
Don Norman is the author of numerous books including "Emotional Design," and more recently, "Living with Complexity." He is co-founder of the Nielsen Norman group, a professor at KAIST (in Korea), and IDEO fellow, and a design theorist, studying the fundamentals of modern design. Although he invented the term "User experience" while an executive at Apple, he is pleased that people like Marc Hassenzhal have moved beyond the phrase to deep substance. Although Norman travels an inordinate amount, he can always be found at
3.9 Commentary by Mark Blythe
The Hitch Hiker's Guide to Experience Design
I like the idea of Marc's alarm clock, but I suspect that with the right sort of hangover, the gentle birdsong might sound like horses galloping over a tin bridge. It is an old point now but perhaps worth repeating: no experience can be guaranteed. In McCarthy and Wright's formulation experiences cannot be designed they can only be designed for (3). It is sometimes countered that, on the contrary, experiences get designed all the time and we only have to look at film, theatre and the other arts to see how. But in some ways there couldn't be a worse example. Consider James Cameron's "Avatar". Incredibly, the person who I was with found it鈥� boring, yes, boring, if you can believe it. As I sat in open mouthed astonishment at the technological and artistic achievement, my friend's jaw dropped only to yawn. Experience cannot be guaranteed even with Hollywood budgets. But conceding that you can't please all of the people all of the time does not necessarily mean that we cannot learn anything from understandings of literature, film and other media. Novelists, dramatists and film directors have, after all, been designing impossible things for a very long time.
Somewhere in the fourth video of the very interesting conversations with Marc he points out that the differences in how we tell stories matter. The way that we tell and understand story is crucial for experience design and for this reason there is as the saying goes "a small but growing body of work" that draws on critical theory (e.g. 1.2.3). Critical theory developed from the study of literature, drama and film. It is a catch all term that covers a very diverse range of perspectives such as psychoanalysis, feminism and deconstruction. Because its subject of study is the everyday - novels, films, TV, it is often dismissed as pretentious. It draws on specialized or high falutin' terms like "dialogical" and can seem unnecessarily abstract and difficult.
The terms "dialogical" and "monological" were key to the thought of the literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin and they are increasingly applied to experience design (e.g. 3). Such concepts can be quite confusing and are perhaps best explained with reference to the kinds of contexts Bakhtin thought about. For Bakhtin a "monological" utterance expects no answer. For instance, the order "Charge!" on a battlefield anticipates action, not debate. For Bakhtin the style of narrative in the novels of Tolstoy is also monological. The narrator of Anna Karenina for example knows the most intimate thoughts and actions of every character. How he knows what everyone is thinking is not at issue. In Dostoevsky on the other hand the narrative is dialogical. In Notes from the Underground the narrator constantly tries to anticipate and guess the reader's responses to what he is saying. "You imagine no doubt, gentlemen, that I want to amuse you. You are mistaken in that, too. I am by no means such a mirthful person as you imagine." Even where a neutral narrative voice begins the novel with omnipresent authority, as in the Brothers Karamazov, it is later revealed that this voice belongs to one of the characters with a partial perspective and sources which might or might not be reliable. Today monological authority is increasingly undermined by dialogical forms. To find examples today we might look at the anti Mubarak protests in Egypt in 2011, organized in part through Facebook and Twitter.
Unlike a paper based encyclopedia resources such as this are also dialogical in the form of commentaries and invitations for reader responses. Douglas Adams predicted this long ago when he wrote that the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy had supplanted the older and more pedestrian Encyclopedia Galactica in many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy. This, he said, was partly because it was slightly cheaper but mostly because it had the words "Don't Panic:" inscribed in large friendly letters on the front cover. The guide's field workers like Ford Prefect, would travel the universe, write about it and send their copy to the editors. Towards the end of his life Adams became less interested in writing novels and more involved in developing new media such as the pioneering game Starship Titanic. The HG2G website which attempted to create a real hitch hiker's guide with user generated content was a precursor to wikipedia. What then might a hitch hiker's guide to experience design look like?
“Experience design is complicated, really complicated. I mean, you may think planning a holiday in Centre Parks is needlessly difficult, but that's just peanuts to experience design”
The style might settle down after this and go on to note that it draws on many other disciplines - psychology, sociology and yes even literary theory sometimes. Many years ago, as another new field of study formed, Roland Barthes pointed out that interdisciplinary work is not achieved by gathering a number of sciences around a new "subject": "Interdisciplinarity" he said "consists in creating a new object that belongs to no one". Or as Marc Hassenzahl puts it in conversation here, the many relevant disciplines must talk to each other to find what works.
Bardzell J & Bardzell S (2008) Interaction criticism: a proposal and
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content: the iPhone on YouTube. CHI '09. (Boston, MA, USA, April 04 - 09,
McCarthy J., and Wright P., (2008) Technology as Experience. MIT Press
Cambridge Mass.
3.10 Commentary by Whitney Hess
Experience designers make a career out of alleviating people's problems and bringing them joy. To do this we remove barriers to entry; reduce the gap between current knowledge and target knowledge; make information easy to find and share; present content in digestible, understandable formats; adapt to the context of use; and above all else, maximize the potential for people to succeed.
But before we can find the right solution (the "How"), we need to carefully prioritize the features we invest in (the "What"). To determine our priorities, we need to clearly and accurately define the problem (the "Why"). To determine the problem, we need to identify the intended audience (the "Who"). And to determine the audience, we need to listen. At its core, this is the goal of experience design.
The result of a well-defined who, why, and what is an elegant how that can provide people with new dimensions of understanding, productivity, and pleasure.
Products, services and systems should improve the quality of people's lives, reduce stress, and create effeciencies that didn't previously exist. But uninformed design often yields the wrong what for the wrong who with a poorly considered how, causing pain and confusion, adding unnecessary cost, and defeating the purpose of the entire effort.
Marc Hassenzahl superbly demonstrates the power of a triumphant how, by doing what the best experience designers do: wrapping us up in a story and taking us where we need to go. His opening to this chapter illustrates the vastness of an experience designer's purview - what I am only able to convey with arms stretched wide - by making us feel what we would have felt had we been experiencing the products for ourselves.
Like with writing, just about all digital experiences are a proxy for meatspace, and that is a hurdle we must constantly overcome. Hassenzahl helps us recognize that not only do we have the responsibility to create the closest approximation of the mental, emotional and spiritual experience, but we also have the opportunity to use technology to create fulfilling experiences that would never be materially, logistically, or viably possible in the physical space.
"Experience or User Experience is not about good industrial design, multi-touch, or fancy interfaces," Hassenzahl states. "It is about transcending the material. It is about creating an experience through a device." I have chosen to read his use of "device" in its perhaps secondary but broader meaning - "a plan, scheme, or trick with a particular aim," rather than as a material object. I don't view experience design as contingent upon having an object (digital or material) with which to interact, though I can understand the argument of being device-centric given the implications of there being a user. But a user of a service might engage solely through conversation, with the designed "device" being flow. An experience designer's ultimate output is a plan itself, with all its conditions and contingencies. The success of the experience lies in the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of the plan.
Hassenzahl's guidelines on how to craft experiences as a dialog between designer and participant are insightful and well-articulated. He finally finds the common ground amongst what many practitioners have been preaching for decades: our work is a matter of ethics. We have to live with the choices we make, so let's do whatever it takes to be proud of the stories we tell and experiences we create.
I would like to see experience designers spend less time preoccupied with technology and more time exploring new environments on the hunt for new experiences. If we are bound to our chairs and screens, how will we discover new ways to create connection, meaning and purpose, and promote those learnings to the people we serve - or better yet, discover for ourselves whom we wish to serve in the first place?
3.11 Commentary by Paul Hekkert
Everything I read in Marc Hassenzahl's chapter sounds so true, so valuable, and so familiar. It comforted me, and it puzzled me. Of course, designers are there to shape experiences. Nokia, or any mobile phone manufacturer, is all about connectedness, not about these mobile devices. All design starts with a 'why', and next comes the 'what', or the 'how'. I will come back to this order in a minute.
Recently, I published a new book together with designer and colleague Matthijs van Dijk: "Vision in Design: A guidebook for innovators" (2011). It spends over 300 pages on explaining (future) designers on how to find the WHY of their designs, what we call its 'raison d'锚tre' or 'Daseinsgrund'. The reason of existence is grounded in the future world, as the designer sees it, and reflects what the designer wants to offer people given this world. What do you want people to understand, see, be able to, feel or experience? This goal or ultimate reason is indeed often experiential1. A random example from a student: "I want passengers to experience a sense of freedom within the limited space of an aircraft, by stimulating mental travel." This experiential goal takes into account the context of an aircraft, the mental state people are in during traveling, social anxiety, and people's love of mind wandering. This ultimate experience comes first; the product is (just) instrumental in realizing it. Or as Marc puts it: it's all about bringing "... the resulting experience to the fore - to design the experience before the product." Hence the familiarity.
It is so obvious and logical and yet Marc has managed to phrase it in a way that is crisp and clear and thereby he opens it up to an audience that may not seem so aware of its logic. People who are caught up in technological advancements for their own sake? And here Marc also puzzles me. Why this emphasis on interactive products? All products are 鈥� in essence 鈥� interactive, they allow for and require interaction, and all products can contribute to, stage, shape, facilitate, or enable experiences. Think of Starck's Juicy Salif, designed to stimulate conversations between a son- and mother-in-law. Or the example of the bucket "... a bucket is not a typical exemplar of an interactive product", as Marc writes. So what?
Somewhere along the line, the 'why' must be transformed in a 'what' and a 'how' and I believe the crux is in changing the order Marc proposed. After the WHY, designers should not immediately follow with a WHAT, but first decide on the HOW. This HOW is the user experience or product experience as we have coined it (Schifferstein and Hekkert, 2008); it captures the way people will interact with and experience the to-be-designed product that is not yet defined. These qualities of the interaction are intangible and not bound to anything, and they determine whether the ultimate experiential goal will be met. The WHAT that is next to be designed is simply a carrier of these qualities and it can be any type of product, an interactive product, a service, or a web application.
Let us consider an example of how this works. Years ago, student Sanne Kistemaker defined the experiential goal (the WHY) of her design project as "I want people to experience sarcastic triumph while staring at other people". We all want this, right? Watch other people while on the train, see what habits they have composed, see how they interact each other. She could have easily solved her design goal by some augmented reality type of application on a smart phone. But before she decided on the 'carrier' of her experience, she first defined what the interaction with the product should be. This interaction, as she saw it, should be tricky, reluctant, apprehensive, and straightforward, to make the user feel guilty and hesitating, yet proud and rebellious. She designed this interaction and corresponding user experience without having a clue what product should do this. And she beautifully solved it without any technological means: a newspaper that is offered with a small hole in the middle (see Figure)2. You may hesitate to use this paper, it is a little tricky, but once you do, in a train or on a terrace, you will certainly feel guilty and probably experience a sarcastic triumph!
鲨鱼直播 portalrize.com Copyright © Sanne Kistemaker. All Rights Reserved. Reproduced with permission. See section "Exceptions" in the copyright terms below.
To sum up, Marc importantly stresses that the user experience, the experience of the (interactive) product, should never be an end in itself, but is always instrumental to some life experience. All very true. And since the final design, the product, is again instrumental to the user experience, it seems only logical to make this the order of things: ultimate experience (WHY) > user experience (HOW) > product (WHAT). Designing along these lines is exactly what Verganti (2009) means when he speaks of 'design-driven innovation', where the designer pushes a new meaning, a new experience onto the public. Marc's chapter gives us many clues on how to do this.
Hekkert, P. & van Dijk, M. (2011). Vision in Design: A Guidebook for Innovators. Amsterdam: BIS.
Schifferstein, H.N.J. & Hekkert, P. (Eds.)(2008). Product Experience. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Verganti, R. (2009). Design Driven Innovation 鈥� Changing the Rules of Competition by Radically Innovating what Things Mean. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
When we look at public products for instance, the underlying reason can also be behavioral. Designing for behavioral change is currently a popular topic in design research.
Itis crucial for the design that the whole is already there; the experience would fail if the user had to make his/her own hole.
User Experience (鲨鱼直播) Design User Centered Design Emotional Design Aesthetics
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Reclaim your power!
PETV
Porn Talk
Porn Talk LIVE!
Eric’s Porn Blog
Laugh through the Pain
Tony “Freakin” Fonte
Powerful Eric: The purpose of this show is not just about breaking addiction, it’s about breaking belief systems. We are bound by self-imposed and societal chains, break those chains and get empowered right now. And today we have somebody that’s going to help us break those chains. His name is Tony Fonte, he is the author of “New Beginnings”, he’s a coach, author, and speaker and most importantly, a dad. Inspired by the tragic loss of his wife in 2011, and the many life experiences he walked through, Tony began a journey of intense personal growth and vulnerability. He believes that life is a journey, not a sprint, and hopes that new beginnings will help you enjoy the ride. Help me welcome our spiritual comedian, Tony Fonte. Welcome, Tony.
Tony Fonte: Hey, how you doing?
Powerful Eric: I’m good. I’m excited to have you here. Expand a little on my intro I said for you.
Tony Fonte: Being a comedian like that, but being a spiritual comedian, people might say what the hell is that, I use spiritual truths to help people awaken, but I use it using comedy. So, it lightens the mood. So, everybody who is uptight, is going to relax a little bit more. Even the ones who don’t want to relax, they just have a clenched cheek and they’re walking around funny, it’s just going to piss them off more, but that’s okay. But the design of the spiritual comedy is really to make light of the societal and cultural stuff that we have, and the generational stuff that we deal with, to make life and it’s making fun of my own life too. Yeah, making fun of myself as an angry guy, an insecure guy, a toxic guy. And a narcissist at times, right? And I wasn’t the greatest dad before. And I can make fun of myself now.
Powerful Eric: What do you say to the people that are very religious, and take offense to things very easily? Like if you say the wrong thing about their God.
Tony Fonte: God didn’t say, oh, shit, you got to have clothes on now. No, it’s the shame and guilt that did it.
Powerful Eric: That is a fantastic point.
Tony Fonte: Shame and guilt is not God. That’s religion, that’s the dogma part of it.
Powerful Eric: And shame and guilt is what fueled my porn addiction since I was a child, shame and guilt. Now, I am old enough to take responsibility for my actions now, and as a child, too, but shame and guilt was the bedrock.
Tony Fonte: But until you know better, you’re doing the best you can. So, anybody who’s listening, no matter if you’re dealing with an addiction, it doesn’t have to be a porn addiction, right? You can be addicted to your beliefs too, that just now came to me.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. Tony let’s change gears. So, I was talking about growing up feeling a lot of shame. And in your book, you talk about your relationship with your father, how he didn’t show up to your high school graduation. When I read that, honestly, I got teary eyed, I really did, for whatever reason. Well, not for other reasons, I know why it touched me, because my father is a great guy and he did the best he could. He loved me the best way he knew how, and he was, just say unavailable. From the research I’ve done on people with addictions, especially sex and porn addiction. If they were abused, or in some form, you know, maybe had an angry father, that was one thing, but if they were ignored, that was much worse.
Tony Fonte: I always back in the day, I just wanted my dad to be proud of me, I just wanted my dad to love me, because it never seemed like he was there, he always seemed to favor my brother, which my brother was a mess too, obviously. But, my dad was so disconnected, when I was young my mom used to tell me stories, that you know, your dad really showed you love when you were younger. But then when you got to a certain age, he stopped showing love, and at the time, I didn’t know what age that was. My dad couldn’t even tell you because when this book came out, he didn’t know I actually wrote a book until three days before it was published. And I had this feeling, and it says go set your dad free. I heard this thing coming and saying go set your dad free. And I’m like, what are you talking about? Go set my dad free? Go tell him, thank you. Oh, no, I can’t do that, my dad and I don’t have that relationship, I can’t do it. Maybe if we were a lot closer, and I’m like, no, and it kept pushing me and pushing me. So, I had to go out to his house, anyways, I was helping him with some stuff. And I got a little bit nervous, because this voice, this source was pushing me heavy and it was not going to let me go without actually having this conversation with my dad. So, I get there and my daughter, Kylie, she’s in there. She was going to watch a movie, and my dad went outside to smoke, and I go, oh, this is perfect time. So, I’m going to get it over now, because I am so nervous, I just want this over with. And, and I went outside, and I said dad, very fast too. Dad, I have something to say to you, it’s going to make us both uncomfortable. So, I’m going to say it and get it over with, and he looked at me like, okay. And you see him kind of tensing up, because he’s not used to opening up. Hardcore Italian family, his ass was kicked, right. He’s the oldest, he had all that onto him too. So, he was just didn’t show emotion. So, I go, thank you. And he goes, thank you for what? And I said, thank you for the way you raised me. And he immediately got defensive, I showed you love when you were younger. And I said, hold on, Dad, I am not here to beat you up. I said you don’t need to defend yourself. And I said, thank you for the way you raised me, and this still gets me emotional, because it was very powerful. I said because of the way you raised me; I am who I am today. Because of the way you raised me, I am the dad, I am today. Dad, because of the way you raised me, I get to do what I do. Which allowed me to write this book. You wrote a book? Yeah, it’s going to be published in three days. What the fuck? I mean, it was. And I’m like, yeah, and I go, and you’re in it. I did not mean to beat you up, because it could come across that way, which is to share the story because I’ve been able to release him. But I finalized it this way, I said, Dad, because of the way you raised me. I know now what not to do. Thank you. And he just goes, huh? And then all of a sudden I heard this. Ask him if he was ever shown love. Oh, fuck he, I’m surprised he was this vulnerable. I’m like, there isn’t no way he’s going to answer that, but I’m not, because I know where that got me. So, I go, were you shown love which as a kid? Immediately he says no. I went, wow. He goes when the boys got to a certain age, but he didn’t tell me the age. When the boys got to a certain age, you stop showing them love because that’s not what men do. That’s been passed on for generations, and generations, and we wonder why men are so disconnected. We wonder why men have a fucking porn addiction, sex addiction, drug addiction, whatever addiction, I mean, alcohol addiction. I mean there’s gaming addiction, I mean there’s so many things you can get addicted to. Why? Because we’re trying to hide the pain, because we’re taught not to fucking feel, that’s what causes problems, that’s what causes freaking shootings, that’s what causes fuckin abuse.
I mean, disconnect because men can’t feel, generationally, failed men years ago. And there’s now a shift, the earth is shifting, and the universe is shifting, the whole fucking planet is shifting. And especially women, women are gaining their power back, that divine feminine, which is absolutely fucking powerful. That’s where creation comes from and is now demanding men to show up in their freaking divine masculine, not just toxic, painful masculine. And I’ve cured it, actually I had someone tell me that. One time I was on a podcast, he says I think it’s awesome what you do, because I’ve never seen anybody do this. Because you have the cure for toxicity.
Powerful Eric: What would you say to the people that need to lighten up? How do you go about doing that?
Tony Fonte: Well, first and foremost it’s becoming aware. Because you can’t change anything, you can’t shift anything without first becoming aware that you have a struggle, that you’re challenging, lighten up, that you’re so stuck in your pain, and you’re projecting it on other people, and it’s actually keeping you from living fully. This is where the whole laughing through life came from. And you’re holding on to that pain, become aware of what you’re doing. And instead of seeking outside of you, go in, all the answers are within you. Who your true source is, whether it’s God, whether it’s the universe, whether it’s your highest self, I use them all? I use God and the universe interchangeably.
Powerful Eric: But instead of going into yourself, why not just get a six pack, get liquored up, or go on a porn site for a couple hours?
Tony Fonte: Well, let me ask you this, Eric, when you did it, did your pain go away?
Powerful Eric: In the moment that I was doing it, but immediately the moment I was done, I felt shame, remorse, and guilt.
Tony Fonte: So, what you’re saying is, by drinking that six pack, by injecting those drugs, by smoking that joint, by having addiction to pills, by having the sex addiction, by going from one relationship to one relationship with an addiction. What you’re telling me then, is that it’s temporary.
Powerful Eric: Correct.
Tony Fonte: It only temporary eases the pain.
Powerful Eric: Very temporary.
Tony Fonte: All it’s doing is treating the symptom. What they’re doing now, is they’ve been doing it little by little, so they were comfortable with this pain. They’re comfortable with it, just numbing the pain just a little by little, but it’s actually more painful because it’s prolonged over your whole fucking life, versus you go in and deal with it and heal it, it’s going to fucking hurt. But guess what’s going to happen? Quickly, you’re going to have freedom on the other side of that, more peace, more happiness, and I’m talking about lasting happiness. Lasting happiness, where now you are in control of how you react to the world, it’s not about responding. Because now you can be out in the world and things can happen and you’re not triggered. But the thing is, I want you to know is when people are triggered is when they get pissed off, right? Oh, that person pissed me off. No, he didn’t. You had anger inside you already. And has nothing to do with the other person, oh that person hurt me. No, all they did was stir the pain inside you.
Powerful Eric: I had a lot of anger inside me. And to be honest, I still have a lot of anger to get over. It’s a process, it isn’t just, you know, done. I’ve come a long way for sure.
Tony Fonte: Can I stop you just for a second there?
Powerful Eric: Yeah.
Tony Fonte: You don’t get over it. You get through it. You can’t go over it. You got to go into it. It’s like saying, well, I got to get to the other side of this mountain. So, I’m just going to try and go around it, and you’re going to keep hitting a wall. It’s like, no, you got to go through that thing, and own it. So, not only do you become self-aware, as you take responsibility for your life, that’s probably the first, before even self-awareness, is to take responsibility, because you’re not a fucking victim. You play a victim, you’re going to be bad around by life, all day long, the rest of your life, because you’re not a victim. No one’s a victim. Everything happens for you, not to you. So, stop thinking that life is happening to you.
Powerful Eric: The word responsibility means that we have the ability to choose our response, and you’re right. If we hold it out, if I say to myself, I am responsible. Then when someone or something out there makes me mad, then I am choosing that response because I am responsible. How does one choose a more laid back or happy, or how do you laugh at some of the absurdities of life, you know when something really pisses you off? And I don’t want to talk about either side of the political realm. But somethings really make you angry. How do you tighten up about that?
Tony Fonte: The idea, when someone makes you angry again, it has nothing to do with that person. Even in the political realm. I know we’re not going there, but even in political realm, people I mean, on both sides are throwing hate, right? Hate is being thrown around. It has nothing to do with the president or government or who is in that freaking office, any of those. All it’s doing is triggering the hate that is already inside you, something about yourself is being triggered. Again, the outside world is a reflection of us. And if you’re being triggered, it’s a pain point inside you that you have not wanted to deal with. So, when you have hated and you reflect that hate onto another person, guess what they feel? They feel that hate and guess what they do? They respond with their own hate.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. And that’s one of the things talking about raising our vibration. That’s one of the things that is happening big time in the world, it’s that all these things that have been hidden for a long time, for example, racism, we thought, at least honestly, I thought that racism was much better, that’s easy for me to say. But honestly, I thought it was doing pretty good until events of the past couple of years have exposed that oh, my gosh, racism is alive. And well, in the good old US of A, it’s showing ourselves that, hey, there’s still a lot of healing to be done here. And for myself, I’ve talked about, the anger, Eric you still have a lot of healing to do.
Tony Fonte: Yes. And if so, when you start healing yourself, and you sit back, right, you almost rise above because you’re not in it now. So, our life is a movie. And everything you see, outside you, they are all players, they’re all actors, they’re all scenes, right? That’s how it works. So, if you are not happy with what you’re seeing on the freaking screen of your life, your show, you have the power to recreate it, to rewrite the scene. Hey, Kevin Hart tried it this way, and then they redo it, right. But then they went out and they had the before the movie actually gets released, they had a pre-screening, and have some people coming out and they see it, you see it all the time happening. And then you hear the response on certain scenes or the ending of the movie. And then they get the feedback from the audience and saying, we didn’t like this, we go, we would like this. And guess what they do? They’ll go back and reshoot part of the movie and then re edit it. You have the same power to do this with your life.
Powerful Eric: Okay, and let me interrupt you there, because that’s in your book. And that is something that I have been working on, it’s reframing things, looking at things from a different perspective. Tell us how did you do that with the death of your wife? And if you could tell the listeners, because obviously, I know the story from your book. But can you tell the listeners a little bit about the death of your wife? And–
Tony Fonte: Yeah. My wife died in 2011, unexpectedly, she had an overdose on pain meds. And of course, it was an accident, she didn’t do it intentionally, but she was using prescription drugs, not in the way they were intended, and it killed her. And I found her dead in the basement, on the couch, she went to sleep, but I found her dead. And I was left to raise my five year old daughter at the time. So, when I first went through it man, I was a mess, trying to figure this out, trying to make sense of it. It’s like a big nightmare, for like the first two weeks, it was crazy and I’m going back and forth between anger and sadness. And I mean, it was just a mess. But one thing I did learn was to embrace those emotions, feel them, then I was getting mad because I should or shouldn’t be getting angry, right? Like, that’s just stupid. You’re feeling the emotion, feel it. People are like oh, you shouldn’t get angry, you shouldn’t get angry. What the fuck not. Don’t invalidate my emotions. Don’t invalidate anybody’s emotions, why they’re having the emotion can be looked at. But the fact is, someone who’s having emotion is real. And then I would have moments of laughter and having fun, then I felt guilty. I’m supposed to be sad. And there’s times that we hold on to grief, out of shame and guilt, our own shame and guilt of who we thought we were with that person, of holding on to our own shame and guilt, because I’d rather hold on to this grief. Because I don’t want to forget this person. I see it all the time, people are that way. And I felt that way for a long time too, as I’m going through the motions, and the stages of grief at that moment. And it was really over the past two years that I really started embracing my wife’s death. So, when I first wrote the book, I was like oh, my wife’s death is the purpose, you know, the purpose of writing this book, helping somebody, I am coaching people. So, therefore that’s the purpose of it. And it wasn’t until last year, and this is not in the book, this is just last year. The real purpose, because as we evolve, as we continue to heal and go deeper and deeper into those with more truth and what we’re ready for, start showing up. It came to me, because I’ve been raising my daughter, she just turned 14. So, I’ve been raising her nine years. She was five years old, and she’s 14 now. So, I’m raising a teenager which is a whole other set of lessons for me. Which is awesome, because not only does it show me how much I’ve grown, but now that she’s becoming more independent, it’s teaching me things that I still need to heal, and it’s absolutely amazing. So, my daughter has been my greatest teacher, but here’s the cool part and I’ll get to this. So, my wife died, her purpose was to die to save me. And let me go a little deeper than that. She gave me a daughter to raise by myself, which for the first few years, I was still an angry fucking asshole. I tried to love, but I can only love to capacity. But I was also trying to control everything in my outside world, if it didn’t go my way I would freaking snap. My daughter was afraid of me. And guess who I was afraid of? My own dad. We are supposed to be the protector and the one person that keeps them safe, and here she wasn’t, she loved me, but she was absolutely afraid.
Powerful Eric: How did it make you feel? In your book you say that one day she said to you, she said, I want a new mommy, when is God going to bring me a new mommy?
Tony Fonte: Yeah. One thing she taught me because you know, as men we want to fix, right? You know why we try to fix why it’s, quote unquote, ingrained in us to fix? Because we don’t want to feel the emotion, because we don’t know how to handle it, because we’re taught not to feel. That’s why men want to fix, they want to solve it right away to get away from it. Because fucking emotions scare them. This is my world; she’s taught me that some things we just can’t fix. My daughter has taught me to get in touch with my emotions. Because there’s times I just had to hold her and say, I know, it sucks, but we’re going to make it through because we’re a team, we got this. But it’s okay to feel that way. I get it. I know, sweetheart. But in the right time, it’ll happen. And I had to just be there with her. And just hold her while she cried. And allow me to open up emotionally. So, that’s the number second thing, my wife died to save me, because she knew this whole energy. I mean, she really came here to meet me, to go through what she did, to give me a daughter, to die, to save me. Because it took that girl to wake me up. Three years in after my wife died, but it took that girl to wake me up. And she’s been my greatest teacher because now I know what girls need, ultimately what women need. They don’t feel safety and security from a physical protective thing. They don’t feel safety and security, about the fucking money that I bring in. They could care less, but that’s what we’re taught as men. You’re the provider, you go out and do this to justify this. And if you’re not doing any of this, you’re not a fucking man, bullshit. Who I am on the inside makes me a man? And no one tells me what kind of man I am. I do, I can be homeless. And how I show up for my daughter determines what kind of man I am. And that won’t ever break. We can lose everything. And her love for me, won’t freaking waver because it’s how I show up for her. That’s a man, how I show up for myself, that makes me a man.
Powerful Eric: And no, it also makes you a real man is that you get pedicures with your daughter, right? That says, real men get pedicures with their daughters.
Tony Fonte: Yes. And I tell you what, they’re absolutely amazing. First time I had one I was like, holy shit, why am I missing out on our own? I thought I was less of a man, that’s gay if you do this, that’s just stupid, you can be secure and do that. But if you know what, even if I had a wife, I would do that with my daughter because that’s what she loved. And that’s time with my daughter. But man, actually I would go get one without her because I mean they’re that good, really good. So, yes, that’s what makes you man. Go get pedicures, learn how to paint your nails, having tea parties, just doing the things that you may not necessarily like, but she loves. And it lets her know without saying a damn word, that she matters, because I promise you my daughter does not have that to go through her head. I wonder if I matter to my dad, I wonder if my dad loves me. She knows without a fucking doubt.
Powerful Eric: I’m the same way with my son. I’ve got two sons but one’s a baby. But my five year old, I don’t want to paint my dad in a bad light, my dad was a great guy, he did the best he could, he loved me as best as he knew how, he never ever said I love you or anything like that, and hugging him was always awkward. They were painful. I mean, it’s kind of hard to describe. They’re painful. And–
Tony Fonte: Yes, my dad is actually like that. You really can’t hug my dad; he would flip out. What the hell is that?
Powerful Eric: Talking about that old story. In your book, one of your action steps says to change the meaning of your past experiences, view them as learning experiences to help you grow instead of chains that hold you down. What would be an example, like with your wife? Changing the meaning of that experience? Can you elaborate on that?
Tony Fonte: Yeah. So, it’s any experience that holds us down. So, I mean, like, for instance, I used to have this aversion to the word stupid. I couldn’t stand that word. If someone jokingly called me stupid, I get pissed off. I get pissed and ready to actually, sometimes I would get in a fight, because you call me stupid. And why did I hate stupid so much? Because, I was called stupid growing up, that I would never amount to much. That was just fucking dumb. And guess where that came from? My dad’s dad, it got passed on and passed on, anger runs in the family, it’s because it’s passed on and passed on, no one broke the fucking cycle. It wasn’t until me, to break the cycle. My brother’s had major heart attacks. He’s 48, he’s had three heart attacks. He has a different put in, he had a bypass, my dad had five heart attacks, triple bypass. He’s having heart failure, he’s dying, because he’s living in the suffering, because he feels he needs to suffer for all his shame and guilt, for how he raised us, how he treated my mom, and all the fucking pain that’s been passed on to him. But by me healing myself, I’ve allowed my energy to reach him, and he sees how I’m living now. And my energy reaching him has actually allowed him to heal some. But it’s still his choice to fully heal, if he will choose us to. Because as we raise our vibration, if anybody is in our vicinity, automatically is going to raise their vibrations. But the problem is, all those lower stories are going to come up, and they feel when they’re with you, they feel that negativity, they’re like, oh shit, I don’t like the way I feel, this person is causing it and they react to you, trying to get you to come back down. Or finally they stop resisting, and they start working through it. But back to the word stupid, I used to get pissed. And it wasn’t until one day someone says Tony, just change the fucking meaning. I finally let go of the attachment, the identity to that word, stupid. And then you know what I did? I went in and healed the story, and forgave myself for holding on to that pain, for that bitterness towards my dad. And then I forgave my dad, at the deepest level, not mentally, for his play on that, and holding a conviction against him, because he felt that energy. And as I’ve healed, he feels a different energy from me. Because I no longer have that dignity, that attachment what I needed was the love, that I now can fully love that man, knowing that he utterly destroyed me as a kid, and most of my adult life because now I see the same pain that he inflicted on me, was inflicted on him, the only difference is, I was able to break the cycle. And, because I broke the cycle, not only does it heal generations past, I have forever changed our family tree.
Powerful Eric: That’s awesome. Our dads have some similarities, and one of the things that one of my spiritual teachers had, she said that people can only love from what they’ve been taught and the toolbox they have, she has always talked about the toolbox. Some people have really tiny toolboxes and some people have really big toolboxes. From the way that my father was raised, his toolbox on showing love and affection was very, very small, and he did the best with the tools that he had. Sounds like your dad.
Tony Fonte: Same thing. But here’s what I want to drive this point home, because we can sit here and blame our parents. Your parents may have fucked you up, somebody, teachers, something, they may have caused you trauma, but it’s not their responsibility to heal it. It is your responsibility to heal it. What happened to you is not your fault. But it is your responsibility to heal it if you want to move forward. It’s no longer your parent’s responsibility.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, but it’s a lot easier for me just to blame them than to take responsibility to heal myself.
Tony Fonte: Of course. It’s a lot easier for you to go drink versus deal with the pain, have sex with someone to deal with the pain. Look at porn to deal with the pain, take drugs to deal with the pain. It’s a lot easier to do that than it is actually, but it’s slowly killing you. It’s like the frog, I know you’ve heard that story. You put a–
Powerful Eric: Hey Tony, we need to wrap up here. I just want to mention before we get going here, one day, I was walking by this building, my wife and I and they were having laughter yoga, it’s yoga and all they do, it’s a group of people that get together and they laugh. And it sounds ridiculous, but you know, just the health benefits alone of laughter is very well known. And I’ve never gone to a laughter yoga class, but it sounds pretty cool.
Tony Fonte: I think I want to go try this out. I love laughing.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, it was in Kirkwood. It’s called laughter yoga; I don’t know if it’s still around anymore. But Tony, tell everybody how they can get ahold of you.
Tony Fonte: Yeah. So, you can go to my website, www.tonyfonte.com, that’s F, as in Frank, O- N- T-E, www.tonyfonte.com, that is where laughing through life is, which I call laugh your way to total transformation, which is not your typical personal development.
Powerful Eric: Well, Tony, it was awesome to have you on. I look forward to finishing your awesome book. You can get his book, “New Beginnings” off on Amazon. And I’ll close with this quote, from Zig, who says, “you are what you are and where you are because of what has gone into your mind”. You can change what you are, and you can change where you are by changing what goes into your mind. Be powerful folks.
Outro: Thanks for listening. If you’re struggling with porn or sex addiction, then contact Eric at powerfuleric.com or call 314-717-0377 for a free no obligation consultation. Remember, you are powerful.
Listen to audio of the whole show here!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/laugh-through-the-pain/id1454294737?i=1000502159623
Ex Nun on Porn
Ex Nun Mary Feagan
Powerful Eric: Alright Mary, you ready? Welcome to Porn Talk, this is Powerful Eric. The purpose of this show is not just to break addictions, but it’s about breaking belief systems because we are bound by self imposed and societal chains, break those chains, and we’ve got a person with us today that’s going to help break some of those chains. She’s a little rebellious, I guess you could say because she is a ex nun. Her name is Mary Feagan, she’s an author, she’s a poet, she’s a teacher and the reason I have her here today, I’ve come to know Mary and she’s a really interesting person. In fact, I’d go so far to say, Mary that, I like to use this term, renaissance man or renaissance person. Everything I’ve learned about you; I consider you a renaissance person. So, welcome to the show.
Mary Feagan: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
Powerful Eric: Absolutely. Please share a poem that may help guys addicted and/or their significant others.
Mary Feagan: Grandmama God, what about sex? Should I want it? Do you bless it? May I have some? What’s it for? Mary– and this is grandmama God speaking, “Mary my child, sshh child, slow down and feel the buzzing in your ear, then feel the buzzing in your body. That buzz is sexual honey, it’s life itself. You are alive daughter of mine. You are alive because of sex. You are alive because of wanting. You are alive because of desire, because of longing, because of yearning. You are alive because your mama and your daddy were each lonely by themselves, they wanted connection, union, communion. Sex is the celebration of folks longing for union and its continual communion too, if you dare to live in ecstasy. Mary, my daughter, ask me another question. You know, the question all daughters dream of asking. Don’t be shy girl, I want to tell you.”. Grandmama God, please, do you ever have sex? “Oh, Mary, granddaddy God and I live in continual communion. We live in ecstasy, we are that ecstasy, we are that love, that sex, that exuberant meeting. Every minute, every second, we find each other in the dark and come together. Every minute Mary, every second sparks fly, and stars are born as we unite in joy. Granddaddy God and I, why, come to think of it, sex is all we ever do.”.
Powerful Eric: Incredible Mary, absolutely incredible. I’ve heard that before and oh my gosh.
Mary Feagan: It still surprises me.
Powerful Eric: I mean, this is priceless, it really is. There’s so much there. Your poem has like 100 means built into it, I’m not kidding. Like, wow, that’s absolutely incredible. I mean–
Mary Feagan: That poem still surprises me. We are called to live in ecstasy, I believe it.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, and see, that’s the thing about pornography, people, of course, are naturally drawn to it. It’s a natural, biological thing, it’s a natural thing. And so, and it can be used for good or it can be used for bad and that’s one of the challenges I have with the show is, I don’t want to say, “You are doing a bad thing.”, or, “I’m doing a bad thing.”, it’s just that for me, it became very, very unhealthy and addictive and I actually had wished that I wasn’t exposed to it, it was negative. Now, there’s other people that can be exposed to it, and put it down and be fine and go on their way, but I know for a fact there’s millions of people that can’t. And where it gets really sad and disturbing is with sex trafficking for pornography, and young kids, I don’t want to shame myself anymore about it, I don’t do it anymore but I still don’t– I don’t want to shame myself and I don’t want to shame other people too, that maybe still in the midst of it. Because sex is a natural thing and your poem at the very end there, saying that–
Mary Feagan: “Granddaddy God and I, why, come to think of it, sex is all we ever do.”.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, sex is all we ever do.
Mary Feagan: Connection is all we ever do, union. Now, maybe pornography isn’t always connection, it could be self love but it could be disconnecting.
Powerful Eric: Right, exactly. And that’s what’s missing there, it’s the connection, for me, I was disconnected. It disconnected me from people and places and myself. I’m trying to get away from judging it as bad or negative and that it just is, and it affects people differently, and for me, it was very negative.
Mary Feagan: It’s so much like chocolate, chocolate can be used for good or bad.
Powerful Eric: You could have a little chocolate, and that’s fine. It’s the saying as, ‘A candy bar a day keeps the doctor away.”, isn’t that what it is?
Mary Feagan: That’s right, that’s what my grandmother used to say.
Powerful Eric: It’s not a candy bar, “It’s an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”, right? A candy bar a day may, you know may not be such a good thing. And, Mary, we, you know, I’m 49, you’re, and give me your perspective on pornography.
Mary Feagan: Well, I really liked what you said a little bit might be alright. If somebody is single and wants a little bit because they want to masturbate and get that sexual tension out or even just for self love, if that can be a form of self love, and it’s not four times a day or something, it seems healthy.
Powerful Eric: Right. One of my very good friends, he’s got a young boy that he’s raising. he caught him with pornography, you know, he didn’t shame him, he said that, “You know, this is a natural thing you’re doing but you know, you got to be careful. It is addictive.”.
Mary Feagan: Right, so is chocolate.
Powerful Eric: Yep. So is chocolate. Is there maybe one or two more poems that you want to share?
Mary Feagan: And I think I know this one by heart, we’ll see. Don’t know. I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I say no to the judge in me that wants to try just one more case. I close the books, then for the hell of it, I burn them. My inner courtroom is in ashes. I take the blind, old judges’ hand, pat his bottom like I’m sending a sleepy child to bed. He shuffles off to rest in peace. I’ve pulled the rug out of my mind and now the bottom drops out too. So, here I am in the dumb wonderland of my heart where I know nothing and understand nothing. Gee whiz, it’s quiet for a change. I just don’t know.
Powerful Eric: Amazing. I cannot tell you how happy I am to be putting your material out there. It needs to be out. I mean, I know you are putting it out there too. but I’m glad to help.
Mary Feagan: Thank you. I’m really honored and grateful for this time with you really, really. And this is the poem I’m going to say at church this coming Sunday. It’s called party of one. One Friday– I should back it up, I lived in Atlanta a long time and I was an elementary art teacher my last seven years there. So, that was during this that time. Okay. One Friday, I drove from Atlanta to Hilton Head Island. I attended an art teachers’ conference at that lovely place. That evening, I dressed up, found my way to a fancy restaurant, signed my name and waited near the bar for a table. Soon the head waiter summoned me announcing loudly, “Feagan, party of one.”. I stood up amused and embarrassed. I blushed, grinned, looked at the floor and followed him. What He really said to me is this, “Mary Feagan, it’s high time you claim your joy.”. Well, I’m practicing, I practice being alone and full of life. I sit still and feel the buzz inside me like a celebration. Love is the hostess, I’m the guest of honor and my body, really, my heart is the party place where I turn off my mind and feel my body’s breath, it’s heartbeat and its hum. As I arrived, dear friends popped up from behind the furniture, “Surprise, Mary!”, they called, they clapped and cheered for me. My family and church– and the church folks drop in too. We celebrate together like it’s the fourth of July, when love is in charge in my heart, I’m a party of one.
Powerful Eric: Party or one, love it. Mary, you are such an interesting person. You obviously teach art classes and the reason I know that because I was in one of them, it was awesome. To me, art is a form of mindfulness and a lot of people think of mindfulness, they think of meditation, but it’s much, much, much more than that. For me, drawing, I like to draw, is one of the most mindful things that I can do. Like, when I’m drawing, I don’t think of anything else, in fact, it’s really hard to think of something else. When I’m drawing, I like to draw faces and when I draw faces, I kind of forget about the world, forget about my problems, and I’m just focusing on drawing that line. How can arch or drawing help someone that may have an addiction, or?
Mary Feagan: I’m glad that you brought up art, and I love drawing faces also. And I have a little sketch pad in my purse and recently, I took somebody to the doctor and while I was in the waiting room, I drew somebody else, somebody who was waiting. And then, she said, “How did you do that?”, and I gave it to her. I know what you mean exactly, and I love how you said it. I think I have to go into some theory about left brain and right brain.
Powerful Eric: Please do.
Mary Feagan: And the left brain is verbal, all our verbal thoughts there, math, and all our school subjects practically, geography, history, math, science, all that’s left brain. Recess now, and you know, playing around, baseball is a beautiful combination of both, you know the theory, you know, the rules, you got to know the rules. But then, you’re probably in the zone, the zone of quiet mind, I would think and just watching that ball, it’s so healthy for us to get out of our left brain. The right brain, senses, hears, sees, smells, taste, touches, and when it’s seeing and really focused, it is quiet in there; it’s such a relief. And the better I see then, of course, the better my drawing will be and that just takes practice. It’s not about talent much at all, it takes practice.
Powerful Eric: And what’s the name of your class?
Mary Feagan: Right brain drawing, through the community college; St. Louis Community College.
Powerful Eric: I just thought of a class title that, Drawing for Addicts, or–
Mary Feagan: Drawing for Healing
Powerful Eric: Ah, much better, see, and I’m trying to get away, I still, of the 20 years of that, I still want to put this label on myself; addict. Drawing for Healing, I love that.
Mary Feagan: I do too.
Powerful Eric: So, anybody out there that’s looking, that maybe meditation isn’t your form of mindfulness, maybe it could be drawing or painting, sculpting; those are all very mindful activities. In fact, one of the activities that Mary had us do in her class is, she gave us all little kids shoes and we had to draw this shoe. And really, it’s impossible not to be focused– if you’re trying to draw that shoe, you really got to put all your other thoughts aside in order to do that. It’s a super mindful activity, highly recommend it. Mary, tell the listening audience a little bit about yourself.
Mary Feagan: All right. I grew up Catholic, dear father, who was an Irish grocer with a seventh grade education, who did well, worked hard, six days a week and a very refined mother who played the cello and played the piano and had a college education and convent bread, boarding school for high school, pretty rigid.
Powerful Eric: Right, very rigid upbringing.
Mary Feagan: Yeah. Not so with daddy. Anyway, because– and then, I went to Catholic grade school and got an awful notion of God, old, judge God. Yeah, I was very afraid of him and I became a nun because of that fear, not because I wanted to, but because I felt like he was telling me to. And so, that became a big point for healing, to change my understanding of God, and be free. And be free to live from my heart, which my true God would want me to do; does want me to do.
Powerful Eric: Right. I can relate to a lot of what you’re saying. The word that comes to mind just for myself is shame. I felt a lot of shame as a young boy, I can relate to that old, judge God.
Mary Feagan: Yeah, but I would think I didn’t have as much shame as I had, what do you call it? The opposite that I was working from, but I became a perfectionist. You know, scrupulous, so careful, such a good girl. So, here’s that poem. That old, judge God is walking away. He’s finished now. He never even existed. Well, he was as much God as I could imagine at the time. I used to think that old, judge God didn’t want me to have you, now I know, he was all a bad dream. I see him shuffling down a dirt road. He’s dragging a ragged black row behind his bare, sagging ass. I’m ready for a bigger God now. I’m ready for big hearted, big breasted grandmama God. I’m ready for a big handed, big hearted granddaddy God. I’m ready for a god bigger than 14 skies, bigger than the color orange expanded out in all directions, bigger than my longing for fullness multiplied to 40 zillion, bigger than my feeling of fullness when I am dancing with you and everyone we love is clapping stars to us. That’s been the journey of my life really, to keep on, getting bigger, bigger and bigger concepts of the one.
Powerful Eric: It’s absolutely fantastic. I just love that poem. Mary, tell us, how did you begin to leave that old, judge God behind? How did you start to leave?
Mary Feagan: I can tell you how I began to get freer in the convent. I would read and see quotes, I saw the quote, “The glory of God is a person fully alive.”, I said, “What?”, that was radical for me in the 60s or whatever. There’s one other quote, oh, there was a book in the convent library, Holiness is wholeness, what? Oh, and we had a scripture class from a nun who had just come back from a scripture class at Notre Dame, sharing what she’d learned, and she talked about the Abraham Isaac sacrifice, do you know that story?
Powerful Eric: I’m familiar with it, but why don’t you enlighten the audience.
Mary Feagan: Okay. Just basically, child sacrifice was common in the region where Abraham lived, Abraham, who began the Jewish religion, child sacrifice was common, it’s unfathomable but there it is. Okay, so Abraham is taking his young son, Isaac, to sacrifice him, and in my old version of that story, God sees that Abraham is obedient, and tells him, “You have obeyed me now, put your son aside and get that lamb that’s caught in the bushes.”, something like that and Abraham does. Well, in the version of this nun who’d come back from Notre Dame, she says, Abraham had an insight the true God would not ask this. And he got a bigger, better God, truer God and then, he did sacrifice a lamb, which is, you know, not whatever, advanced. But still, he got over child sacrifice. And so, I thought to myself about being a nun, “Maybe the true God would not ask this. Maybe I don’t have to do this.”, she helped me. I just kept getting a little clues about a bigger God.
Powerful Eric: Man, most of the guys addicted to porn don’t like themselves and a common theme, and frankly, I’ve heard this from a lot of guys is, “I’m a piece of shit.”. And most guys have a judgmental voice inside their heads, your book Finding grandmama, God talks about loving yourself, how can someone learn to love themselves?
Mary Feagan: I like the question. Many years ago, at least 30, I did a two week workshop on the island of Kauai with the authors of a book called Embracing Ourselves, the book helped me so much, I read it in three days, and then went to the workshop months later. And the book talks about our inner selves, our critic, our pusher that wants to just get things done, our pleaser that wants to accommodate to other people, I have a big one of those I have to watch, judge, the judge is myself or others, mostly the critic judges me and my judge, just words judges others. My clown or you know, show off, or entertainer, other selves and different people have different selves but basically, we’d have the critic, pusher, pleaser. So, in the course of two weeks of all that introspection, and we got in small groups and talk from our inner selves, in those two weeks, I discovered I did not have a kind inner voice. What a revelation. And so, I practiced giving myself one, I practiced calling myself honey, I practiced calling myself sweetheart, I practiced saying, “You’ve done enough today, sit down.”.
Powerful Eric: How would you do that? Like, in the mirror or just?
Mary Feagan: No, just inside, I would stop, and you know, I’d catch the pusher saying, “You can do more, don’t take a nap. You can finish those letters.”, whatever. And then, I’d say, is there another– I’d hold my collar out, “Is there another voice in there?”.
Powerful Eric: I love that. So, walk me through that again, specifically. So, when the pusher voice comes up and he may say something like, or she may say something like, what?
Mary Feagan: “It’s not time for lunch. You can answer 10 more emails.”, something like that.
Powerful Eric: Okay, I see what you’re saying. And so, how did you–
Mary Feagan: I would catch her. I would hear it and say, “Is there another voice?”, but I’d have to kind of create it. It certainly wasn’t automatic. So, I had to catch one of the– the critic too, catch the critic and stop.
Powerful Eric: I absolutely love it. You know, I do a similar thing, I say, “Stop, cancel.’, and sometimes I wear the rubber band, sometimes I don’t, I snap the rubber band and then, I say the positive opposite. Heaven forbid, something awful like, “I’m a piece of poo.”, comes up in my mind, I’m going to stop, cancel, I release that thought, “I’m a good person. I like myself. I like myself, I’m the best.”. And I really use that a lot with my older son, Alexander, who’s five now, he’s really starting to understand things like that, tell him that he’s a good boy and that I love– there’s an author named Zig Ziglar and he has a quote that says, “You are designed for accomplishment, you are engineered for success, and you are endowed with the seeds of greatness.”, and I tell Alexander that quote all the time to build that inner voice in him.
Mary Feagan: That’s wonderful. I love Stephen Lavonne, who was not in the planet, a couple years ago he died but I used to read his books. And the one sentence that I have probably said 1000 times to somebody or to myself is, “A positive thought held is less healing than a negative one met with mercy.”.
Powerful Eric: Say that again.
Mary Feagan: A positive thought held is less healing than a negative thought met with mercy. And if I’m by myself at my house, which I often am, I’ll say, “Mercy!”, out loud, mercy!
Powerful Eric: So, what does that quote mean to you?
Mary Feagan: Well, it just means if I’ve got a negative thought, I don’t have to say, “Ain’t it awful? My stupid mind is still negative.”, I don’t have to do any of that; I just have to say, “Mercy.”.
Powerful Eric: I love it. That is fantastic, I’m going to have to adopt that. Instead of trying to just squelch that thought.
Mary Feagan: And I don’t have a pet right now, but if I get a cat, her name might be Mercy and then, I could just hear myself saying that all the time, “Mercy, come here.”.
Powerful Eric: I used to have two cats, one was Bruce, the other one was Lee. I’m obviously a big Bruce Lee fan so, I love naming the cat a cool name like that, Mercy.
Mary Feagan: Okay, can I go back to the self love for a minute?
Mary Feagan: Thanks. Okay. I had kept a journal, that is so important, I kept a journal and some of that became poems, because that’s where I was writing, but– So, I would just sort of have mercy on myself and say, when I accommodated, when I was hard on myself, anyway, my writing to myself helped a lot, I just want to get that in there.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, and I totally agree, I’ve been keeping a journal for years. They’re absolutely invaluable.
Mary Feagan: Yep. Okay.
Powerful Eric: Mary, you were married twice and divorced twice. What did you learn from your divorces and did your exes have addictions or anything like that?
Mary Feagan: First husband was seven years younger than I, although I’d just been out of the condiment a few years and so, my emotional age might have been right in line with his or even younger, who knows? And he had been to Vietnam as a photographer, artist, so, he was an artist. And I think we both had post traumatic stress so, I wouldn’t say he was addicted, but I think both of us had troubles; had healing to do. And I accommodated, I pretty much did what he wanted to do, “You want to move to Virginia?”, “Yeah. Okay.”. So, I kind of thought love was doing what the other person wanted, and I have a poem called accommodation.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, please.
Mary Feagan: Accommodation. I accommodated again; I gave my power away with a smile. I know a lot about how to do that. I also do know a lot about being alone. I’m just learning reciprocity. Just learning, I listen to you and you listen to me. I love that kind of togetherness. I hate accommodation, it’s a nasty stinky, farty word. It’s almost got the word commode in it; it smells like one. I accommodate when I’m in a trance, a childhood trance then I play nicey nice, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”, like a poor, tired, all night waitress, or a candy ass, teacher’s pet child. When I wake up from the trance, I cry, then I’m free to be my funny, fresh self again, but wiser.
Powerful Eric: What do you say in the very beginning there about giving away your power?
Mary Feagan: With a smile, I give my power away with a smile.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. And see, that’s one of the things that I am trying to impart on this show is for people to embrace their power, that may have felt powerless. Because for 20 years, well over 20 years, I gave away my power and said I was powerless and here we are on Porn Talk with Powerful Eric.
Mary Feagan: I love it.
Powerful Eric: Thank you. And you know, that’s one response that I get from a lot of people that know me, they’re like, “Oh, wow, that’s really cool. I like that.”. Go ahead.
Mary Feagan: The great mystery, which I used to call God, but I’m avoiding that word God because it– having a sword. Okay, the great mystery, when it makes– a pear tree, anything, it wants it to bloom full. Yeah, and I think about– I mean, there are so many examples we could say but an acorn. If an acorn could talk, it would say, “I can’t be that. How could I be an oak tree?”, and the great force, the great source of everything says, “You just wait.”.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, there’s a tree called the General Sherman tree, it’s one of the largest trees in the world and it started from just a tiny, little acorn, and somebody listening to the show right now may feel just like a tiny, little acorn, they may feel inadequate, but with the right amount of sunshine and watering and time can become a General Sherman.
Mary Feagan: And we don’t do it by ourselves, we do it with people who love us and with the force that’s in us.
Powerful Eric: Right. Yeah. And then, that’s another term that people that are in the Star Wars like to say, the force, you know? I’m a big Star Wars fan.
Mary Feagan: Yeah. And as a poet, I love force and source rhymes so–
Powerful Eric: Well, we’ll be waiting for that poem. Did you say all you wanted to about your ex husbands?
Mary Feagan: Oh, I didn’t, no, I didn’t, I got off the subject or something. Okay. So, first husband was seven years younger and a Vietnam veteran and I accommodated. And the second husband was seven years older, and had Jewish upbringing, Jewish heritage, and was a bit of a patriarch and I’m certain I accommodated during the courtship phase, during the year or so before we married. But I was playing around with asserting myself and being free and funny or whatever.
Powerful Eric: So, he was Jewish? I’m sorry, this just sounds like, this almost sounds like a joke. An ex Catholic nun marries a Jew. Sorry.
Mary Feagan: He wasn’t currently a Jew, but he’d grown up with all that. Yeah. His mother was adorable who had, you know, gotten out of Europe at the time of the Holocaust and all that.
Powerful Eric: And just to let everybody know, Mary is 80 years old so, that’s why she’s talking about things like that.
Mary Feagan: Yeah. Okay. So, he was seven years older, divorced with four children and I did at that point, because I was getting older, I was– I might have been 38-39, I was getting to the edge of not being able to have children. And I did have some grief at, “Well then, I won’t have my own children.”, I had some grief with that. Gave my power away with a smile, but I was infatuated with both these guys. And an author named Helen Fisher helped me so much, the 2002, I believe it is National Geographic as an article that refers to her over and over and it’s all about infatuation and it says that relationships, almost all of them, almost all of them, average 18 months of infatuation and dopamine is the hormone in charge. And we are passionately in love and it’s a whole different thing because our hormones are so active and dopamine is– because Mother Nature wants couples who will then continue the human race, okay. After about 18 months, if the relationship has enough roots to it and etc., the dopamine will ease into oxytocin, which is cozier but it’s not as wild and passionate and crazy. Well, I didn’t know that, and I wish I could tell every person thinking of getting married, “How long you’ve been him?”, if it hasn’t been 18 months, just sit, don’t. I learned it and maybe I can help a few people.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, wise words.
Mary Feagan: So important. Yeah.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. Maybe the audience can learn from you, from your two divorces and that, building a relationship on infatuation, probably– I mean, if you can make it past 18 months is good, but maybe not the great basis for a relationship.
Mary Feagan: Yeah, wait, just don’t do anything you can’t easily undo. And keep being friends, friends, friends, keep being honest. Yeah. Anyway, so it was, besides the infatuation issue, and I would have stayed with this one but my accommodation, I was speaking up more awkwardly, I think and had to tell him a few things I didn’t like. And then, we would go to therapy and maybe six weeks later, I’d tell him something else I didn’t like, and he’d haul me off to therapy. And the therapist wasn’t a wise situation, he went to the husband and I went to his wife, but we didn’t do that much together, looking back, it was not smart.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, my wife and I, we went to pre marital counseling before we got married and it was so helpful, we never stopped; we still go. We’ve been married, coming up on, this year, we’ll be coming up on nine years. Yeah, nine years, we still go, either once a month or every other month; really, really helpful. Invaluable, I would even say, yeah.
Mary Feagan: So anyway, I was playing around with not accommodating and it didn’t go well, I’ll just say that. But of course, I taught him that I was a person who accommodated, you know, in some unconscious way, in those– in that first year of courtship and all that, I was so nice. Anyway–
Powerful Eric: Yeah. So, I’ve learned that there’s actually a lot of women that listen to the show, too, that are the significant others, or spouses, you’re speaking to them now. Some of them are being overly accommodating, like, and what I mean is, they know about the addiction, they don’t like the addiction, and they’re just a walking mat. I see A Course in Miracles is one of your favorite books, first, what is a course in miracles and how has it helped you and how do you think it can help somebody that has an addictive nature?
Mary Feagan: Well, it does have a workbook, it’s got theory in the front of the book, and then workbook day by day, 365 in the back and I do love tuning into it every day.
Powerful Eric: For people that aren’t familiar with A Course in Miracles, what?
Mary Feagan: Yeah, it’s hard to explain it. It was channeled by Helen Schucman, I think is her name. It’s certainly loving.
Powerful Eric: It’s a classic.
Mary Feagan: Now, it still makes God a he all the time and God is a force, a source, God is in everything, every acorn, and so, I have to– I edit the book as I go, and my book’s pretty messed up. But it is beautiful, and comforting, and so much about forgiveness.
Powerful Eric: Oh, that’s a big one there. Forgiveness, for myself, I mean, that’s something daily I have to practice, is just forgiving myself. And when I say forgive, I don’t mean in religious terms, I just, you know, the addictive side of me can be really hard on myself and I just have to forgive myself and move on. Coming from an ex nun, how has your definition of forgiveness grown?
Mary Feagan: Let me think if I can say the quote from Course in Miracles, “All the past except its beauty is gone and nothing is left but a blessing.”, that helps me. And Course in Miracles would say the past, I mean, it doesn’t exist. If you want to focus on that honeypot, well, go ahead, but it’s not real anymore, it’s gone. That helps.
Powerful Eric: I am so incredibly grateful for you to be here and on this. I can’t wait for our listeners to hear you. You are an incredible blessing to this planet Earth. Thank you so much and oh, so how can people get a hold of you?
Mary Feagan: Okay. But first of all, thank you so much for having me. It is so sweet, there’s, I don’t like– there’s a better word, it is so wonderful to be received by you. It’s so wonderful. Yeah, thank you, Eric very, very, very much. And I do have a website, maryfeagan.com, just so they stick an E in Feagan, M-A-R-Y-F-E-A-G-A-N.com.
Powerful Eric: One more time for them.
Mary Feagan: maryfeagan.com, M-A-R-Y-F-E-A-G-A-N.com.
Powerful Eric: All right, well, be sure to check out Mary’s website. Close today with the quote from Zig Ziglar says, “You are designed for accomplishment, you are engineered for success and you are endowed with the seeds of greatness.”. Stay powerful.
LISTEN to the whole show here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ex-nun-on-porn/id1454294737?i=1000464883483
Sex a Powerful Force. (Powercast)
Powerful Eric: Welcome to season two of the Porn Talk Power Cast, this is Powerful Eric. When you hear Power Cast, know you’re getting a short burst of energy right between the eyes directly from me, Powerful Eric.
I just got back from watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker with my family, we loved it. Like the rebels in Star Wars, if you’re listening to the show, then you are probably a little rebellious yourself, not allowing yourself to be put in the stranglehold of conventional or out dated ideas.
The word pornographic or pornography is derived from the Greek word porn, meaning prostitute or harlot and graphene meaning to write, hence, pornographic. The word was originally defined as any work of art or literature depicting the life of prostitutes. It is also akin to the word pernani meaning to sell. But today I’m going to expand the meaning of the word pornography to mean ideas or writings that society says seems absurd or unbelievable. These are unpopular are unwanted ideas going against societal norms. These are rebellious ideas, mutinous ideas, inflammatory ideas, or even sack religious ideas.
Using the new definition of the term then, here’s some of my pornographic ideas. 12-step meetings are not the best ways to get sober. Defining yourself as a sex or porn addict is not good for you. What? And here’s the most pornographic of all, is that, you are powerful. Yes, I am powerful. You are powerful. Yes, you listening to my words right now, take back your power. You’ve been giving it to porn for so long. I do believe in a higher power or force or God, and I don’t believe that force wants us to feel powerless.
What is the opposite of the word powerful? Weak! Do you want to be weak? What is the ultimate loss of power? Death. You’ve been giving your power away to porn for too long. I’ve been giving my power away to porn for too long. Let’s take that power back. When I first launched Powerful Eric website, and the Powerful Eric Facebook page, to say that people were pissed off by me saying I’m powerful is to say the least. People could not believe that I could call myself powerful. How can you say you are powerful? What gives you the gall to say you are powerful? Here’s one guy that said, “you’re not powerful, you’re just an ordinary guy”. And here’s what I say to that, I say, “every ordinary guy out there, every ordinary woman out there, every ordinary person out there is powerful. But the question is, are you going to claim it? Are you going to claim your power?”.
See, I was in and out of 12-step meetings and other countless therapies for 20 years, I said I was powerless. And finally, one day, I discovered the science of mindfulness, and I said, “No more”. I’m redefining this, I was creating a login for this mindfulness program. And I said on a whim, “I’m going to put Powerful Eric as my login name”. That was the day that powerless Eric died, and Powerful Eric was born. I invite you to reinvent yourself, to name yourself Powerful Steve, Powerful Mike, Powerful Kathy.
Are you fearful, like I was? Are you afraid of the future? Are you afraid of other people? Are you afraid of yourself? Well, I was, I am. Here is a quote, now this quote is attributed to Nelson Mandela they said, may or may not be. But here’s this amazing, quote, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, “Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?”. Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You’re playing small doesn’t serve the world, there’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that others won’t feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconditionally give another people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others“. I love that quote.
Who can you free from the shackles of mediocrity by raising your vibration, by becoming the very best version of yourself? To become the very best version of yourself, we must transmute that sexual power to other activities. Have you ever seen a Black Stallion horse? They are full of energy. Have you ever seen a mule? Not so much energy. Are you a stallion or a mule? I say you’re a stallion because you have so much sex energy to burn. Is your sex energy, a blessing or a curse? According to Napoleon Hill, author of the number one best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich, he says we are blessed to have a highly sexed nature. And he should know, he spent a lifetime studying the most influential people of his time, like Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford. One of the things he determined is that, all successful people have a highly sexed nature. He devoted an entire chapter to this in his book, the chapter is entitled The Mystery of Sex Transmutation. In that chapter, he says, “without love, sex, can cause destruction, but sex and love mixed together can make beautiful and amazing things happen in the world”. Because that powerful energy can be transmuted and transformed into positive things in the world. With sex energy and love energy mixed together, we can penetrate the world with our ideas, penetrate the world with our work, penetrate the world with our love. Sex energy is your life force energy, it is your very essence, without it, you are dead, with it, you can do incredible things. Raise your vibration, raise your sex energy, mix it with love.
How do you raise your vibration? How do you transform your sex energy? How do you transform your very life force energy? For starters, confront your fears. How do you do that? Journal about them, get those fears out of your head and onto paper or in your computer. If you’re like me, the main thing keeping you from embracing your power was fear. So, put pen to paper, write down your fears. Want to go an extra step? Use note cards and categorize and prioritize your fears and worries. This works wonderfully, especially if you have a hard time sleeping, get some plain note cards, the little kind you get for giving speeches. Put a single worry on each note card, then prioritize them from A to B or 1 to 10. You know, from your worst fear or your least fear. Get them all out there, prioritize them, and then schedule worry time. Say, “at 6pm every day, or 6am every day, I’m going to worry for a half hour”, and you get out your worries and your fears. And then on the back of the note card, you can write the antidote to those worries and fears. And what’s the amazing thing is over time, they fall off the radar, they’re no longer relevant; that fear is, either didn’t happen, or they just fall off the radar so, it works.
Another way to transform your sex energy is to redefine yourself say, “I am powerful Steve, I am powerful Mike, I am powerful Patty, or however you want to call yourself”. You can just say it to yourself, it doesn’t matter, you don’t have to tell anyone about it. Now, I’m not a bible thumper, but some of you out there may be saying, “well, I can’t do this. I can’t do these things. I can’t say these things”. Well, there’s a quote in the Bible that says, it’s from Joel 3:10, it says, “Let the weak say they are strong. Let the weak say they are strong.”. Do you have the courage to embrace your life force energy? Answer with action. Redefine yourself, rename yourself, confront your fears, and remember what Luke said in the Rise of Skywalker, “confronting fear is the destiny of the Jedi, your destiny!”
Metaphysics of Porn
Sir William Metaphysics Master
Powerful Eric: Welcome to season two of porn talk. The purpose of this show is to help you end the porn habit and reclaim your power. But this is not just about breaking addictions, it’s about breaking belief systems. We are bound by self-imposed and societal chains, break those rusty old chains and get empowered right now. Today we’re going to have a good time with my friend who teaches classes on things like the will to change, the power to heal, mastering mindfulness, awakening the wounded healer, ascension. So, welcome back our night of metaphysics and all-around great guy, my good friend, William Duffin, aka a Happy Medium Will. Welcome back Sir William!
William: Thank you.
Powerful Eric: William Tell me, I listed a bunch of your classes. What’s your latest class that you’re teaching?
William: I just started another one yesterday, the first in a series of five called awakening the wounded healer, a Kundalini and Chakra workshop.
Powerful Eric: So, tell us a little about more about that.
William: Okay, well, Chakras are a Sanskrit term for energy centers in your body and most resources that you look at will focus on the seven main ones in your body. And then Kundalini is an energy that each of us have that when activated, goes up through the Chakras along your spine and interacts with them. And then I call it awakening the wounded healer, because of basically Carl Young’s work and the archetype of the person who has been wounded, healed his or her wound and then teaches what they learned from that to other people.
Powerful Eric: Okay.
William: And so, I appreciate you inviting me here today. I was wondering, is there some reason we haven’t heard for you for a while?
Powerful Eric: Well, I guess you could say I am one of those wounded healers, I’m helping people to heal from porn. I had a slip and not just a slip, I had a relapse.
William: Would you like to share what happened?
Powerful Eric: Well, not really. But I’m going to.
William: Okay.
Powerful Eric: I actually had several people say no, don’t tell. You’re the guy, don’t tell them about this, and I thought a lot about it. So no, I want to be on the up and up and so I did have a slip and a relapse. What happened is, I had started a new job. I was super stressed, I was on 100% commission-based job sales, and I had my second son was born, and because of that, we were getting very little sleep. And so, my relationship with my wife was stressed, and when I started my new job, I stopped doing the things that kept me sober in the first place. Stop meditating and basically for a while, I was like a dry drunk, you know, I wasn’t acting out, but I wasn’t doing the things that kept me sober and I didn’t feel like I could do another show. That’s why I haven’t done another show, I didn’t want to be a hypocrite. So, I just stopped.
William: Well, I for one, appreciate your authenticity. So, you’re back now in the groove of the new season?
Powerful Eric: Yeah, but I wanted to share what I learned. I don’t want to be one of those perfect gurus, these people that portray themselves as having all the answers. I am a faulty, flawed human being. And I will tell you, I don’t have all the answers, but I got some. And I still believe that using the science of mindfulness is one of the best ways to break addictions.
William: Absolutely. It’s the foundation of everything I do and teach as well. Is there anything you’d like to share about what you learned in this experience?
Powerful Eric: Yeah, well, and this is grown over time. I wanted to say that one of the things I learned is, with most addictions, it’s two steps forward one step back. And I don’t know many people, at least with porn addiction that have been able to just completely stop and never ever do it again. So, you know, to be easy on yourself, you may slip up every now and again. And this is one of the things other things I learned, is that this is one of the reasons why I don’t encourage people to count days. In 12 step programs, you count how many days that you’ve been sober, and you get a coin, every time you’re a week, a day, a week, a month, a year, whatever. And a lot of people kind of wear that as a badge of honor. But then what happens? Oftentimes, if somebody has, let’s say, they’re five years sober, and then they have a slip, well, there is this huge deal, and it will spiral out of control and you just have to get back to the one-day chip. And for me, I found it to be counterproductive. There are also the people that may have a lot of long-term sobriety, they are what are considered dry drunks. No, they’re not viewing porn or no, they’re not acting out with alcohol or whatever their drug choices, but they’re not doing the thing, but their life is a mess. They are a mess, they’re not doing the things to keep them sober. They’re just white knuckling it and you know? So, what big deal if you’re sober five years and your life is a mess, you know, if your life is a mess, then you’re being a dick.
William: Well, I’m putting myself in that person’s place and asking. Well, first of all, here’s what this makes me think of. So, I’ve been sober for five years, I have a slip, I have a relapse. So, what you’re describing is in my mind now, that whole five year was for nothing? Because I’ve relapsed.
Powerful Eric: NO! That is not what I mean. It was a absolutely invaluable learning experience. No that is not what I meant. What I mean is then you go back to your one-day check, you know.
William: Well, really what it sounds to me like, because what it seems to me like, if I’m that person I’ve have five years in one day minus that week I was drinking.
Powerful Eric: Right.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. I mean, that’s the way a lot of people are looking at it, and that’s the healthier way to look at it.
William: Right.
Powerful Eric: For me, it was counterproductive.
Powerful Eric: For example, when you get to two years, then you are I feel like, well, gosh, you have to hold on and make it another day or another year. And it was just counterproductive.
Powerful Eric: So, it’s a kind of stress.
William: Right, it kind of makes you obsess over the time.
William: Okay. Can I tell you what I’ve learned about the mind?
Powerful Eric: Sure.
William: Okay. A friend of mine, Don Ferguson, who’s a Hypnotherapist. She told me it takes 91 days to change a habit, it takes 91 days to change your thinking on something. So, if you can do something for 91 days, you can do it forever. So, if you’ve done it for 92 days or a year or five years, and you have a slip up, well, your brain is already reconditioned, you can go back to that, it’s a lot easier to get back on the bike than it was five years ago. So, that’s one thing I learned about the Physiology of the brain. Okay. Another thing I’ve learned about the Metaphysics of it, if you will, is we put this in terms of Chakras, we can put this term of spirits, we can put it in a lot of different frameworks. But since I just taught this Chakra class, if you can imagine there’s seven basic main Chakras along your spine from the top of your head to the bottom of your spine. These Chakras have energy memories. So, just like the brain, you have energetic bodies. So, to put it in terms of addiction, you might say I’m fighting that same thing, the way I’m fighting my brain conditioning, my brain patterns, my thought patterns, okay? On the other side of that coin is as you change your behavior and change the thoughts behind that behavior, you’re also healing the energy in your body and the traumas that caused it in the first place. That’s why I’m an advocate of therapy, good old-fashioned therapy as well. Because if you’re, and I like that term, you use white knuckling. If you’re just willing yourself to not drink, but you’re not really healing yourself. Well, then that’s the way it’s going to be basically until you change the causal thoughts and heal the wound that caused it in the first place. Thank you for bringing me back in my little brain to awaking the wounded healer, that’s the title. You know, it’s all about healing your wounds, I mean, for a lot of people. Okay, I’ll tell you another thing I learned from Psychology when I was in college about 8 million years ago. A client comes to you and describes their behavior. One of the questions that you’re asking yourself, and sometimes you actually ask the client, what benefit do you get from that behavior? Okay, yeah. So, the benefit you get from that behavior addresses the wound, that you are masking with the behavior. And you mentioned another class that I teach called “The world to change, the power to heal”. And that class, we talked about that in very frank terms, we talked about wounds, the masks we wear, i.e., you know, how we cope with that wound, and how to heal it. Because we look at the cause of thought behind.
Powerful Eric: So, you brought up the idea that we do, you brought up that there is a benefit to be had by doing the thing.
William: Yes.
Powerful Eric: Now can you expand on that?
William: Sure, let’s get an example. It’s an easy example in children, because their behavior is so easy to observe. The same way that like a toddler throws a fit, the toddler is not going to fit because of what he thinks he’s going to fit about, basically. He’s throwing a fit because he wants attention. So, a lot of behavior is simply attention seeking behavior. Okay, like, maybe I indulged in porn, because subconsciously, I want to get caught. Because subconsciously, I want that attention. I mean, and I’m not a therapist, okay. I do have a little bit of education, but I’m not a therapist. Okay? But it’s, once you learn how the mind works, it’s pretty easy to see and there are books on this stuff, too. You know, or you can look up a disease a disorder or a behavior pattern and research the cause or thought behind it.
Powerful Eric: There is a book by Louise Hay, “You can heal your life, you can also heal your body”.
William: Yeah, Louise Hay is one and I like the one by Lisa Corbeau, she’s Canadian and she wrote one called “Your body’s telling you to love yourself”. Very similar book.
Powerful Eric: And we could find a whole lot more like that.
William: Yeah, I’m teaching a new class in February, I think it’s February 12. Which is about the most important relationship in your life, the one with yourself. Right before Valentine’s Day.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, I remember in high school, I was raised Catholic. And there was a class that was Todd of his chemical Metaphysical class and the instructor on this said the most important relationship is the relationship with yourself.
William: Fantastic.
Powerful Eric: Well, yeah, it was fantastic. But one of the kids told their mother and father and the teacher got in trouble because the most important relationship was your relationship with God. And so, they had this big, heated debate.
William: Interesting. Another subject for another day.
Powerful Eric: Oh, okay. One of the things that I advocate rather than just counting days on what you are not doing, rewarding yourself for not doing something, as you would do the complete opposite, is like to count the days that maybe that you’re exercising, reward yourself for that, you know, count the days you’re meditating, and reward yourself for that. Reward yourself for something that you’re doing rather than rewarding yourself for something that you’re not doing. And like I said before, how many things out there are you rewarded for not doing anything? I can’t think of a whole lot.
William: I have a question?
William: What’s an example of a good reward?
Powerful Eric: For not doing–
William: Because like a lot of people who advocate meditation and these things, say the reward is in the experience itself.
William: But if you’re talking to somebody who’s new at this, what would you suggest they reward themselves with?
Powerful Eric: Well, let me answer that this way, in 12 step programs, if you’re not acting out, you’re rewarded with a coin.
Powerful Eric: And there’s nothing wrong with it that works for some people didn’t work for me. But I’m suggesting instead of rewarding yourself for not doing pornography, or not drinking alcohol or whatever, is to set a goal for yourself to add something in your life to replace the behavior like exercise, like meditation. So, when you do things like that, that in and of itself is a reward. And you can count days, and I have a couple accountability partners. And you know, we say hey, you know, I drink water. You know, we have, you know, I don’t drink X amount of water for X amount of days in a row because water is really important. Or I exercised for five days in a row, that’s really important. So, I would encourage you to count days that way, rather than tell me metaphysically what happens if you concentrate on, I’m not going to, when I wake up in the morning, I am not going to view porn again.
William: Okay, so when you say, I’m not going to look at porn. What’s the picture in your head?
Powerful Eric: Porn.
William: Exactly. The subconscious mind does not understand a negative statement. So, if you say, you’re not going to do something like I’m driving down to 70 saying, I’m not going to get a wreck. The picture has a wreck almost every time because that’s the way the mind works. So, you must state it positively. So, you say I’m going to be healthy today. I choose health, I don’t know whatever words work for you. I am a safe driver. The drivers around me are all focused on the road, something like that.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. So, that’s what I would advocate is focusing on bringing something positive into your life rather than focusing on the porn. I’m going to exercise today rather than I’m going to watch porn.
William: I can add something to that. Don’t say I’m going to, say I am. I, okay. I am going to exercise, I exercise. I choose health. If you say I’m going to, or I will you put it out in the future, which it makes it you know, a distance in your, again, what I’ve learned is, what’s important is that picture in your head.
William: And so, if it puts it out there in the future, you want it to be right here with you in the present.
Powerful Eric: And you know, the pictures in your head, kind of put some really disturbing pictures in your head. You know I’m not judging anyone that chooses to view porn or not view porn, it’s just for me those pictures in my head made me feel really bad about myself. I just, you know, for me, porn was, made me, my self-esteem really low and I just, I couldn’t do it and I was online and there’s this one group that is about porn and they enjoy the porn. I tell them, don’t feel bad about it, more power to them, but I just, it would always make me feel really bad about myself. So that’s why I choose not to do porn.
William: You know, there was a while that I had a sign, a little handwritten note above my TV that said, are you doing what you really want to do? So that’s a question I would ask, in a position like that is like, oh, so I access porn, or I indulge in this addiction. Am I doing what I really want to do?
Powerful Eric: No, it was always–
William: Obviously, for you it’s obviously no.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, it was an escape.
William: At the very least it’s a distraction.
Powerful Eric: Right. Why don’t you just go right into asking about, hey, whatever happened with you–?
William: Hey, Eric last time we met, you had proposed this, you had had this mascot created and you were asking people to submit names for it. Whatever happened with that?
Powerful Eric: Yeah, well I have a winner. It is Raging Richard, and I want you to tell everybody what Raging Richard looks like.
William: It looks like a walking penis with a single eyeball. It’s like a penis with arms and legs and the head of the penis is an eyeball.
Powerful Eric: He’s carrying a smartphone, he’s intently looking at the smart phone.
William: Yeah, with its eye popping out, yeah.
Powerful Eric: So, his name is officially raging Richard. So, after I post this show, I will put that on the website and also the person that submitted the name will get a free session with me.
William: Wow.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, so it’s pretty cool. Raging Richard and I, kind of have a subtitle. It is raging Richard, don’t be a dick.
William: Oh boy, because we love porn. And now is all this on the same place powerfuleric.com
Powerful Eric: Yes. Just get it all on powerfulrieric.com I mean, there is a link there that will take you to porn talk.org if you want to go that way, too, but yes, you can see raging Richard at powerfuleric.com. And he is our official mascot and he’s intently looking at a smartphone and you brought the word distraction. That’s what raging Richard here is distracting himself and raging Richard, you know, he’s really pissed off. And, you know, I thought that maybe I’m being selfish with that name for him because I feel like I’ve got once the porn was removed, I was just like, “man, I’m really pissed off about a lot of stuff”. I’m raging at the world about different things about, you know, politics or–
William: You realize that about yourself?
Powerful Eric: Yeah, because the porn is just masking negative emotions and to me a big one is anger, rage and even a lot of anger in myself. And so, talking about being mad at myself, one of the things I was mad at myself is, we got one of these amazon fire sticks. And for those of you that don’t know what it is, basically, it allows you to watch a bunch of different TV shows on your TV. And so, I got one of those, actually, as a gift for my wife, and what I didn’t realize, once I installed is that it isn’t all the TV shows, it has a built-in browser. And there is no way to filter the porn on the browser, in fact, it even has a privacy tab on it. So, there’s no way to filter the porn, and the one thing you can do is you can put a parental control on there or code to block having access to the browser. But if the browser is accessible, there’s no way to filter the porn and I had exploited that whole and that’s one of the ways that I view porn because I do have porn filters on all my digital devices and so I was able to access porn that way. So, for those of you that do have an Amazon firestick, I don’t know about the old ones, but I know the new one for sure, the Amazon firestick is an open wide-open door for porn. If you have kids that are using Amazon firestick or whoever they have 100% access to the most hardcore porn on the entire planet. So, I was angry at myself for one not patching that hole right away, how I did fix that is, I had my wife, put on the parental controls and put on a code so now I cannot access the browser through the Amazon firestick. And also, I looked into, you know, the filter here and there as of right now there is no filter available for it. If there is, if someone does come across a filter available that they could please email me at, powerfuleric.com, to let me know, because I can pride myself on knowing those things of course, and that is a wide-open door. So, William, I digressed into the Amazon firestick but would something like what you’re talking about Kundalini or Chakras and raising the vibration and things like that does. How does porn affect a person metaphysically as opposed to having sex with in a loving relationship?
William: Great question. First of all, those that we talked about, how the mind works and addiction. So, viewed as an addiction well, we pretty much covered that. But then you can look at what I would call the frequency of vibration. Okay? So, like in your example, I indulgence behavior, I felt bad about it that lower your vibration. Gosh, I mean, for me, that’s enough right there to change my behavior. But let’s say for some people, it’s not. So, okay, it keeps you in growth in the physical world, there’s bottom line. Anything like porn is, especially if it’s an addiction, if it’s something you can’t stop doing it keeps you engrossed in the physical world. And then I would ask, what’s the goal of being here in human life? Are you here to just be all day long? Remember that one session we were doing, and I said meditative masturbate is your choice, you know, it’s like, to me, it’s like that. It’s like, what am I doing with my life? You know, is this what I really want to do? What are my priorities? And if you don’t care, I probably can’t change your mind. And Eric probably can’t change your mind. You know, if that’s what you want to do then that’s what you’re going to do. But if you have any inclination to better yourself, to raise your vibration, to fulfill your purpose, to be truly happy and not just indulge in distraction and be engrossed in the physical world. Well then, every moment is a choice, every thought is a choice, every feeling is a choice. So, when you indulge in those behaviors, what’s the word you use? When I act out, I am reinforcing neuron physical, physiological neuron patterns in my brain. I’m lowering my vibration, I am beating myself up. You know, it’s on so many levels. You are doing yourself harm.
Powerful Eric: You mentioned vibration with porn so, what about sex in a loving relationship?
William: Well, I believe if it’s truly a loving relationship, it’ll raise your vibration. Because you’re increasing the amount of love in the world basically, you know, by making love, creating love, expressing love, you know, not just, you know, so to me, any expression of love is good. Whether it’s with, I don’t know, any expression of love, you know, and you know, it’s different. There’s love with friends, there’s romantic love, there’s love of family, there’s love of all humankind. You know, any expression of love is going to do good in yourself and in the world. But again, indulging in distraction, acting out, it lowers your vibration.
Powerful Eric: And can you stand on that for the people? What do you mean by raising your vibration?
William: Okay, in a lot of different philosophies or a lot of different schools of thought, okay? Whether it’s religious or secular, people like, okay like if you were to put it in religious terms, what brings me closer to God, what distances me from God? What do you think, does masturbating brings you closer to God? For most people no, you know, I mean it’s a distraction. Okay. Then in terms of you said well, what do I mean by raise my vibration? I would ask what do you visualize when you say raise my vibration? You know for some people, it just means be happy, but the danger with that term be happy is with a lot of people in our society, it seems like be happy means be content. Like, oh yeah, I’m happy because I had an orgasm and I’m going to take a nap. That’s happiness. Well, like I said, if that’s happiness for you then, okay, that’s your life that you’ve chosen. But for me happiness is a much bigger experience than just self-indulgence. So, when you raise your vibration, you are doing what you came here to do, for instance, fulfilling your higher purpose, being one with my higher self, being one with God.
Powerful Eric: So, how can how can someone instead of focusing on not viewing pornography or not acting out pornography, or not engaging in the addiction, what are some things that they can do to raise their vibration?
William: Well, to me the most fundamental thing is to meditate. And meditation can take a lot of different forms, I’m actually going to start teaching this class in March called ascension, it’s based on the material by Joshua David stone. It’s incredible material, and frankly, it’s like a lot of different things, it’s just one avenue. This is one person’s, you know, this one man had these insights, he wrote them down, and what I find really interesting, some people find it kind of like conflicting, I find it extremely interesting that these things are all related. You know, the higher purpose of religion, the ascension material, the ancient technique of Yoga. So, whether you look back in the Hindu tradition of Chakras and Kundalini, if you go to the east and look at Qi Gong, and the Japanese is Reiki, you know you through every culture, throughout time, there have been people who want to help each other, raise the vibration or be closer to God or whatever words you want to use. So, to me, you know, I, first of all, I’m doing what appeals to me, what works for me, I am basically sharing what I’ve learned with other people.
Powerful Eric: So, you mentioned meditation as one way to raise your vibration?
Powerful Eric: What are some other things that some one that is addicted can do?
William: Oh, physical activity, fantastic. A gentleman that Chi Gong or yoga, the more active on like martial arts. I find that being in your body, increasing the awareness of your body is really important. One reason is we’ve already discussed, porn and other addictions are distraction. It takes you out of your body, you’re unaware of your body. Maybe you’re aware of one very small part of your body, specific part of your body. But you know what I mean? It’s not helping you be a whole incomplete person.
William: So, anything that like, I like physical activity, like, lately, I’ve just been going for walks, but I did do martial arts for a while. I know Eric does martial arts, it’s very helpful to do an activity that like brings your awareness all the way out to your toes and fingers, you know. So, physical activity is good, a mindful so that’s why I love this thing you picked up called mindful habit. I like the title, I like everything about it, because a mindfulness meditation is really helpful. Do you want a specific thing to use? Of course, you can go online and look, I use an app called the insight timer. It’s free, it has all different kinds of meditations on it, including mindfulness meditations. I, probably once or twice a week actually use that to get a good night’s sleep too. So, mindfulness, bring your attention, continue bring your attention back to the present. Continue to bring your attention into your body, being aware of your body, being aware of your body’s needs, what’s happening in your body. And I honestly have a hard time explain why that is, it’s very helpful. And I’ve heard other people say the same thing, people who teach and practice yoga say the same thing. Martial Arts, especially if you are fortunate to be in a martial arts school that has a mindful teacher. You know who teaches it that way, because when I was in college, you know, that’s the teacher I had, he just had a very small class did it just anyway, point being he said that feel the energy moves through your arm out to your hand. But nobody ever said that to me before, but I just did, I just, I felt it. You know, so, things that bring your attention to the present, bring attention to your body are very helpful.
Powerful Eric: William, what is something that you would say to the person in the relationship with the person who is addicted to porn or whatever? The significant other, or husband or wife, whatever, because I’ve noticed that we are getting you know, some of the women, the wives in the relationship I’ve noticed that some of the significant others are listening to this program. What advice would you have them metaphysically understand to maybe either really help themselves to cope with their addicted spouse?
William: First answer is focused on yourself. When you live in an addicted person, it’s easy to get wrapped up in their addiction. It’s easy to think I have to help Eric with this, I have to help Eric with that, you have to help, I have to be a part of this healing process and I have to do this, I have to do that. I would actually do the opposite, I will let him handle his own shit, and I will take care of myself.
Powerful Eric: That’s wise!
William: I mean, you can be supportive. And if you, for instance, are going to therapy together, that’s another thing I would recommend on a practical note is a third party, whether it’s a regular therapist or your clergy or whomever, you know, I would greatly encourage that couple to have a mediator of some kind.
Powerful Eric: Right. Actually, my wife and I do have, we did premarital counseling before we got married. It was so helpful that we never stopped.
Powerful Eric: We go about once a month, maybe every two months, it’s really helpful. And so anyway, we covered a lot of ground here today. So, we’ll wrap up and talking about needing help. If you need help, you can reach out to William or myself. William you want to tell everybody how they can get hold of you.
William: My phone number is 314-403-4744 on Facebook I’m Happy Medium Will. I have a website, it’s www.mediumwill.com.
Powerful Eric: Awesome. And if you want to reach me of course at powerfuleric.com. Thanks for listening today and remember that you are designed for accomplishment, you are engineered for success and you are endowed with the seeds of greatness.
Listen to this episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/metaphysics-of-porn/id1454294737?i=1000462181702
Kids on Porn.
Annonymous son addicted to porn.
Powerful Eric: Welcome to Porn Talk, Porn Talk is not just about breaking addictions it’s about breaking belief systems. A belief system that I’m looking to shatter today is that generally teenagers and older view porn. Well, actually much younger than that views porn. I have my guest today we’re going to call him Bruce. That’s not his real name we’re protecting his identity because we don’t want his son to get the repercussions of the show, because this is about his son viewing porn. Let’s just go right to it. Bruce, tell us what happened with your son in pornography.
Bruce: Okay. He has a smartphone, he is about 12, and I just one day said to myself to look through this phone. He had 20 some odd pages up on a web browser, most of them opened to porn. And then, so, I asked him about it. Of course, he at first denied it. And I showed him you know, I said something like, “so, If I look at your phone, I’m not going to see anything embarrassing, nothing on there that you don’t want me to see?” He answered and said, “no”. And, I said, well, go ahead and open up the browser. And he screamed, ” oh, yeah, alright”. And I had my finger over the screen about the open it up and show him. And he said, “yeah, I was looking at porn”. And I said, well, you know, this is wrong, you did it, you didn’t mean it, you knew it was wrong. And I went on to explain, not only is it wrong, just because the rules say it’s wrong, like my household rules, but also, it’s illegal. I said, if you got caught looking at porn, you know who will get in trouble? Not you, me, because I’m your guardian. And that seemed to affect him, then I also said, you know, this country has to be 18 to look at porn. So, when you’re 18, I guess I can’t say much about it. But until then, don’t do it. Well, then it was maybe a few months later the same thing happened again, basically, this time it was his phone. Of course, he’s grounded from his phone for a while, 3 or 4 months at least, it was quite a while. And then, so, long story short, I caught him yet again.
Powerful Eric: But he took, so, he took really no steps to even hide it. So, he had, you said he had 20 something browser pages open?
Bruce: That’s correct, and I think that was really just his ignorance. I think, I don’t think he had a clue that I would actually look at his phone, and probably didn’t technically know how to hide it very well. Okay, so, then it advanced, a few months later, and then it happened again. And that’s when he broke down crying and saying, “I can’t stop doing it”.
Powerful Eric: So, this is a 12 year old boy. Do you have any idea how long he had the phone?
Bruce: He had it for a few months, but I cannot answer if he has been looking at it, on other phones at other times. Because I wasn’t necessarily in charge of the other phones that he had, previous to this one right now.
Powerful Eric: Right. Where did the other phones come from?
Bruce: His mom.
Powerful Eric: I see. And just personal background. Bruce is divorced, so, his mom does some things that he’s not–
Bruce: And frankly, she will give her kids things like that and not have, it seems that she doesn’t know, she has no desire, no awareness about marketing, things like that. She just doesn’t do it.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. So, this is a 12 year old boy who, let’s say for, within a year he’s already says, he said, basically saying, he’s addicted to porn. He said, I can’t stop. Right? Those exact–
Bruce: Yes, he was crying, he seemed sincere. Yeah, sometimes a kid, and I did this as a kid. I cried as it is because, it is that I got caught. He seemed sincere.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, I talked about this In one of my first shows, in that when I was a kid, and we are about the same age, when I was a kid, if I found a playboy or something like that, I really thought I had something, you know. And since then, the Playboy magazine no longer exists. I think it’s online now, but the magazine doesn’t even exist anymore. And it’s so soft now. I mean, now these young kids have access to hardcore porn. It just, it makes me sad.
Bruce: Did I tell you what my friend told me? I have a female friend who is about our age. And she has two sons that are grown, and she said, “one of the new trends among young people is that, they’ll have anal sex and not vaginal sex and, be able to say, well she’s still a virgin”. Because it was just anal. It’s just laughable to me, it’s just ridiculous, a ridiculous notion.
Powerful Eric: Wow. So, they want to have anal sex instead of regular sex to prevent getting pregnant?
Bruce: No, it’s just so, she can say she’s a virgin.
Powerful Eric: Oh!
Bruce: So, she says she’s a virgin.
Powerful Eric: Oh, wow.
Bruce: Yeah, I’m still a virgin, because they didn’t have vaginal sex. Yeah.
Powerful Eric: Wow.
Bruce: Yeah. And this is the point.
Powerful Eric: Right. Well, so, tell me what is the state of things right now with the phone and your son?
Bruce: I monitor his phone, and as far as I can tell, he’s not accessing any porn.
Powerful Eric: So, how do you how do you monitor his phone?
Bruce: I use an app called “The Parents Century”, and just look at his phone, as he picks it up, and he knows I can look at it any given time
Powerful Eric: Yeah, and we’re not on here endorsing any particular product or anything like that one, one that I had used successfully was called fundamental. But I understand it may have some bad reviews, but I didn’t have any trouble with it. But anyway, you might check those out. And now, knowing what you know now. If you could go back in time, and hand him that phone, like, without any filter or anything on that, I mean, what would you think of a parent, knowing what you know, giving them, giving their child just a phone unfiltered?
Bruce: Unfiltered, without any access to the internet?
Bruce: It’s like handing him a back rub, it’s ridiculously irresponsible.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, I’m going to go a step further, and say, that it’s knowing what you know.
Bruce: Yeah.
Powerful Eric: That it’s child abuse. Who would take, let’s say, I had this book box of porn filled with all the hardcore DVDs, and magazines, pictures, and even names and phone numbers of people that you might want to hook up, and I just took that. But, within that book box though there was some good stuff too, you know, I don’t know. Good books, you know, so, I just gave you that person, that’s ridiculous.
Bruce: That makes complete sense, especially the age, he is my analogy about the drugs. Let’s say again, this 12 year old box of proper pharmaceuticals and street drugs, and he doesn’t know or doesn’t have the wisdom or maturity to decide what’s good for him. There you go, that’s very important.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, I really do. Now again, I just to state, knowing these facts that it’s one thing you when you don’t know. But when you know, and you give your son or your daughter a phone, unfiltered, you’re handing them the world’s largest library of pornography, pictures and not only that, it’s actually much worse than that. You kind of dropping them in the middle of a bad, the hood. Your kind of dropping them in to the hood, you know with predators, sexual predators and pornographers and dealers. It’s scary. But now you have, you do have him monitored. So, has there been any, anything that’s happened since he’s been monitored?
Bruce: No.
Powerful Eric: Okay, great. Now, one thing that I know from the business that I’m in here, is that some people will say, well, you know, my darling child would never view pornography. And let’s say that’s true, let’s say your darling child would never consider viewing porn. Well, we know that okay, maybe they won’t, but their friends are going to show it to them.
Bruce: Yeah, and that’s how my son found out about it, he told me–
Powerful Eric: Yeah, tell that story if you don’t mind.
Bruce: Oh, I can enlighten you. Well, the first time I kind of took part of the blame on myself for not, having been proactive and not doing it ahead of time and so on and so on. The second time it happened though, I laid it to him pretty good and say, “this is wrong, you can go to prison, you can go to jail. And so, that’s kind of how I went about it.
Powerful Eric: Can you tell us; can you tell that story?
Bruce: Oh, about the text? Oh, yeah, that’s it, in fact, that’s how I found out, that was the first time. There was a text on his phone, he told me he texts his friend and said, “he is to come over let’s eat”. And, his replied, saying, “don’t tell me these things”. And, you know,
it’s kind of like when, I had that moment of like looking at the phone like, is this what I think it is? And I’m like, what? And that’s when I looked at the web browser, and so, we had to talk about, also the appropriateness of things like that. And, remember, I talked to you about this, and I gave you the advice of, like, don’t just lay down and criticize and tell them this is wrong. Advise them, you know, tell them at your age, your hormones are developing, your body is changing, and, you know, frankly, masturbation is part of life. It’s going to happen especially at your age, but it’s your private activity. Don’t share it I mean, we laugh about it now, but now, but I mean, sometimes when I was that age, I would tell my friends,” hey, I just knocked one off”. You know?
Powerful Eric: Yeah, but everybody when we were kids didn’t have access to hardcore porn.
Bruce: Sure. And so, this has been an educational for me to say the least, you know, it has really helped me think about not just the porn part of it, but overall values and demo things, Eric, where you like, I’m sure the same experiences once you became aware of this problem, you see it everywhere. You see everything sexualized, and I’ve been reading articles about these children, what do you call it? They sell children and its basically slavery.
Powerful Eric: Sex trafficking.
Bruce: Yeah, sex trafficking, that’s it, porn rains, you know, have children. And I don’t mean like 17 year old, and 10 and 11 year old girls and boys being sold to very rich people in the United States, not Thailand, in the USA, you know, being sold and rented out to be like prostitutes.
Bruce: And, so, I had this thing going on in my brain, and I see things that, you know, like Instagram or models, apps, this has like, what I put into gratification apps, you know, and I understand the appeal of like Instagram and Pinterest. There is like, you have like two or three seconds, and you click along, you know, you’re looking at in depth. Anyway, you see the sexualization of these children, so now the Instagram, they become Instagram models, and they’re like 8 years old. So, like bikini photos of pre-adolescent girls.
Bruce: They are modelling, they’re in sexy poses. It’s not like it’s just the clothes ad for girls’ swimsuits.
Bruce: You know, they’re just standing with makeup, and like I said, sexy poses and these children’s parents are doing this. It’s not liked this girl on Instagram, who has real name up there is kidnapped. You know, that is her parents having her hair done, makeup and all this stuff, and sexualizing that 8 year old girl, and that is, it’s just devastating.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. It makes me really sad. The sex trafficking thing, I don’t think people realize what a huge–
Bruce: Huge.
Powerful Eric: Thing this is, and it’s in every state in the United States, and this is, comes from St. Louis, Missouri, and we’re right in the middle of the United States. It’s a big thing right here because, you know, all the highways not come through here. But it’s everywhere and around the globe. And you need to protect your child from predators, and a way of doing that is putting some filters on your phone.
Bruce: And actually, look at the phone. And that, yes, put a filter on it. They can’t ask for porn stuff like that, the obvious stuff, but look at your kids’ phone, look at who they’re texting. Make sure you know the names, and ask them about it, talk to them about it. Oh, I see you’re talking to Jane about such and such. How’s Jane doing? But what you’re really getting at is, who the heck is Jane? You know, who, are these actual kids you talking to? Or is this some kind of a scam? I mean, it is so many stories you’ve read, I’ve read, and people have seen about you know, the 14 year old girl is lowered to a hotel.
Bruce: I mean, I would hope and pray and I’m sure would think that my son has the sense not to go to a hotel by himself.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, but they’re very, through very tricky with on the ways you know I read about on how they lower them. One of the ways at least with the girls that I read is that they you know, they totally flatter them, and the person tells them that they’re in love with them, and that’s the big thing that oh, this person’s in love with me, and especially if they’re in a household where there is no father around, they are even easy more an easier prey.
Bruce: I watched this scene, or rather read about it, the other extreme of, if you say anything to anybody I kill your parents.
Bruce: Basically extortion.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, and that’s how, what was that, the girl that was kidnapped from her house and that they have found her a year or so later. This guy, just kind of broke into her house in the middle night, and he said, “if you shout or scream I am going to kill your family”. Smart–
Bruce: I remember something like that, yeah.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, she’s actually got a great video on YouTube about how she is now, and she’s doing really well. But getting back to your son, so, as of right now it appears that he’s not accessing porn, at least through that phone.
Bruce: Correct.
Powerful Eric: So, what would you do? What would you say to somebody that’s listening now, a lot of the people that are listening now are people that are struggling with a porn addiction or struggling with a sex addiction. However, a lot of these people, have kids of their own, what would your advice be to them?
Bruce: Well, the thing, the top thing, I’ve already said, and that is, be aware, observe, look at the phone, look at the computer that they’re using, look at their browsing history. You have every right to be nosy, and like, you know, the friends of my son want to argue about it and say, I did take the phone away, that no one even thought twice about it. You know, we live for generations upon generations that has smartphones, a 12 year old doesn’t need a smart phone.
Powerful Eric: That was my next question. Why does a 12 year old need a smart?
Bruce: Well, and so, why did I get my son a phone. Because, frankly, I can’t trust his mother. You know, so, I want to be the provider of the phone, so, I can monitor the phone, I would be in charge of the phone, and he could call or text me whenever he was away. So, I had to have, actually what I thought of, is, if this happens again. I’m going to get rid of smartphone and give him an old fashioned flip phone, where he can get only contacts.
Powerful Eric: Again, and just for our viewing audience just so they know, Bruce actually has sole custody of his child, which as we know, is unusual. Usually it’s usually, it’s the mother.
Bruce: Let’s just say it was for a good reason.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, exactly. Now that question about, does a 12 year old need a smartphone? One issue that had come up, I have a 4 year old boy and I also have a 6 month old boy, and the issue that had come up, was not for giving him a phone but for letting him play with a, just a little iPad. Seems innocent enough. There was an interview done with Steve Jobs, about the iPad. He’s now, he’s been deceased for many years now. And in the interview, they asked him, ” so you know, how do your kids like the iPad”? His response was, I won’t let them play with it. Here’s Steve Jobs, the creator of the iPad, would not let his kids have one. Now, if that doesn’t say it all, I don’t know what does. I am going to be on a radio show, and the radio show, the host, Gia Valenti. She’s got a great book called “The Magnificent Melvin and Moxie”. And it’s a fictional story about a family, about them, not giving cell phones to their kids. In the book, I think they’re around the age of 10 years old, I could be wrong about that. It could be a little more can be a little less. But that as a family, they decided that they were not going to give their kids smartphones and I understand wanting to be in touch with your kids. I get It, I understand, but I’m just saying, it can be an option and the phones are expensive too. I mean, who would have thought back in the day of giving your child a quote and quote toy, we will call it, for several hundred dollars. No one would even think of that. Bruce, what do you think about not giving a kid a smartphone? Is that even an option now? I mean, we get–
Bruce: Absolutely. Like you were just saying, is it really necessary, does he or she really need it? Of course not, my blood and critical thinking, it’s lazy parenting. It’s an electronic babysitter, it gives your kids something to do when they are in the doctor’s office. Or, you know, the kids, and you know, little kids, like 2 or 3 years toddlers, sit in the grocery cart with mom and has to have their face in the phone. What world is this?
Bruce: To me it’s just completely foreign. And there’s just no way, you know, I mean, you discipline a child. You know, and anyone who always get their kid an A.D.D, because all they’re getting is gratification. It says, a toddler is a toddler.
Bruce: You know, I had to understand that, I had to give all my attention.
Powerful Eric: They don’t know how to be bored.
Bruce: Right. It’s like, when they are saying they’re bored. I’m saying, okay, be bored. Look out the window.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. Now the thing that’s going to come up with the kids at eventually some age. Well, everybody else has smartphones, why can’t I have one?
Bruce: Because I said so, I have no problem with that. I have no problem saying, well, that’s the choice of their parents, that I didn’t agree with that. I have different values. So, let’s say, let’s just continue that train of thought, you know he wants a cell phone, so, he can play these games online with his friends. Sorry.
Bruce: Not happening, you know, if you would invite them over to play on the console at home or you go to their house and play on the console at their house. Again, the smartphone, it is certainly making it too easy. You know what I mean? It, like, oh fine, I have the smartphone, I don’t have to worry about calling my buddy and inviting him over, we can just do it online. And then that leads to a much bigger discussion, you’re online as you shift through placing relationships, which is not a fair, to me, it’s not a fair comparison, but that’s what people do. Yeah, I mean, I have to stand myself out of it, like for instance, the first day I wake up, I wake up because the alarm is on my phone. I look at my phone, I have Facebook alerts, I’ll be on Facebook, half an hour later, I am like holy crap, it’s been half an hour since my alarm went off.
Powerful Eric: Oh yeah.
Bruce: And the time just flies by.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, I know.
Bruce: You have to discipline yourself.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. And that’s a whole other show. I’m literally doing right now, what I’m calling a digital detox. And it is amazing, now that I have, it’s been approaching 3 weeks now, something like that, without being on Facebook and things like that. And oh my gosh, I spend an inordinate amount of time on Facebook. I realize it now, that I’m not doing it, it’s incredible. So, but giving a child a smartphone unrestricted is, it’s just, it’s just like, you’re creating an addiction, maybe some addiction to porn, maybe some addiction to social media, or constant texting. But it’s, this is a huge issue that’s going on now. If you’re not addressing it with your child now, it will come up later. Yeah, you know, you can either be proactive now and address that now or react later when whatever catastrophe comes up. And I was talking, it’s this has been some time ago I was talking with someone about what I do. And he said, it’s funny that we’re talking about this, but my daughter, we happened to look at something she was doing online and there was a man that was trying to lower her into some type of sexual situation. And so, it’s really important. It’s a huge issue. Please take proactive steps to protect your children, there’s a lot, there’s a ton of resources online, on protecting your children. We mentioned the capital fundamentals, a program you can put on your phone What’s the one you are you’re using?
Bruce: Century.
Powerful Eric: Century, I mean, there’s a ton of things you can use. Like I said it, you can either address it now, proactively or react to it later when it comes knocking at your door. Well, thanks, Bruce. Thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing that intimate story about your son. And if you want some resources, I’ll post on my Facebook page or on my Powerful Eric page, some links to resources. You are designed for accomplishment. You are engineered for success, and you are endowed with a seed of greatness.
Listen to the full episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/kids-on-porn/id1454294737?i=1000440955635
More Hypnosis
Drew Ferguson Expert Hypnotherapist
Powerful Eric: Hello power people, welcome to Porn Talk, Porn Talk is about addiction and breaking false belief systems. We are bound by self-imposed and societal chains, break those heavy chains and get empowered right now. Last week, we had hypnotherapist Dawn Ferguson with us, today we have her husband, Drew Ferguson. Drew I have to say, you got a lot to live up to because Dawn was awesome! I mean, she really was.
Drew: Yes, she’s fantastic.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, it was a great interview, so, no pressure.
Drew: I think I can handle it.
Powerful Eric: Right, Dawn and Drew are passionate about delivering the message that you can live the life you dream, desire and design. Powerful people welcome my powerful friend Drew Ferguson. Welcome Drew.
Drew: Thank you very much, Eric we appreciate that.
Powerful Eric: Sure, let’s just jump right in. Can a person be hypnotized by just watching porn?
Drew: You can actually be hypnotized or experienced hypnosis. So, that you know, the hypnosis phenomenon. By any repetitive behaviour, or any repetitive, something you’re viewing, for instance, like say pornography, or baseball, or hockey, or any other thing that’s going to capture your imagination and your interest. Not only capture it but hold it. Okay. You know, a lot of people talk about I’m this junkie or that junkie. I know I’m a NASCAR junkie. I’m a baseball junkie. I’m a sport in general, I’m you know, it’s like I’m addicted to my business. Anything that triggers you like that, you are in a light alpha brainwave state. Now what is an Alpha Brainwave State? Alpha is the measurable brainwave that we experience when we are in a lighter hypnotic state. Okay, it is a naturally occurring thing, we drift into and out of Alpha Brainwave or light hypnotic, hypnotic, or hip nodal states, anywhere from 150 to 200 times in our daily activity. You’re driving down the road, you’re almost like an autopilot because you’re thinking about work or what you have to do after work or whatever. And, you know, part of your mind is taking care of the driving, and another part of your mind is doing all of that thought process. You know, it’s like, you’re an autopilot.
Drew: You are in an Alpha Brainwave state, you are in a light hypnotic state. Now, for the 5 to 10 minutes that as you fall asleep at night, and a much shorter period, as you wake in the morning, you pass through all 6 levels of hypnosis. Okay, from the very last just level, which is waking hypnosis, all the way down to level 6, which is the deepest level of hypnosis, which is where a lot of stage show participants. That’s the level they’re in, because they can imagine anything that they’re told to imagine.
Drew: It is also the level where some, a lot of experimental medicine is doing surgery without anaesthesia. Chemical anaesthesia let me put it to you that way.
Drew: They’re using deep hypnosis instead of chemical anaesthesia, it is a big thing in Great Britain.
Drew: It’s being done in Canada, which is part of the British Commonwealth, it is being done in Australia. And you know, in Scotland and Ireland, as well as England. They’re doing hip replacement, knee replacements, other joint replacements without anaesthesia.
Powerful Eric: Wow, those are huge surgeries.
Drew: Absolutely.
Powerful Eric: Oh my gosh,
Drew: But think about this, Eric. If your children were born using the Lamaze or natural childbirth process, your wife experienced the same thing. Natural childbirth, Lamaze whatever you want to call it is self-hypnosis. Okay. I’ve had dental, I’ve had teeth extracted, using nothing more than self-hypnosis. It annoys the heck out of the dentist, because he wants to pick charge you for to give you that shot or give you the happiness. But sorry, you know.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, that’s a whole other conversation there.
Drew: Yeah, exactly. So, anytime you are intensely focused on any particular action activity. Maybe you know, if you’re in the St. Louis area and you’re a Blues fan, you know, you experienced an Alpha Brainwave state when you were watching that game on Wednesday Night. Okay. Particularly when the event happened in the last few seconds of the game, where there was a questionable call that went against the Blues.
Drew: Yeah, you went into a very intense Alpha Brainwave state for a very short period of time. But every time you ruminate about it, you go back there.
Powerful Eric: I would be curious on, if they put electrodes on someone that was viewing pornography for extended period of time. How much of that time they’re in the Alpha Brain state? Because when I was really active in the addiction, honestly, I felt catatonic at the time. Not until I was completely done that I kind of like come to.
Drew: Yeah, and anytime that you lose track of time, all the way up to losing track of reality, which, you know, let’s face it, a lot of people when they’re experiencing a porn viewing, or event, will put themselves in the place of one of the characters.
Drew: Okay, yeah, that’s Alpha Brainwave. Okay, that can be a pretty deep level of the hypnotic state. So, do you experience that? Anything that triggers an emotional response in you, you are in a form of hypnosis. Okay, whether it’s very light, or very deep, depends on you know, the trigger in the event and how you respond to that trigger.
Drew: Yeah, that’s experiencing hypnosis.
Powerful Eric: You’ve just had answered my next question, which was going to be, can viewing television, or scrolling through Facebook, put someone into a state of hypnosis?
Drew: Facebook counts on you entering an Alpha Brainwave state while you’re scrolling, yes. Any repetitive behaviour triggers an Alpha Brainwave state.
Powerful Eric: I’m going to digress here really quick. I’m going to do another podcast on doing a digital detox, taking some time away from us, our screens and Facebook and such. But that’s another, another cast. But it sounds like Drew, from what you’re telling me that Alpha Brain state, you said that’s what where, it’s we’re very suggestible, right?
Drew: Yes.
Powerful Eric: So, the advertisements that we see on Facebook will be more apt to act on? The images and things that are happening in the pornography are going deeper into our mind and ourselves.
Drew: Advertisers count on triggering an Alpha Brainwave state, just, and that’s why they form their ads, whether it’s print, or TELEVISION or video, or whatever it happens to be. They create that Alpha Brainwave state, in hopes of getting you to buy their product. And I’ll give you a real simple example, I don’t particularly care for Doritos. I don’t like them.
Powerful Eric: Okay
Drew: They just don’t appeal to me, I can be sitting on a couch watching a television program and have a Doritos commercial come on. I’m not going to pay attention to it consciously. But within 10 to 15 minutes, I may be going through the cabinets in the kitchen looking for something salty.
Drew: Okay, it. won’t be Doritos, because I don’t like Doritos. But I mean, maybe in there looking for something salty. Okay.
Drew: Advertisers, use hip, light hypnotic states constantly. I’ll give you another great example. Cadillac, over the last roughly 15 years, almost 20 years now has become the new hot rod. Okay, the new c 28 Camaro, with their Cadillac, CTSV model. They had a commercial on Television, very effective commercial. They had, what you saw was a shot of the car, from the rear quarter, the driver side door was open. And it pulled back to have a very good looking very sharply dressed, very classically elegant lady standing there. Okay, and she, you see different angles and you see her feet. She sits into the car, and now you see her finger reaching for, Cadillacs have a round red start button on their dashboard, or at least this model does. Okay. And it says start on it, and she’s reaching for, you see beautifully manicured hand reaching for the start button. And the voiceover, in her voice, which is a very nice voice, says “when you turn your car on, does it return the favour”? Cadillac dealers couldn’t get CTS fees, they couldn’t keep them on their lot. I mean, their sales skyrocketed on that particular model. And the carryover carried over to some of their other models. Okay, which is one of the reasons why they have the hot engines in a lot of their other cars now too.
Drew: Because it was such an effective commercial. Okay. It was a very hypnotic, commercial. You whether you know, I’m male, obviously. Yeah, the lady is attractive, and the car, you already know about the car. They couldn’t keep them on the lot. Okay. That’s the kind of things that we’re bombarded with constantly, in any form of media.
Drew: And in a lot of our day to day activities, you can’t escape it.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, and I know, they put in, you know, sexual innuendos kind of behind things as well. Besides what you’re talking about there, like a little subtler. I know one, that was a really subtle one, years ago. I don’t know if it’s still there on the Marlboro camel at the time, you know, there was phallic symbols in there and things like that.
Drew: Sure.
Powerful Eric: But you had mentioned a little earlier stage hypnosis. Is that real, or is that just a show? I mean does that work?
Drew: I have seen you know, let me explain this. Dawn, my partner and wife, at business partner and wife and I are both what are called certified Hypnosis Instructors. Okay.
Drew: The classification CI certified instructor, we teach the certification program, and help people become certified hypnotist. Okay, we do it on a couple of different levels. One, we teach them how to do it, and then we teach them the business aspects of it.
Drew: I don’t do stage hypnosis. Are they real? I’ll guarantee you they’re real. Okay.
Drew: They are, no, with this proviso there. Yeah, there’s some charlatans out there. So, our stage show is real. Yeah, the vast majority of people who are participating in a stage show, they perform real things. And it’s not me, it’s hypnosis.
Drew: You follow?
Powerful Eric: So, yeah, so if hypnosis a stage, hypnotist can do that. What can happen to a person that is watching pornography on a regular basis? In essence, they’re in that Alpha State, for a great deal of time, I’m sure of it. Because I’ve been there. What can that do to the person?
Drew: Well, from my point of view, as a hypnotist, they become more hypnotizable. So, if they were to come to me or any other certified hypnotist, to be relieved of that habitual behaviour, to eliminate that habitual behaviour, it makes it easier for them to be hypnotized. And when you’re, when it’s easier for you to be hypnotized, it’s easier for that hypnosis session to be even more successful than otherwise might be.
Drew: So–
Powerful Eric: Great, I guess what I was trying to get out there is, I’m a big fan of Zig Ziglar, he’s now deceased. And he’s got a quote, I’m paraphrasing a little bit. He says, “you are what you are and where you are, because of what has gone into your mind, but you can change who you are, and where you are, by changing what goes into your mind”. You know, we’re in that super suggestible state, and just viewing porn all the time, I would think, well, I personally know, a really negative effect, although they had a negative effect on myself, because I’m in that super suggestible state.
Drew: I know that as a hypnotist, if they are willing to make a change. Now, that’s important to understand. Hypnosis cannot force you to change something that you’re not willing to change. Up to and including going into a hypnotic state to begin with. Okay, a hypnotist cannot force somebody into a hypnotic state, a hypnotist can lead someone into a hypnotic state, which is what we do, basically. Okay, we help you create the state. We don’t create the Alpha Brainwave state, we help the subject, create the Alpha Brainwave state.
Drew: Follow me on that?
Powerful Eric: Yes, yeah. Well, tell me, how did how did you get into hypnosis?
Drew: Well, it’s kind of interesting, and it goes back quite a way into my life. I’m a, you know, I’m a baby boomer, I was born right after the Second World War, not right after, but some years after the Second World War. I’m in high school, and I’m having problems with my intestines, I’m trying to find a gentle way to place this. A lot of difficulty with stress manifesting itself in what we now refer to as Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Okay.
Drew: IBS, I would get terrible cramping, and just, I’m just absolutely I was writhing in pain. The nurse helped me, it was getting to the point where the school nurse was seeing me almost every week. And, I would be in her quiet room, just absolutely doubled over in pain for maybe an hour or two, before it would subside. And I could, you know, get to the point where, you know, I could go wash my face and dry, you know, dry my sweat, and, be able to maybe even go back to class, you know.
Drew: And, you know, she got to the point where this was happening for me so much. And I was being in her office so many times, that she comes to me and she says, “go up to the library”, and I went to a really big High School and the library was just absolutely spectacular. And she said, go to the library and get a book on meditation. Maybe meditation can help you. Okay, I did that, so I went up to the library, and I pull out the copy of the book, written by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi back in the, I’m not sure when it was written, 40’s, 50’s, maybe on Transcendental Meditation,
Powerful Eric: The Beatles were big into that at the time.
Drew: Yeah, big into that, and that’s one of the reasons why I grabbed that book. And I took it home and I read it cover to cover and basically taught myself how to meditate. Guess what meditation is?
Powerful Eric: Well, Dawn told us last week, that’s a form of hypnosis.
Drew: It’s the Alpha Brainwave state. Yeah, Dawn told you that last week. When you meditate, you are in the same brainwave state as you are when you’re in hypnosis. Okay, it’s Alpha Brainwave. Yeah, what I was doing was hypnotizing myself to conquer the IBS. Did it work? Yeah, it worked great, I had, I didn’t have to go see the nurse anymore. Like once a week or, you know, I mean, it was just boom, that was it. You know, like, I saw the nurse in the hallway one day, and she said, I guess that meditations work, and I went, yeah, it’s working great. Fast forward to, we were certified in 2004. So, fast forward to 2004, Dawn had conquered an issue a medical issue herself, and looked into hypnosis and found a local instructor who is very famous in the hypnosis circles. And actually, he’s the Vice President of our organization, our sanctioning body now. And she said, I’m going to go take this class and become certified as a hypnotist. You want to go with me? And I said yeah, let’s do it. Right. Well, an hour and a half into class one, we’re, It’s break time, we’re all going to take a break. I turned to her. I said, “I’ve been doing this since high school”. And I thought it was meditation, and you know, at that point, I learned that meditation and hypnosis use the same brainwave state. So, I was actually hypnotizing myself.
Powerful Eric: Awesome.
Drew: Yeah, it’s amazing, what can be accomplished in the Alpha Brainwave state, it’s really amazing.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, and speaking of amazing things, do you have any clients or success stories that you can share with the audience?
Drew: You know, client wise, there are a lot of people walking around out there today, who are healthy non-smokers. Because of hypnosis, either. myself, Dawn, or one of our students, one of our graduates from our training.
Powerful Eric: Awesome, this show is not just about breaking addictions, it’s about breaking belief systems. Is there a belief system, about life or addictions that you think needs to be broken?
Drew: I know from experience and working with people on addictive behaviours, that, and even in my own experience, I had an addictive behaviour that made my life unmanageable. It threatened my welfare, it threatened my income, it threatened my family life. You know, I was basically seriously, you know, when I was a young guy into alcohol. And fortunately, for me, and my life, and the way things are. Last month, I celebrated 35 years of sobriety,
Powerful Eric: Congratulations.
Drew: Thank you, and it’s one day at a time, okay. Just like any other addictive behaviour, you have to get into the habit of living one day at a time. Which when you think about it, to appreciate it, you know, I hate to use the cliché, you’re stopping to smell the roses, but that’s what you’re doing. You’re paying attention, you are present in the presence. Okay. And, that’s something that we’re hearing more and more about, in the world of human behaviour today is being present. For the people you love, being present for your spouse, being present–
Powerful Eric: Yes, absolutely, because if someone has a cell phone that they are looking at, and you’re trying to have a conversation with them, it can be very distracting, disturbing–
Drew: Oh, absolutely.
Powerful Eric: So, yes, to be present with the other person, whether they don’t have a, they are not watching television, and now that’s called, it’s called secondary device or whatever, where a person is watching television and then they’re also on a device at the same time.
Drew: Yes, they’re on their cell phone or their tablet or their laptop or whatever. Yeah, and there are times when I’m guilty of that. I have to be mindful, having, you know, being one of those persons with what could be called an addictive personality. Okay, I have to be mindful not to be participating in that addictive personality.
Drew: Okay, I have to be mindful of being present in what I’m doing.
Drew: As you know, I am an automotive enthusiast.
Drew: Like I said, earlier, in the conversation, I raced sports cars for the last number, quite a number of years. I was also an instructor in that, as a matter of fact, I love cars. When I’m driving a car, I am fully present in the experience of driving a car.
Powerful Eric: And you know, that brings me to the next point in that we’re not just here talking about addictions, we’re talking about creating a great life and you’re talking about something that you really enjoy, that you’re passionate about. What would you tell someone, either as a certified hypnotist, or just as Drew, how can somebody create a great life?
Drew: Stop participating in your addiction and change your whole life. Okay, it’s, you know that sounds oversimplified. Okay, and, you know, I’ll go back to my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. My sponsor used to tell me, stop drinking, change your whole life. That’s it. Okay. Now, how do you do that? You stop participating in that behaviour. And you change everything you’re doing. So, how do you do that?
Powerful Eric: Can you just stop doing the behaviour, or do you have to replace it?
Eric: Replacing it with a positive, will help you get through the worst part of it, and the worst part of it’s going to be the first 90 to 180 days. Okay, you can find something else that’s harmless, maybe even constructive. And, just replace that behaviour that you want to eliminate, with something that’s positive. What comes to mind is, you know, I’m the business guy. So, you know, that’s why this probably comes to mind, I might stop participating in a behaviour that I want to eliminate, like, say, for instance, porn or something like it.
Drew: And replace it with maybe reading books about how I can be a better businessman. Or how I can be a better human being. Okay.
Drew: I will say this, I’m going to say it very carefully, it is helpful to be able to find something greater than yourself, that you can rely and count on and use that to get you through the worst part. Now, in AA, they talk about your higher power, it can be what that higher power can be, whatever you need it to be. whatever name you want to assign it, assigned to it, or activity, or behaviour, or whatever you want to assign to that higher power that is safe and healthy.
Drew: Okay.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, and finding something that’s becoming bigger than yourself, also can be about helping a lot of people, getting out of yourself, and thinking, and stop thinking about yourself and start thinking about helping other people. Some type of humanitarian project. That’s why I do this show, I want to help people.
Drew: Yes, yeah, exactly, you’ll see people that involve, get involved in organizations like Habitat for Humanity, or you know, feed the children, or these other organizations. And you know, what, if that works for you, if that makes you feel better about yourself, because let’s face it, when you are deep into an addictive behaviour, you don’t feel good about yourself. You know, and I’m talking from experience here.
Powerful Eric: Me too, I hear you.
Drew: You don’t feel good about it, you feel like you’re falling down stairs. And you can’t stop falling down stairs.
Drew: Okay. You’re on the world’s longest flight of stairs, and you can’t stop. I’m here to tell you, if you’re watching this program, because you’re looking for a way to get out of an addictive behaviour. Eric is doing a wonderful service here. I’m, I’ve been there, I know what you’re going through. Okay, finding something that you can put your focus on, rather than that addictive behaviour, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, porn, or any other addictive behaviour.
Drew: If you can find something that you can put your focus on, do it. That’s going to help you break the chain of behaviours that you keep falling back on.
Powerful Eric: Drew, what would you say to the person, in what you just said now applies to this question to, but to as a professional hypnotist, what would you say to a person that came to you and said, you know, I’ve tried again and again, to stop viewing pornography, or having compulsive sex, whatever. I’ve tried and tried stop. What would you tell that person as a professional hypnotist?
Drew: Well, it’s interesting that you bring that up, because studies have shown that when people will go to a hypnotist, it’s because they’ve tried seven other things to break the chain of behaviour. And none of them have worked, and so, basically, what they’re saying is,” Oh, hell, I’ll just go to, I’ll go to a hypnotist, I’ll try anything, I’ll go to a hypnotist”. So, we as professional Hypnotists, who are out there helping people, you know, break the chain of addictive behaviours. Were the usually, the eighth thing that people try, there’s exceptions to that. Now, somebody who may be tried eight things to become a healthy non-smoker and found that the best thing was to go to the hypnotist. The hypnotist is probably going to be the first thing that they go to break the next unhealthy behaviour.
Drew: Okay, but yeah, from our viewpoint, as a profession, we’re generally the eight things that people try to break the chain of that addictive behaviour.
Powerful Eric: Well, if someone does want to give it a try, how do they get a hold of you or your website? Can you tell listeners
Drew: Sure, our website is drewdawnferguson.com, catchy name, right? That’s Drew, DREW, Dawn, DAWN, and Ferguson, FERGUSON.com. Usually on the first page, we will have a hypnosis audio that you can listen to. But you can actually experience a little bit or a little taste of what it’s like to experience and hypnotic state. You can reach out to us by phone 636-699-7791. That’s again, 636-699-7791. I will tell you this, it doesn’t matter where you are. You don’t, you can be anywhere in the world. We have clients that we have worked with virtually in 35 states. And just recently, we add, added our sixth foreign country, Russia, believe it or not.
Powerful Eric: Fantastic, well Drew, thank you so much for being on the show. And be sure to check out their website if you like. And I’m going to close actually with that the quote I used earlier from Zig Ziglar, Who says, “you are what you are and where you are because of what has gone into your mind. You can change what you are, and you can change where you are by changing what goes into your mind”. Be powerful, folks.
Listen to the whole show here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/porn-talk/id1454294737
Porn Hypnosis
Dawn Ferguson expert Hypnotherapist
Hypnotized by Porn? Break the spell with expert Hypnotist Dawn Ferguson.
Powerful Eric: Greetings powerful people. Welcome to Porn Talk. Porn Talk is not just about breaking addictions, it’s about breaking belief systems. We are bound by self-imposed and societal chains, break the chains and get empowered right now!
Today it is my pleasure to have Dawn Ferguson with us and her husband, Drew Ferguson will be with us next week. Dawn and Drew Ferguson are known as the health, wealth and happiness coaches. They are the founders of Ferguson International, Ferguson and Associates Hypnotherapy and the Next Level Up Association, Dawn and Drew work with women and men to help them transform their relationships with money, time, and their career, so they can experience the success and freedom they’ve always desired. Their expertise and insight has helped thousands of people design a life that reflects their true brilliance and purpose, as coaches, speakers, authors, certified hypnotherapists and workshop leaders, their work has empowered the lives of thousands of people worldwide. Their programs include best-selling products and events such as, how to stop the self-sabotage. Well, we could talk about that one, right?
Dawn Ferguson: Yeah, and that’s as far as you need to go Eric. That’s it right there!
Powerful Eric: Yeah. Well, you also have other programs like three simple steps to success, the health, wealth and happiness tour and many more. And Dawn and Drew are passionate about delivering their message that you can live the life you dream, desire, and design. They believe you living a life of health, wealth and happiness is a part of your spiritual path. So, powerful people, welcome my powerful friend, Dawn Ferguson. Welcome, Dawn.
Dawn Ferguson: Thanks Eric, gosh, we’ve really known each other a long time, haven’t we?
Powerful Eric: Yeah, I think, I was actually thinking about that before the call. It’s been, gosh, probably approaching a decade.
Dawn Ferguson: Yeah. And watch the evolution of both of us, as we move along our path, and your audience has their own evolution of the path that they’re supposed to be walking along. And unfortunately, something has stalled them, it has cut them out, and that’s what you assist them with, right?
Powerful Eric: Exactly.
Dawn Ferguson: They feel like they’re stuck and struggling. So, I have a question for you. How long do you think someone tries to break their pornography addiction before they give up? What do you think it might be? I’m curious.
Powerful Eric: Well, I would answer the question with a question in that, how long would I give– I just I have a five-month-old baby boy. And I would ask myself, “how long would I give my son to learn to walk before I would just say, you know?”.
Dawn Ferguson: Yeah. Just not cut out for it.
Powerful Eric: Just not– maybe you should crawl for the rest of your life. So, obviously, my answer is, you know, there’s that Winston Churchill, or attributed to Winston Churchill, at least, to quote that, “never, never, never, never give up”. And that’s what I would say, to never, ever give up.
Dawn Ferguson: And whether people label it an addiction or a compulsive behavior or a problem, an issue, a challenge, whatever it is, that’s it, is that there’s a part of them that just won’t let go as far as you can do this.
Dawn Ferguson: You can get through to what’s on the other side. At times, we all will say, “Okay, I’m done. It’s not supposed to be, I’m giving up”. And then, maybe a few weeks later, they’re like, “I’m going to try one more time”. And so, speaking to that part of your audience that says, “you know what? let’s look at one more time, you can make progress. We know you can. Let’s do it one more time”.
Powerful Eric: And for those of the audience that are just joining on this podcast and don’t know, I struggled with this for a couple decades. So, I didn’t give up. And that leads me to the question, Dawn, you know, I talked about in the intro, do you really believe a porn addict can live a life of health, wealth and happiness?
Dawn Ferguson: Yes. I believe any type of addict can, whether it’s pornography, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s to food, because there are some substances that can set us up, whether it’s for medications that the doctor prescribed, and they wind up getting abused. But, in the case of pornography, definitely, when we understand what was the ongoing reason was why that person keeps going back to pornography.
Powerful Eric: Yes.
Dawn Ferguson: And then, when you understand, hey, what starts it, that’s going to be individual and unique for each person. But, there’s something that gets triggered that has us, whatever that addiction may be, we’ll go back to that tool, should we say, again and again, to get our needs met. Well–
Powerful Eric: No pun intended.
Dawn Ferguson: No pun intended, okay? Those needs are never going to go away. They’re always going to be there, it’s what we call the core four. They’re always going to be there, we just have to find functional ways to get them met, instead of the way that the brain has said, “let’s use the path of least resistance and do this, even though we know it’s unhealthy. Even though there’s fallout, even though this is hurting people that we care about, let’s just go back to it”. Well, we have to replace, we just can’t get rid of it.
Powerful Eric: Exactly. And I love what you’re saying because a lot of the addiction programs out there are just dealing with the symptom. How many days did you not do the thing?
Dawn Ferguson: And what do you have to do? You have to think about the thing and then not doing the thing, to know how many days you did not do the thing.
Dawn Ferguson: So yeah, there’s a variety of programs and for some people, that’s what they need. They need that focus on the abstinence, but that’s not a fit for everybody.
Powerful Eric: Right. Well, and speaking of other, you know, different tools for different people, tell us a little bit more about yourself, and about how you got involved with hypnotherapy as a tool.
Dawn Ferguson: Yes. I’ve been doing this now 15 years, and I actually had a medical challenge. I knew nothing about hypnosis. I mean, I didn’t even pay attention to the comedy shows that had stage hypnosis, I knew nothing about it. But I had a medical challenge and they were prescribing surgery for it. And boy, I just didn’t– I don’t necessarily want to do something invasive, if there’s another way around it.
Dawn Ferguson: So, I started doing some research and found where Harvard, in their mind body clinic was teaching some of their patients self-hypnosis to manage the symptoms of some diseases.
Powerful Eric: This was through Harvard?
Dawn Ferguson: Yeah. And in fact, Mayo Clinic now utilizes hypnosis with their cancer patients, because they’ve discovered that if a cancer patient has to have surgery, to remove any type of malignancy, utilizing hypnosis, they heal faster, and they need less pain medication. So, I used it, it worked. The doctors told me I didn’t have to have the surgery. And it was like, “Dude, what else can this do?”. And, I started doing some investigating, decided that because of the rapid results with hypnosis, people will experience if it’s a fit for them, they’re going to experience results same day and said, “Wow, yeah, I want to do this and assist others”. So, 15 years ago, I became certified, a couple of years after that, obtained an additional certification as an instructor where I now train others to become hypnotherapists, our last graduating class, had a lay person like me, who was just fascinated with it, and wanted to assist others, but there was also therapists as well as doctors in the class where they wanted to be able to assist people for those same day results. So, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Powerful Eric: Well, let me ask you this. There’s a lot of misconceptions about hypnotherapy and that it can be “whoo-whoo”, and that– what are some of the misconceptions about hypnotherapy? And are there any other words? I understand there’s other words people use for hypnotherapy.
Dawn Ferguson: Yes, the misconceptions is that, it is some sort of mind control, and that you’re going to fall underneath the spell of that person and they’re going to make you do whatever. If that were true, Eric, I would already be rich and retired, okay? Whenever I became certified 15 years ago, I had a house full of teenagers, I tried hypnotizing them to do the housework, the vacuuming, and the dishes. No. So, the mind control as maybe Hollywood has portrayed it, is not existent. Actually, people see us because they are out of control already, and they need to figure out how to take their power back. Because if you think about it, we have been conditioned to turn our power away over to people in authority.
Dawn Ferguson: You know, when we were little kids, make mom and dad or the babysitter happy by going along with what they did. And then you get into school, and the parents go, “now make the teachers happy”. And, the way you make everybody happy is you have to solve problems, the more problems you solve, the more you get promoted in school. And then you graduate from school, and now you move into corporate. And the more problems you solve, the more you get promoted, of which points, you can’t solve problems anymore. But, the way the mind works, is that there’s a difference between solving problems and designing a life and then living it.
Powerful Eric: Oh, awesome. Oh boy, put that quote on the wall. Can you say that again?
Dawn Ferguson: Yes. That the mind is designed that you can either solve problems, or you can design a life and live it.
Powerful Eric: That’s fantastic.
Dawn Ferguson: And the challenge is with the powerful part of our mind known as the subconscious that handles all of our habits and patterns, it says it will not tolerate a void, if you take out a problem, it has to replace it with something. It’s kind of replace it with another problem.
Dawn Ferguson: I’m stressed out. I didn’t get the promotion at work, I didn’t get the raise. And so, what’s going to make me feel better? I’m going to go back to what I know is going to give me instantaneous results, which is going to be the porn. But then, the challenges, because the mines designed to solve problems, it’s going to have to turn what felt good into a problem that needs to be solved.
Dawn Ferguson: Okay, so, misconceptions around hypnosis, it’s mind control, no, actually we show people how their mind works so, they can get back into control. Or can I be hypnotized? This is where it gets interesting, Eric, every time you’re in any type of emotional or feeling state, you’re in a suggestible state. And so, you feel happy, you’re open to suggestion, what will make me feel happier? You’re stressed, you’re in a suggestible state, how can I get away? So, you’re either looking to amplify or avoid. And when we deal with addictions, it’s because there’s something we want to avoid, instead of designing that life and amplifying. So, can you be hypnotized? Well, science says that you go in and out of an alpha brainwave of suggestible state also known as hypnosis, anywhere between 100 and 200 times every single day.
Powerful Eric: Amazing.
Dawn Ferguson: So, now you want to understand when you’re going into those states, what suggestions you’re accepting, and make sure that they’re the ones of living your life by design. So, that’s the major misconceptions, it’s mind control, can I be hypnotized? Will I do anything I don’t want to do? That goes along with the mind control, no, you can only utilize hypnosis to bring somebody out at their best. They’re already at their worst. You asked about–
Powerful Eric: Other words for hypnosis.
Dawn Ferguson: Yeah, meditation is the same brainwave state, if someone’s doing guided imagery, or guided visual visualization, that’s going to be hypnosis. Meditation in its true form, is not hypnosis. Hypnosis looks to make transformations, change is not enough, let’s go for the transformation. Meditation looks to quiet the mind. So, people go, “oh, Eric, I had a wonderful meditation where they took us through the woods, and there was a beautiful babbling brook”. And it’s like, “no, that’s hypnosis”, there’s guided imagery or visualization to it. It is using that symbolism to effect some sort of upgrade. If it is just quieting the mind, that is going to be true meditation. Did that answer your question?
Powerful Eric: Yes, it did. And, actually answered my next question, really, which was, you know, mindfulness is a really big catch word right now. I was going to ask; would you say hypnosis is being mindful? But, obviously, you answered that.
Dawn Ferguson: It can assist people in being mindful, that when they find that they’re being pulled out of the present into the past, “Hey, I am stressed, I’m aggravated, I got hurt, I got rejected, I’ve been abandoned”. And, they pull themselves out of the present moment into the past and say, “this is how I’ve handled it before. I’ve used porn for that quick release to have me feel a little bit better, even short term”. They’re no longer being mindful, mindful is staying in the moment and then saying, “Okay, how can we actually utilize what we’re experiencing to bring ourselves out at our best? Instead of going into the past, and using those old, unwanted, unneeded habits and patterns”, so, it can assist with mindfulness.
Powerful Eric: Okay. Well, have you ever witnessed any miracles in your 15 years of doing this, any miracles using hypnotherapy?
Dawn Ferguson: And I have to be very careful using the term miracles, because there is a branch of science and health care that says use the word miracle, you’ll get a cease and desist letter.
Powerful Eric: And cure too, they don’t like the word cure.
Dawn Ferguson: No, not at all. Have there been some rabid identity upgrades? Yes, to where someone who wasn’t able to function in his intimate relationship unless there was porn involved, it had gotten to the point that he could no longer engage with her, unless that was involved.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. That’s very common.
Dawn Ferguson: Yes, it is. And the wedding actually got cut off– called off, the upcoming wedding, the engagement was broken off. She was like, “I can no longer deal with this”, and one session, giving him a tool that he could use to bring himself out in who he wanted to be in that relationship with her, not who he was just to cope short-term using the porn, but who he really wanted to be, and what we call the core four, the for emotional needs. Yeah, the wedding got called back on after just one session.
Powerful Eric: One session?
Dawn Ferguson: Now, that doesn’t happen for everybody and I, whenever I work with anybody who has a behavior that they could label addictive, because I don’t label it, they do.
Dawn Ferguson: I tell them, “you’re going to get results from your very first session. And maybe that’s all you need. If you need additional, it’s going to be up to you”, because it’s all about transfer of power and authority. They’ve been stripped emotionally of what they need to bring themselves out of their best. They don’t need another person telling them, “well, it’s going to take this many sessions and you need this package”. No, it’s time for them to start experiencing the control that they’ve been looking for.
Powerful Eric: Yes, and using the word addiction, that’s just the word I use because people know it. But, there’s a big debate, or a huge debate about, is it sex addiction? Or, is it just a bad habit? Or, is it– I think the word they’re using right now is being hyper sexual. But to me, it’s almost irrelevant on what we call it. The question is, is it negatively impacting your life?
Dawn Ferguson: And, there’s a reason, I’m glad you brought that up, and that you do call it addiction because a lot of people, that’s how they’re going to identify. And so, we do need a label, we do need something to call it. If you look at the psychological studies of people who have some sort of medical condition, and the doctors can’t figure out what’s wrong with them and it keeps getting worse and worse and worse, or symptoms get worse and worse. And then, they finally find a doctor who says, “Oh, I know what’s wrong with you. And we’re going to give it this diagnosis”. For approximately 72 hours after that diagnosis, they do feel better, because we have to have a way to identify and label it. And so, if they’re going to call it an addiction, that actually assists them, in being able to already start the healing process to get to the other side, or the hyper sexual, whatever it might be. I always tell my clients, “I’m going to go by the label that they’ve decided, it’s not up to me to tell them what they’ve got going on”. But, they do need to pick a label. Because, once we have a label, then we can say, “what’s on the other side of that label?”. Because an addict is an addict. I don’t care if you’re addicted to something that is holding you back in life, or if you’re addicted to bringing yourself out at your best. Addiction is addiction. Let’s just keep going in the right direction.
Powerful Eric: Right. Well, and that brings me to 12-step programs and many therapists and those in the medical field, say that you have a disease like, we’ll talk about alcoholism, for example. You have a disease and you have it for life. Do you think a sex or porn addict has a disease?
Dawn Ferguson: I don’t know that I would call it a disease. And this is the reason why, by the way, just my own personal story. I have not had a drink now in 18 years. Because I was an alcoholic, is this a disease I have? Not necessarily, it is a coping mechanism that does not work for me.
Powerful Eric: Yes! I love the way you said that. Yes.
Dawn Ferguson: Okay, so, I stay, if you don’t want to slip, just stay out of slippery places and don’t go hang out in bars. Do not use the alcohol, I found other ways to bring myself out at my best, or to relax myself, whatever it might be. Disease, that’s really interesting, Eric that you brought that up. Medical science tells us that we can study a disease to learn how to treat it. But, we can’t help that patient get healthy. The only way you can help somebody get healthy is by studying healthy people. And then saying, “Well, what are they doing that you’re not? Let’s get you doing that”. So, treating something like cancer is going to be much different than so saying, “okay, what is it that we need to do to give your body everything it needs to be as healthy as possible?”. Some people if they need that label, that they have a disease and they’re going to have it for life, if that helps them stay clean, I’m all for it. But, that isn’t necessarily helping them because there’s something known as being a dry drunk, I don’t know about, what the term might be in pornography to where you’re no longer using it. But, it doesn’t mean your life is any better, you may still be a complete asshole like you were before.
Powerful Eric: That’s funny. So, the program has a little mascot. And, he’s basically, he’s a little wiener with arms, and he’s looking, he’s got a smartphone, and he’s obsessively looking at his smartphone and I got a promotion going on right now, that you can name the mascot and one of the names that I got, and I love and might be the winner, we’ll see. He named him Raging Richard. And then–
Dawn Ferguson: That’s good.
Powerful Eric: Raging Richard, don’t be a dick.
Dawn Ferguson: I did not pick up that when you want to name him Richard. Oh, I love that play on words, I think you’ve got your winner right there. I think you’ve got your wiener winner.
Powerful Eric: That’s awesome.
Dawn Ferguson: So, yeah, if someone needs to say that they’ve got a disease, because that’s going to assist them, hey, I’m going to go with that label. But again, is it going to help you be healthier? That’s what we want to look at, not just stopping the dysfunction, but what’s on the other side of the dysfunction?
Powerful Eric: Yes, and, that’s the reason why I do this show because I feel like most of the addiction programs out there are not doing that.
Dawn Ferguson: No, they treat the addiction. They don’t bring the person out at the very best. Okay, can I jump in real quick with what’s known as the core four?
Powerful Eric: Of course.
Dawn Ferguson: Okay, core four. Core four basically says that we have for emotional needs. The first one is for certainty, we need to have certain things that we can count on. Because when we get stressed, when life begins to fall apart, those are going to be the actions that soothes us. But you know, if life is too soothing, it gets real boring. So, the one up from that is variety. We need a lot of different experiences coming our way, if we get bored. This is you know, and social media knows this. This is the reason why they come at you with so many different images, because they’re hooking you with that variety. Then after variety, you’re going, “Hey, pay attention to me”, and so you have a level of worthiness, “I’m important, I matter”, and then after that, validation. Validation shows up a couple of different ways, love, but if we can’t get the love that we’re looking for, we’ll settle for just connection. If we do something, and it meets just one of those needs, we’ll probably never do it again, if we do something and it meets two of those needs, we’ll go back to it occasionally, if it meets three of those needs, yeah, it’s compulsive behavior. If it’s meeting all four, we’ll engage in it again and again and again. If we think about porn, we’re certain that it’s going to get us relief.
Dawn Ferguson: A lot of variety with it.
Powerful Eric: Importance, I matter, maybe out in the regular world I got rejected by somebody, someone else didn’t come through for me, but hey, what I got on this screen in front of me right now, they’re making me feel like I matter. No pun intended, no, pun intended, they make me feel like a big shot, money shot, okay? And then, after that, we’re craving love, but we feel like we can’t get it, there’s so much shame and guilt over what we just did. So, we’ll settle for the connection, and we’ll settle for the connection of going back to it again and again.
Powerful Eric: Right. And that variety, you’re so dead on. The research that I’ve done into this, is that, that is one of the huge reasons why people get addicted to porn, because your brain is always looking for mates, you’re looking for a mate. And the screen shows, “Oh, here’s a new mate”. And then the screen, you go to another screen, “here’s a new mate, here’s a new mate, here’s a new mate”, and so it never ends.
Dawn Ferguson: Right. But that the way those core four show up, that can lead us into having challenges, are the same way that they can show up to help us get to what’s on the other side. So, we learn what is it that we need to have in our lives to be certain whenever we feel stressed out. How can we get a variety of experiences, without having to tune into something digital? That worthiness that we do matter and finding those important relationships, which is one of the reasons why 12-step groups can assist people long-term because they’re developing those relationships. It’s just not necessarily relationships that are going to bring them out of their healthiest and then, learning to experience the love that we have for ourselves. That guilt is good. Guilt says, you violated a value, shame, never helped anyone because shame says there’s something wrong with us.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. In my 20 years, in virtually, every 12-step program you can imagine, I’ve been in. That was, by far the best part, was the fellowship that was developed there, that would, in my opinion, is the biggest, best part of 12-step programs. Ultimately, it really did not work for me, and I found mindfulness and other things. But, that is definitely, if you’re going to stay in a 12-step program that, in my opinion would be the biggest reason why, the fellowship that’s developed.
Dawn Ferguson: And, I was working with a woman that was having a challenge in this area. She led a company where she was in a male dominated field and, to be accepted in that field, she had to be seen as one of the guys and so, going out, drinking and, she took that identity pretty serious, that masculine identity. And so, just like a guy can start looking at porn, she did also. I’m not saying women who look at porn and have challenges with it, have a masculine identity, but because of the field she was in, it led to more masculine problems. When we were working together, that’s one of the things that she was missing, Eric, was the support system. And so, it was, “don’t go out looking for the other guys. I want you to start getting engaged and start engaging in activities outside of your work, where other women are and start looking at developing friendships there”. It only took her a few months of doing that and saying who might want to go to the movies or go out for lunch or dinner, and as she did that, she needed less and less of the porn until it was no longer needed in her life. So, for her, it was the addiction. But, it was because she was missing that support system.
Powerful Eric: Right. Well, we’ve been talking– obviously, this is a serious top topic here. Let’s take a step back. Do you have any interesting or crazy stories about people you work with or your personal life? Something like that?
Dawn Ferguson: Well, you know, utilizing hypnosis, you never know what’s going to show up because we use something that’s known as parts therapy for inner conflict resolution.
Dawn Ferguson: And, it basically says we have all these different parts to us. So, for example, Eric, when, how old is your baby now?
Powerful Eric: Actually, he’s coming up on six months, actually.
Dawn Ferguson: Oh, six months. So, when you’re with him, you’re the nurturing daddy that a six-month-old needs.
Dawn Ferguson: That is not the part of your personality that comes out when you’re in an intimate moment with your partner, okay? It’s also not the part of your personality that comes out whenever you’re doing the podcast, right? So, we all have these different aspects to ourselves, we have a challenge when those aspects get into a disagreement, okay?
Dawn Ferguson: And so, working with a woman who was having a challenge with how she was eating sticks of butter, okay?
Powerful Eric: Sticks of butter.
Dawn Ferguson: Sticks of butter, and she would eat in a way where it was very public, and people would point and laugh at her.
Powerful Eric: Oh boy.
Dawn Ferguson: And you’re like, “what sane individual would do this?”. Well, it’s not whether or not we’re sane, it’s what part of her personality learn that coping mechanism.
Dawn Ferguson: So, hypnotizing her and asking her to go back to the time when her mind first decided she should eat sticks of butter. She was like three or four, big family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins would come over every Sunday for dinner. She was the youngest in the family, got completely overlooked, and she learned one day, she got out of her chair and she started running around the table, and the people were stopping and hollering at her. And she reached up, there was a stick of butter right there, she reached up, she grabbed it, and she shoved the entire thing in her mouth. Now, when you have a three-year-old do that, people are going to laugh at you, right?
Dawn Ferguson: She learned at three years old to get attention, to eat inappropriately in a way where people could see it and laugh.
Powerful Eric: Oh my gosh.
Dawn Ferguson: Okay. For her, it was a great relief, for me, I’m going because she’s interacting with me why she’s in a hypnotic state, as well as the three-year-old that we brought out. And I’m like, “you cannot make this stuff up”.
Powerful Eric: Eating an entire stick of butter. Oh.
Dawn Ferguson: But, that’s how you get attention, right?
Dawn Ferguson: And for the three-year-old, people laughed at her in a way that was humorous. Now as an adult, people are shaming her, the three-year-old didn’t understand that. So, it was like, okay, the very creative part of her mind, finding other ways that she could bring joy to somebody’s life, she wounds up signing up for improv comedy classes, and learning to do that. And when she did that, she no longer needed to eat in a way where people pointed and laughed at her. Now, she’s bringing in joy through her stand-up comedy routines.
Powerful Eric: That’s incredible. That’s awesome. That’s a great story.
Dawn Ferguson: It is, but we never know what potential was locked inside of us, we started taking actions, because there was something we needed. But, those actions as time went on turned dysfunctional. Well, the need is still there, let’s just find a way to bring you out at your best. Now, one other quick story. One of the techniques we use is something called the bus, we hypnotize someone, and when I say we, it’s either myself or my partner Drew. And we ask them to imagine that there’s a bus that they’re on with all these other people and that one of the people slides in next to the seat that they’re in, and it’s the part of their personality that’s having the problem. And now, they can have a dialogue or conversation with that part of them. So, there was one guy that I’m like, “okay, you’re on the bus”, and he’s like, “No, I’m not”. I’m like, “okay, really, why? Let’s go on”, and he didn’t go on, and he said, “the bus is full of everybody having a really good time. And it’s– I’m at the bus stop, but the doors are closed, and they won’t let me on”. And I’m like, “okay, who told you that you had to be shut out of life?”. And he had been through a trauma when he was a young adult. And he felt like he had to shut everything off, feeling any of those emotions, shut it all off, so, he wouldn’t be traumatized by it again. And yet, and that’s what the bus represented, but yet, actually getting on the bus was also the fun aspects of him. So, when he shut off the trauma, he shut off everything. And so, we actually had to convince the bus driver to let him on the bus. So…
Dawn Ferguson: That’s a couple of stories using parts therapy and hypnosis.
Powerful Eric: Yeah. Well, how can hypnosis help a sex or porn addict?
Dawn Ferguson: That’s a good question. Well, let me ask you this, Eric, why did you decide, we’ve been friends for a long time, you know, we enjoy going out for our lunches, I’m looking forward to the next one. Why did you think, knowing the small amount you did about hypnosis, why did you think that this might be something where Drew or I needed to be on here?
Powerful Eric: Well, mindfulness is a big part of the program that we put guys through that are addicted to sex and porn. And I knew that hypnosis fell under that umbrella, but I wasn’t exactly sure where.
Dawn Ferguson: Okay, so, when you’re dealing with mindfulness, what I love about that aspect is it works with the entire identity, mentally, emotionally and physically. To be mindful, you have to be able to keep your focus, you have to understand the emotions that are coming through, and then the actions that you take physically are going to be the ones to stay in that state of mindfulness. To be able to maintain it. Most people know of hypnosis for behavioral modification, that bottom level, “hey, I used to smoke, and I used hypnosis and I’m a healthy non-smoker, or I reduced my weight”, whatever it might be. Hypnosis is excellent for behavioral modification, as far as stopping something, and then finding a replacement for it that’s healthy. But, then it goes along with what you’re doing. Because for me, that’s not enough. Then there’s the emotional optimization, the emotions that run through us, we’re not going to get rid of them. So, what are we going to do with it? So, hypnosis can take that stress that overwhelm, that fear and actually turn it into extra energy to bring ourselves out at our best. And then, mentally, we’re dealing with some beliefs that we may not be aware that are there, which is what I was talking about, just a little bit ago, with the butter, that was a belief. People need to point and laugh at me when I eat, I need to bring joy to somebody’s life that way. So, hypnosis can work with uncovering what the beliefs are, and then not getting rid of them, but actually upgrading them just like we did with our comedian who’s doing her stand-up now. So, that’s how hypnosis can assist someone to upgrade their identity.
Powerful Eric: Okay, and you kind of answered this with your answer just now, but what do you think guys that are still acting out compulsive sex or porn, need to know?
Dawn Ferguson: That, number one, the mind will not tolerate a void. So, what do you want to replace it with? You just can’t say, “stop doing that”. So, what do you want to replace it with that is going to assist you with the emotions that you’re experiencing right now? Then, the second thing would be, putting together a plan of when you get triggered, what are you going to do when the triggers show up? Because they aren’t going away.
Dawn Ferguson: And then the final thing is, it takes 91 days for what’s known as an identity upgrade. This means, not that you’re 91 days clean. It means that 91 days, you continuously say, “I’m going to get to the other side. I’m going to move past this. I’m going to bring myself out at my best”. And you do that for three months, you’ve activated it in an area of your brain where now you’re moving into leadership, leading yourself instead of being controlled by painful past.
Powerful Eric: Love it. Dawn, as you know, the show is not just about breaking addictions, it’s about breaking belief systems and creating a great life. What is a belief around addictions that needs to be broken?
Dawn Ferguson: That w’ere broken, that we’re flawed, that there’s something wrong with us. There’s a difference between me and the actions that I take. And the actions I take are simply because something’s missing in my life, and I simply don’t know how to get what I need. So, I’m going to go back to what I know. As I said earlier, guilt is good guilt, guilt lets us know when we have violated a value. We feel guilty if we steal from from someone, we feel guilty if we tell a lie, unless it’s your significant others saying, “does this dress make my butt look big?”, okay, that you’re allowed, no guilt there, okay? But so, guilt can actually be good, as long as we have the appropriate values, but shame, we need to break the back of lack in our life. We were born to be magnificent, and there is nothing that we’ve done that can ever take away that light and that brilliance. Even people– I have worked with some offenders that are doing time that have committed some horrific acts, maybe around a drug addiction, and robberies and things like that. And now, they’re on the inside leading groups of men to actually be their very best. The circumstance does not define our destiny. We choose how we’re going to use what we’ve been through.
Powerful Eric: I love what you’re saying, and that we are born to be magnificent. And how can someone who is currently struggling with sex or porn addiction or any addiction for that matter, how can they be magnificent and how can they create a great life?
Dawn Ferguson: Well, they can reach out to us, we always have a no charge consultation where they’re going to walk away with some sort of strategy that they can implement right away for feeling better, and then, we can decide from that phone call whether or not we should move forward. So, typically we say, “do not email on us on any type of addiction, you need to reach out to us direct”, because sometimes emails can be looked at by other people, and then that can just create more shame because, sometimes we might be dealing with someone who’s calling out that they have a challenge for the first time, and we don’t want that email to be read. So, they can reach out to us at 636-699-7791, they can send us a text that just says the word, “consult” to 636-699-7791 and then we’ll get back on, “hey, you know, what time works best for you?”. So, either way, but we recommend picking up the phone, don’t put this in writing because we don’t want to create more problems.
Powerful Eric: Do you have a website that people can learn more about?
Dawn Ferguson: Most definitely, actually, we have a website where you can sign up to get a gifted hypnosis audio, where it can assist you in making some simple upgrades right away and that’s going to be drewdawnferguson.com, so I’ll spell that, D-R-E-W-D-A-W-N, F as in Frank, E-R-G-U-S-O-N.com.
Powerful Eric: So, that’s drewdawnferguson.com. So, check it out. Dawn, this has been awesome. I’m so glad you came on the show. And just, thanks for being here.
Dawn Ferguson: So, I have one question for you now Eric.
Dawn Ferguson: Okay. What is the one thing, we’ve been talking about beliefs and the behaviors, what’s the one thing that you want your audience to remember today?
Powerful Eric: The message that they are magnificent beings. How did you put it?
Dawn Ferguson: That they are born magnificent.
Dawn Ferguson: They’ve got a brilliance that they’re supposed to be lighting up the world with, and there’s just some things that they’re doing right now that’s dimming their light.
Powerful Eric: Yeah, they’re born magnificent and then this addiction buries it. So, that’s what I want the listeners to get, that they are magnificent, they’re just buried in this addiction and they can get out.
Dawn Ferguson: Exactly.
Powerful Eric: And whether you believe this or not, it does not change the fact that you are an unlimited, infinitely wise, powerful, eternal creator of reality!
LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/porn-hypnosis/id1454294737?i=1000437781430
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Police commandoes fire on thousands of Naga villagers, killing 2 and wounding 100
Zolengthe. net, May 7, 2010
Naga's Protest Turns Bloody
Mao Gate | May 6 : Two persons were killed and more than a hundred injured when Manipur police commandoes fired on thousands of villagers staging a protest rally here at Mao Gate, some 32 kms from Kohima. A combined force of Manipur Rifles, IRB and police commandoes fired more than 200 teargas shells and later resorted to blank and blind firing to quell the protestors staging a rally against imposition of 144CrPC in Mao area. While two persons were killed on the spot, another was reported to be in critical condition at Naga Hospital, Kohima.
Around 10 am, villagers of Mao area congregated at Mao Gate and staged a protest rally at Mao Gate against imposition of 144 CrPC and high handedness” of the police commandoes. “Get out commandoes,” the rallyists shouted and as the volume increased and protestors swelled in numbers, the commandoes first fired more than fifty teargas shells to disperse the rallyists, followed by blank firing.
The protestors reciprocated by throwing stones at the security personnel and besieging the Town Hall where the police commandoes were quartered. Some of the enraged seized the bedding and clothing of the commandoes and set them on fire. The protestors also damaged at least 6 vehicles of the security personnel. Two youths were shot dead in the Town Hall when some commandoes fired at them at point blank range. According to villagers, the rallyists also beat up two police personnel and snatched one teargas gun.
The two deceased been identified as one Loshou, son of Daikho of Kalinamai village and a BA 2nd year student of St. Joseph College, Jakhama, and Chakho, son of Neli of Kalinamai village, also a BA 2nd year student of St. Joseph College, Bangalore. According to the Red Cross Society, Nagaland branch, one N Lokho (30), son of Nishini of Songsong village was in critical condition at the hospital.
As the death of the two students in town hall spread and the commandoes stepping up their firing, the protestors slowly began to disperse, and began to stay indoors. More than an hour after the main street was deserted, the commandoes stationed atop the building near the Taxi parking directed tear gas shells on the houses below.
Manipur police kills two students at Mao Gate
The commandoes also aimed their guns at any movement of people even outside their homes.
Majority of the 74 injured listed at CHC Mao till 2pm were women who were leading the rally in the initial stage. NSF president Mutsikhoyo Yhobu who was also witness to the firing, later visited CHC Mao and donated Rs. 10,000 to the injured. The Nagaland Red Cross also rushed in life saving medicines to CHC Mao besides lifting some of the injured to hospitals in Kohima.
It was reported that DGP Nagaland K Kire also visited the injured at the CHC. At CHC, the driver of an ambulance who came with some injured at around 2.10pm said that the commandoes fired teargas at even the ambulance.
Meanwhile, late afternoon at the Mao-Khuzama border, IGP (LO3) V Zathang of the Manipur police told mediapersons and the people from Nagaland side that the commandoes had not resorted to any kind of firing. “We don’t have firing order,” he claimed and also denied that there was any casualty. On the other hand, the IGP alleged that some of his personnel and arms were missing. Meanwhile, fearing the worst almost all villagers of Songsong and Kalinamai villages have fled their homes by late evening and are taking shelter in neighbouring villages including Khuzama on the Nagaland side.
Meanwhile the management, staff and students of St. Joseph’s college, Jakhama condoled the death of Mr. Dikho Loshuo II. B.A. “B” (sociology honours) who died at the police firing at Mao gate on Thursday, 6th May, 2010. This was stated in a condolence message issued by Fr. Isaac Padinjarekuttu Principal.
Naga MLAs in Manipur resign
Dimapur, May 6 (MExN): The Naga independent MLAs of the Manipur Legislative Assembly today resigned on moral ground in the wake of what it termed as the unprovoked firing upon the civilians at Mao Gate this morning killing and injuring many men and women folk in the process. “We share the grief and sentiments of the people who are killed and injured in the unprovoked firing.
We see no reason why a state government should take such action which would sabotage the Naga peace process. Hence we the undersigned are tendering our resignation as members of the State Legislative Assembly on moral ground”, stated the resignation letter addressed to the Speaker of the Manipur Assembly. The MLAs are stationed in Delhi.
Those who send in their resignation to the Speaker included W. Morung Makunga, MLA (Tenugopal), Awangbow Newmai, MLA (Tamei), K. Raina, MLA (Tadubi), Dr Khashim Ruivah, MLA (Chingai), M Thohreii, MLA (Mao) and Wungnaoshang Keishing, MLA (Phungyar). The MLAs in their resignation letter pointed out that they had requested the State government to reconsider the Cabinet decision to ban the entry of Mr Muivah, the Chief Negotiator of the NSCN/GPRN in the Indo-Naga peace talk. While appreciating the Centre for allowing Muivah to travel to his native village of Somdal, the MLAs regretted that the Manipur government by stationing security forces along the route had created a war like situation. The MLAs also informed that they had come to Delhi to seek an appointment with the Prime Minister and Home Minister in order to apprise them of the situation but they could only meet RS Pandey, the Interlocutor of the Government of India. The Naga MLAs told Pandey to speed up the peace process so as to bring permanent peace and honorable solution.
Manipur CM meets Pranab, Chidambaram, Antony
New Delhi, May 6 (PTI): Manipur Chief Minister Ibobi Singh today met Union ministers Pranab Mukherjee, P Chidambaram and A K Antony and briefed them about the prevailing situation in his state in the wake of NSCN-IM leader T Muivah’s proposed visit. Singh was summoned to the national capital following the tensed situation in Manipur and Nagaland in the wake of now-postponed visit of Muivah to his ancestral village in Manipur’s Ukhrul district. During the 20-minute meeting, Singh is understood to have told the Central leaders that if Muivah is allowed to go to Manipur, the situation in the state may deteriorate as people are against the visit of the Naga rebel leader. The Central leaders are believed to have asked Singh to be cautious and take utmost care in taking any decision in this regard.
Muivah puts off visit to ancestral village in Manipur
Visema (Nagaland), May 6 (PTI): NSCN-IM leader T Muivah on Thursday put off his visit to his ancestral village across the Nagaland border in Manipur’s Ukrul district on the request of four Naga NGOs. Speaking to a small gathering in Visema, where he spent the night after arriving from NSCN-IM headquarters at Camp Hebron near Dimapur on Wednesday, Muivah said he was postponing his visit to Somdal village, where he was born, after the NGOs requested him to put off his visit by a day or two till the situation returns to normal in Manipur.
He reiterated that he did not understand why the Manipur government was opposing his visit. “I am not going to create a disturbance. I am going for peace and to meet my people,” he said.
Civil groups demand Judicial Probe
Dimapur, May 6 (MExN): Indian civil society organizations today demanded a judicial probe into the firing by Manipur police forces that left three students dead and about a hundred injured at Mao Gate, Nagaland-Manipur border. The Indian civil organizations met in an emergency press meeting in New Delhi today.
The organizations, along with Naga MLAs from Manipur urged for peace but agreed that the situation is getting increasingly volatile even as minority communities in Manipur feel presently threatened by the heightened insecurity and historical discrimination. “Independent Naga MLAs from Manipur have resigned…they are demanding a judicial enquiry,” a statement received here said.
Members of Human Rights, civil society and democratic organizations, including South Asia Forum for Human Rights and Jawahar Lal Nehru University, spoke at the press conference. Condemning the police action and killing, the civil groups said the deployment of large number of security forces at the state borders, the unprovoked destruction of traditional welcome gates by the forces, and the total blockage of transit of all travelers from Nagaland to Manipur have triggered panic and insecurity among the local people.
These have all unnecessarily heightened tensions between different communities in the region, the statement said.
The speakers also called for lifting of the blockade of transport of goods and people from Imphal valley to the hills and at the Nagaland-Manipur border that had caused great hardships to ordinary people.
The speakers also alleged that Okram Ibobi Singh, the Chief Minister of Manipur, was using the situation to communally polarize the people for his own political gains.
“Naga MLAs from Manipur had earlier asked the CM to withdraw the illegal and controversial decision of the cabinet disallowing Mr. Muivah’s visit. In Delhi, upon not getting an appointment with the central Home Minister or the PM, they have sent in their resignations to the speaker of the Manipur Assembly,” the statement added.
South Nagas seek PM’s action
Dimapur, May 6 (MExN): The Naga frontal organizations in Manipur today listed a number of demands to the Prime Minister of India, to be met with prompt action. “So long as the given conditions are not fulfilled, we will have no option but to abstain from receiving the dead bodies of the two innocent students from the Police custody,” stated the memorandum addressed to the Prime Minister of India from the United Naga Council, Naga Women’s Union, Manipur, All Naga Students’ Association Manipur and Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights. ddd
The demands are that a judicial enquiry into the incident be instated; immediate withdrawal of 144 CRPC; immediate withdrawal of IRB and Police Commandos from the Naga areas; permit entry and safe passage to Mr. Th. Muivah to his native village and to peacefully complete his peace tour.
The Mao-Gate Tragedy
The Naga organizations also narrated the tragic turn of events: AN organization, the Mao Women’s Welfare Association under the aegis of the Naga Women’s Union of Manipur had organized peaceful rally at Mao Gate in Senapati district (under the administration of Manipur State) on May 4 and the 5th to protest against the Manipur State Cabinet’s decision banning the entry of Th. Muivah, general secretary of the NSCN (IM) to his native village, Somdal.
On the evening of May 5, at 6.30 PM one Ashihrii Puni, of Song Song village, a Mao tribal, aged 52 years was brutally assaulted without any reason by the Indian Reserve Battalion (IRB) of Manipur. On May 6, the public of the area organized a peaceful procession on National Highway 39 to protest against the savage act of the IRB.
“While the procession was being taken out, the Manipur state armed forces, without any warnings, started firing tear gas and stick bombs on the innocent public.
Soon after, they started firing randomly on the protestors and in the process two male students were shot dead and more than 80 persons, mainly women, sustained grievous bullet wounds and related injuries. The Manipur armed forces also damaged many vehicles parked on the National Highway, broke windows and kicked open doors of houses, arrested and assaulted 28 innocent boys, who were later released in the evening.”
Nagaland rights activist exposes Armed Forces Special Powers Act
Misguided or Deliberate Policy: Armed Rebellion and Political Conflict
By Neingulo Krome
[This paper was presented in a Seminar on “Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act” during the Festival of Hope, Justice and Peace held at Imphal from November 2 – 6, 2010. The author is a former Secretary General of NPMHR]
At the outset I want to thank the Just Peace Foundation for giving us this opportunity of deliberating issues of common concern in a most befitting and elaborate manner, commemorating it with the completion of 10 years of Irom Sharmila’s Fast unto Death against one of the most draconian and anti-democratic law in India. In this aspect, I also want to salute Ms Irom Sharmila for her courage and ability to demonstrate the highest humanly possible sacrifice for the cause of not only the “ten slaughtered civilians at Malom Village” by personnel of the Indian Security Forces, but for humanity as a whole.
Tribals rally against anti-Maoist operations in Orissa
Tribals opposing ongoing anti-Maoist operation in Koraput district, where most wanted rebel Ramakrishna is suspected to be in hiding, staged a demonstration at Narayanpatna, about 70km from here, today.
The rally was organised by the Maoist-backed Chasi Mulia Adivasi Sangha (CMAS), which had recently forcibly grabbed money lenders’ lands and attacked a police station at Narayanpatna. The demonstrators also demanded immediate release of tribal men and women who were lodged in jail on charge of being rebels and attacking the police station.
About 100 tribals allegedly involved in the two counts are lodged in Koraput jail. Two of them have died in prison. The demonstrators submitted a memorandum addressed to chief minister Naveen Patnaik to local block development officer.
Meanwhile, the police have launched a manhunt for Ramakrishna, who is suspected to have taken shelter in Narayanpatna jungle along with his son Prithvi. The search operation has been stepped up since the arrest of Ramakrishna’s wife Padma on November 14 from an area near Koraput, bordering Andhra Pradesh.
CMAS marches in Narayanpatna, Orissa
DNA India, November 24, 2010
From Field to Fork: Obama’s agribusiness recipe for India
US corporate officials explain the "benefits" (to US agri companies) of American agricultural exports, seeds and technology to their Indian counterparts
By Rahul Goswami, Sanhati
The government of the USA has planned for India to become an important consumer of its agricultural exports and crop science. India has also been planned as a host country for an agricultural research agenda directed by American crop-seed biotech corporations.
This is to be achieved through a variety of programmes in India, some of which began their preparation two years ago. This agenda, labelled as US-India cooperation by India’s current UPA-2 government and by the USA’s current Barack Obama administration, has the support of the American farm sector, but not that of India’s farmers and cultivators. The clear and blunt objective is to increase US agricultural exports and to widen as quickly as possible the trade surplus of the US agricultural sector.
This agenda has become clear following the three business and industry meetings held during the visit of US President Barack Obama-’US-India Business and Entrepreneurship Summit’ in Mumbai on 6 November, ‘India-US: An Agenda for Co-Creation’ with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi on 8 November, and ‘US-India Conclave: Partnership for Innovation, Imperative for Growth and Employment in both Economies’ with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi on 9 November.
The US agri-business view has been projected in India by the US-India Business Council, a business advocacy group representing American companies investing in India together with Indian companies, with a shared aim to deepen trade and strengthen commercial ties.
In a document titled ‘Partners in Prosperity -Business Leading the Way’ (November 2010), the business council stated: “India requires an ‘Ever-Green Revolution’-a new program which would engage the country’s rural sector, providing water utilization and crop management ‘best practices’ to promote greater food security-this time based on technology to increase efficiency and productivity. The effort to vitalize India’s agriculture sector should be driven by business, and the first step is improving India’s farm-to-market global supply chain.” …………
Finally, there is the idea of the ‘Evergreen Revolution’ being promoted by both sides, India’s Ministry of Agriculture and the ICAR-led research and agri education system, and the US Department of Agriculture in concert with the US State Department and American agri business. Also called ‘’second Green Revolution” by India’s agriculture sector planners, such labelling has ignored entirely the social and genetic violence to India’s agrarian settlements which has only increased post-Liberalisation.
At a meeting in Bhubaneswar, Orissa, held to discuss the central government’s ”Green Revolution in Eastern India” programme, a concluding declaration was made by farmers, activists and scientists from more than ten Indian states. ”Food and livelihood security of the poor is subverted by the decision imposed by the Union Government on the peoples of the six Eastern Indian states to push for the new phase of Green Revolution with a thrust on hybrid seeds technology,” said the declaration. ”We question the rationale of the government in bringing in this Green Revolution and strongly believe that techno-centric production models adopted so far do not address real food, nutrition and livelihood security.”
It is not food, nutrition and livelihood security which are the concerns of the India-US Agriculture Dialogue. This ‘dialogue’ is controlled and directed by the US government’s new National Export Initiative. ”We are pursuing a new trade strategy which looks at nations based on the nature of their marketplace,” stated Tom Vilsack, US Secretary of Agriculture, on 2 September 2010 (he was part of the Obama mission to India). ”These efforts mean that agriculture is one of the only major sectors of the economy with a trade surplus, which we expect to be worth US$30.5 billion this year. Overall, our agricultural exports should be worth US$107.5 billion in fiscal year 2010-up from US$96 billion in 2009-and we expect them to rise again in 2011. More importantly, this progress should create good jobs for Americans: USDA studies show that every billion dollars in agricultural exports supports over 8,000 jobs and generates an additional US$1.4 billion in economic activity.”
According to a September 2010 ”Report to The President on the National Export Initiative’ by the US Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke (he was also part of the Obama mission to India), the NEI has five components. Three of these apply directly to the new American agriculture hard sell to India: (1) ”We will improve advocacy and trade promotion efforts on behalf of US exporters, so trade missions can introduce the world to American products and advocacy centres can help US exporters pursue opportunities”; (2) ”We will reinforce our efforts to remove barriers to trade, so as many markets as possible are open to our products”; (3) ”We will enforce our trade rules, to make sure our trade partners live up to their obligations”.
A month after Vilsack’s statement on the importance of agriculture sector exports to the US economy, Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission of India, asked the vice-chancellors of agricultural universities to adopt ”innovative approaches” to strengthen agricultural research and education in India. Ahluwalia said India’s agricultural universities ”can play an important role in this direction by providing research based projects with the help of industry” and suggested ”a new mechanism to fund research projects instead of funding universities”.
Ahluwalia is reported to have urged the scientists working in agricultural research institutes to ”re-orient themselves in next Twelfth Five Year Plan amid the challenges of food security and climate change” and-typically for Indian planning today-referred to the gap in agricultural growth rate and land productivity of China and India, neglecting entirely the chronic depletion of soils and widespread degradation of agro-ecological systems in China which have suffered from high chemical input industrial farming.
”America helped bring about a Green Revolution,” said President Obama to the media in New Delhi after a meeting at Hyderabad House. ”The aim is to turn that into an Evergreen Revolution.” A weather forecasting tie-up is being described as the ‘’showpiece of the collaboration” which is expected to ”predict India’s increasingly erratic monsoon”.
This tie-up was finalised in July 2010, when Planning Commission member Dr. K Kasturirangan (who headed Indian Space Research Organisation) and secretary in the Department of Earth Sciences, Shailesh Nayak, visited the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. The Indian government’s justification for the weather and crop forecasting tie-up is that it combines both oceanographic and atmospheric sciences. From the information now available, crop scientists in the ICAR network and earth scientists at ISRO will be able to use the forecasting model. The US administration says this will help predict sudden breaks in the monsoon cycle. But it will also enable district-level predictions of crop sowing, harvesting and movement to a degree not seen before in the sub-continent.
This information will first be used by the US Department of Agriculture and the US Department of Commerce to determine agri business and trade responses. By then, under the ‘Agriculture Dialogue’ plan, there will be enough collaboration at farm level, in the grain markets and in the retail chain to employ such granular information to the benefit of American food exporters and traders. The risk to India’s food security-quite contrary to the pious statements made by both sides during the Obama visit-has never been greater.
Rahul Goswami is an agriculture systems researcher based in Goa. He worked for two years with the National Agricultural Innovation Project, Government of India. He is a member of the Indian Society of Agricultural Economics, and Associate, Centre for Communication and Development Studies, Pune.
For full article, go to: http://sanhati.com/articles/2970/
Reports from National Action against Land Acquisition, November 22-26
Press Release on Day-4, 24th November 2010
Land Acquisition Act makes mockery of Democracy
- People’s Movements demand decentralized development planning -
Ø National Action by Sangharsh[i] continues on day-3
Ø Anti-displacement groups celebrate scrapping of Renuka Dam, HP
Ø Scrap Seang and other North East Dam projects; we want development, not destruction, says KMSS leader Akhil Gogoi
Ø We want ‘Gram Sabha’ over ‘Lok Sabha’, Gautam Bandopadhyay of Nadi Ghatti Morcha
Ø No more urban displacement; urban working people’s struggle groups demand share of urban spaces and action against land mafia
Ø Demolish Adarsh Society and the many other violators of law; demands NAPM
New Delhi – Government of India is acting against the federal nature of the state and the very constitution of India. By centralizing ‘water’, which is a state subject, the government has broken the very centre-state understanding under federal Indian structures, said Akhil Gogoi, inaugurating the Sangharsh Dharna on day-3 against Dams in the North East and rest of India. Seang project and the multiple projects on Brahmaputra and other rivers of NE will not only break the agricultural dependent region’s backbone, it will also displace large chunks of people in the NE states, the KMSS leader added.
The delegation of Sangharsh leaders met with Jairam Ramesh, Minister (Independent Charge) of MoEF and PK Bansal, Cabinet Minister of the Minsitry of Water Resources.
Mr. Jairam Ramesh announced to the team that the Renuka Dam project stands cancelled from the ministry’s point of view especially with regard to forest clearance. He also stated that he has already written to the Prime Minister about dams in North East India, raising serious concerns regarding social and environmental issues raised by the movement and the local people. He assured the delegation that the MoEF is conducting a study to look at the environmental impacts of the Lavasa Project. He ensured the delegation that strict action will be taken if the project implementers are found violating the laws. On Forest Rights Act implementation related issues, the MoEF minister promised to meet the groups separately on Dec 15th. On Tehri dam related violations, he stated that there is already an investigation that is going on by the ministry and action will be taken on the basis of that.
Mr. Pawan Kumar Bansal was requested by the delegation to reconsider the several dam projects in different parts of India. Mr. bansal assured the delegation that the ministry will not permit commercial or energy related pressures to override environmental or people’s concerns. Regarding the draft water policy, he announced the ministry’s intent to hold talks with people’s struggles and movements at the ground before finalizing the same.
Indian Government deals with people of Arunachal Pradesh as if we are Chinese agents and it is unfortunate that we have to remind our own government that we are citizens of India and not China, said Bijay Taram of Forum for Siang Dialogue. He added that the indigenous people based demography of the region will be negatively impacted if workers from other regions were to be brought in for these gigantic construction activities. The worst part of these projects is they the local people do not stand to gain from the power generated from these projects, as it will be diverted to the industrial houses and corporations led projects. We stand together with the people of rest of India in demanding an end to the regime of Land Acquisition Act and in this paradigm of centralized development planning, Mr. Bijay concluded.
Land Acquisition Act 1894 is a mockery of democratic procedures, said Adv. Sanjay Parikh of Supreme Court. The amendments by the UPA government will make the legislation more undemocratic and anti-people, he added while talking to the more than 3000 people gathered at Jantar Mantar as part of Sangharsh.
On urban issues and displacement
Anbovedam of NAPM Tamil Nadu and the Chennai people’s struggle against urban displacement accused that the TN Government has been misusing the LAA to the extent that it has been creating land banks, without even letting the local people know what purpose their lands have been acquired for. The vicious cycle of development induced displacement is such that it first displaces peasants and agricultural workers from their lands, pushes them to cities like Chennai and then their urban development and beautification projects displace these very people many times over again. Ridiculing the government of India for their blind following of the US government’s neo-liberal policies, he pointed at the unemployment in US and asked Indian government not to follow a nation who is unable to feed and employ their own population. For construction of bridges, hotels, highways and flyways, the number of working poor evicted from Chennai alone is close to five lakhs. Why should the poor trust such governments any more, asked Mr. Anbovedam.
Anita Kapoor of National Domestic Workers Union, Raju Bhise of YUVA, Mumbai, Rajendra Ravi of Institute for Development and Sustainability, Delhi etc spoke at the meeting on urban issues. The speakers ridiculed the Rehabilitation packages and beautification drives under projects like MUTP and JNNURM. These projects, they argued, not only displace people to far away suburbs, robbing people of their jobs, but also make livelihood alternatives impossible. Workers contribution to building of cities is not even taken into account while displacing the very people once the construction phase is over. Mr. Bhise concluded by stating that now the people will not accept anything short of land rights in the urban spaces. The speakers also demanded a separate national legislation for rehabilitation of the urban project affected people.
Ganeshan of NAPM Maharashtra, representing the struggle against Lavasa project slammed the government for displacing more than 20 villages, cutting huge number of trees, destroying people’s livelihoods and environment – all to complete a project which in no way benefit the local people.
Displacement, corporations and the proposed Free Trade Agreement between India and EU
Speaking on the India – EU Free trade Agreements, Leena of ‘Forum against FTAs stated that “India’s vast mineral wealth attracts not only Indian but foreign companies as well. Through Free Trade Agreements such as the EU-India FTA, European Corporations will be facilitated access to Indian minerals, increasing the conflict over the use of land and forests. The European commission has identified the EU-India FTA as a mean to ensure EU companies stable and cheap access to minerals for their industrial use, including chromite and rare earths which are largely found in India. This is to be ensured by including provisions that limit or prohibit export taxes, export quotas, and ‘non-automatic export licenses’ for European companies in India. In addition, the investment chapter in this FTA reportedly contains provisions allowing European investors to sue the Indian Government in secret arbitration tribunals if the government implements a policy or takes an action that decreases the profits that the corporation was expecting from its investment in India. This system is not only out of democratic oversight but also means a de facto overriding the Constitution of India, as the arbitration tribunal is not bound by the Constitution of the land, but only by the FTA. Investment provisions should not dilute the ability of the government to take pro-people actions in cases like POSCO or Vedanta where legitimate environmental and social concerns have been raised.
Ms. Leena added: Both sides have announced their determination to finalise the deal by the 10th of December, during the EU-India Summit to be held in Brussels. While concerns have been raised on various issues and even parliamentarians have not received proper answers to the questions they have raised, negotiations behind closed doors will be held tomorrow and day after in Delhi.
Members of Parliament; Joseph Toppo (AGP), Viren Vaishya (AGP) and Kumar Deepak Das (Rajya Sabha, AGP) also visited the Dharna and extended solidarity to the struggle against Land Acquisition. Speakers at the public meeting and rally included: Dr. Manoranjan Mohanty of the Council for Social Development, Swami Agnivesh of Bandhua Mukti Morcha, Nikhil Dey of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Jai Sen of CACIM, Kavita Srivsatava of PUCL.
The participants at the Dharna took out a rally to the Parliament and reiterated the demand for local, decentralized planning and for implementation of article 243 of the Indian constitution.
Day-4 of the National Action Week on the 25th Nov will focus on ‘Right to Food’.
Press Release from November 23, 2010
Enough is Enough; No more displacement – UPA is pushing India to civil war
Ø National Action by Sangharsh[1] continues on day-2
Ø Dam displaced peoples demand moratorium till new legislation
Ø Forest Rights groups demand implementation of FRA prior to land acquisition
Ø ‘Project Clearance’ should be by Gram Sabhas, not ministries at the centre
23rd November 2010, New Delhi – Speaking to a gathering of more than 3500 people assembled at Jantar Mantar as part of the Sangharsh led National Week of Action, Ms. Medha Patkar of NBA stated that “the Rivers, water bodies and sources of life are under threat and are being destroyed in the country. The people who live on the banks of these rivers do not benefit at all and instead their lives get destroyed. The Government should understand that new battles will be fought between those who are trying to save and protect the riverine life and heritage of India and those who are trying to destroy them”.
Ms. Patkar added that; “Energy and electricity have been made out into absolute non-negotiables and every time when people raise genuine social and environmental objections to power projects, they are sidelined by the argument of energy demands (interpreted only as electricity demands) and national growth. New mega projects are cited as the only answer to India’s growing corporate and industrial demands. The three main options of 1) cutting down on the close to 30% electricity loss due to transmission & distribution (T&D) losses 2) increasing the efficiency of existing power projects and 3) investing in alternate energy projects of the solar kind of natural renewable sources, are not even considered seriously by this government, who sheds crocodile tears on the issue of climate change”
Members of Parliament, Rajen Gohai and Bijaya Chakravarty visited the dharna and declared solidarity to the people’s struggle against displacement.
Grameen Bhakra Sudhar Samiti Chairperson Shri. Nandlal Sharma stated that: “people displaced in the 1960s by the Bhakra Nangal dam are yet to get any rehabilitation or alternate livelihood. They have also been served with eviction notice from the forest areas where they have settled down on their own. Even the Forest Rights Act has not been implemented in any of these areas. Vimalbhai, representing MATU Jan Sanghattan of Uttarakhand stated that “people are loosing faith in this government, which has become a brokering agency for the corporations and industrial houses.”
Raju Bhoda, representing the Krushak Mukti Sangram Samiti (Assam): “Our struggles are not any more just against dams or one or two projects; it is for systemic change and for people’s new freedom movement.” Dam affected people from Arunachal Pradesh, represented by Bijaya: “While Arunachal happens to be a less significant, small state the government is trying to build the biggest and largest number of dams in the state. If the 130 MoUs signed for the dams in this state are implemented, people of not just Arunachal but all over NE will be displaced. We will not allow the total destruction and devastation of our people and culture. We will not allow that to happen, even at the cost of martyrdom.”
Gumman Singh, representing Himalaya Niti Abhiayn and Renuka Dam Sangharsh Samiti of Himachal Pradesh: “Himachal Pradesh and across the Himalayan states, the destruction will be complete if we allow the many hydro projects and mega dams like Renuka to go ahead. On top of that now we are having to deal with hundreds of tourism projects and even thermal power projects by the likes of Jaypee Group, who not only acquire land by force, but also run all sorts of illegal projects with fraudulent clearances. HP is being handed out to land mafia and corporations in bulk today.”
Meeting with CP Joshi, Union Cabinet Minister for Rural Development: A delegation which met with the minister demanded a white paper on all the land acquisitions and displacement since independence and also that a new comprehensive bill must be brought out to take care of the land requirements, the people’s genuine growth needs and aspirations and a national level consultation with people’s organisations should be organized by the Government. The Minister requested Sangharsh delegation to present the ministry with a new draft of a comprehensive legislation on development planning and land requirements. The delegation in turn requested the minister that amendments to the LAA or the R&R draft in the present form should not be pushed by the Government in the Parliament.
It was pointed out to the minister that the 2003 and 2007 R&R policies talk about a national committee and commission respectively. However, the minister himself agreed that no meetings or even process towards any R&R monitoring has been undertaken by his ministry or the government as per the policy. Sangharsh leaders demanded that till the time a national level monitoring mechanism comprising of officials and political representation along with social scientists is put in place to monitor land acquisition for projects and also the R&R fulfillment, there should be no acquisition in the country. Any kind of land acquisition, whether for public purpose or for companies’ private profit purposes, the process of land acquisition should be subject to the local gram sabha clearance.
Meeting with Sushma Swaraj: Delegation briefed Ms. Swaraj about the lack of democracy and transparency of the UPA government in the processes towards the two draft bills on LAA and R&R. It was brought to the notice of the opposition leader that while the 2003 NDA’s R&R policy and the 2007 R&R policy by the UPA talk about minimum displacement, this has not been brought into actuality in any of the project sanctions. It was also shared by the delegation that the recommendations made by Mr. Kalyan Singh led Parliamentary Standing Committee on the two bills have also not been accommodated much in the present drafts.It was pointed out that after the Aligarh firing on peaceful protesters that killed two peasant, all political parties agreed on the need for a pro-people legislation that also will take care of food security and sovereignty of the country. However, this needs to be converted in to a comprehensive development planning legislation.
Demands on North East Dams and anti-people projects by Sangharsh:
· A complete moratorium on all clearances (including pre-construction clearances) by the MoEF to large dams/hydropower projects in Northeast India.
· Immediate withdrawal of clearances granted to the 2000 MW Lower Subansiri project, 1750 MW Demwe Lower and 1500 MW Tipaimukh which were granted environmental clearance without downstream impact assessment and public consent.
· Commission of a special study group consisting of Independent Reviewers (including scientists, people’s representative) to study the environmental and social impact off all the existing dams in Assam.
· A complete review of pre-construction clearances granted to projects in the region.
· Future steps on hydropower projects and dams to be taken only after full, prior and informed consent of the people of the Brahmaputra & Barak river basins.
· The Brahmaputra River and its tributaries to be protected as a cultural and ecological endowment of the people of the region and the country as a whole. Development plans will need to respect the environmental and cultural sensitivity of the region.
SANGHARSH PARTICIPANTS MARCHED IN HUNDREDS TO THE MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTS AND DEMONSTRATED IN FRONT OF THE MINISTRY PRIOR TO THE MEETING WITH SHRI. JAIRAM RAMESH SCHEDULED AT 4pm TODAY.
Government is backtracking on Forest Rights;
Declare Moratorium on land acquisition till FRA claims are settled
Jantar Mantar, New Delhi – Session – 2 of the Sansad Gherao of the National Week of Action against Displacement and Land Acquisition (Act) focused on Forest Rights, community governance and implementation of Forest Rights Act, 2006 in different areas. The communities and movement groups present welcomed the decision of Ministry of Environment and Forests to revoke the clearances granted to British Corporation Vedanta to mine the Niyamgiri hills and forest ranges of Orissa. People at the dharna demanded that strict forest clearance and environment clearance procedures be followed and that FRA claims be prioritized over land acquisition for projects.Condemning the move to give forest and environment clearance to destructive projects like Navi Mumbai Airport, Haripur Nuclear Project, Adarsh Society, Tata (Mundra), Adani and POSCO, despite CRZ violations and FRA pending claims, Ashok Choudhary of the National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW) dared the UPA to withdraw the Forest Rights Act or stop becoming an impediment in its implementation.
Roma of Kaimur Kshetra Mahila Mazdoor Kisaan Sangharsh Samiti, UP stated that FRA is being sidelined by the Government and many state governments. Implementation is not happening in most places, as per the law. There is a deliberate effort from many of the state governments, including where Congress and BJP are ruling, to misuse and abuse FRA against forest communities. Roma demanded that same status for all communities should be the norm under FRA and that the government should stop pitting Dalits and Adivasis against each other. She also demanded that the forest villages should be converted to revenue villages and that the Forest Rights Committees (FRCs) should be at village level, not at the Panchayat level. Gram Sabha should be the decision making body regarding forest rights claims and not the bureaucracy or the Forest Department, she added while addressing the more than 3500 people who are gathered at Jantar Mantar.
Madhuri, Adivasi Dalit Mukti Sangattan, MP: From the time FRA has been legislated, it appears that the attack on the forest resources including land has increased from the corporations and companies. FRA has been reduced to a law that gives some pattas to a limited number of tribals in some regions. The law demands that community rights be recognized and democratic and decentralized governance of the forest villages take place.
On the one hand villagers and forest people who should benefit from the legislation of FRA are being subjected to technicalities and arbitrary rejection of claims and on the other, MoEF and other state departments are going on giving clearances to companies and big transnational corporations to take over more of our forest lands and resources.
Munnilal, National Convener of NFFPFW (Uttarakhand): FRA is only the beginning of a new phase of the struggle of forest people, it is not the end of our battles. Forest Dwellers and tribals in the sub-continent have been fighting all kinds of infiltrators; from British to the Forest Department and the timber/land mafia for the past close to three centuries. Forest felling is happening in a big way in the country today.
Ramchandra Rana, Lakhimpur Khiri, UP: It is a direct battle between the forest people and the imperial Forest Department. Forest department is completely sold out to the forest and timber mafia. When traditional forest workers try to stop them from looting the forests, they register false cases on the people and harass them.
Other speakers at the forest rights session included: Prem Singh, NFFPFW-Dehradun, Jan Mukti Andolan leaders and Dr. Nandini Sundar from Delhi School of Economics, DU.
[i] Sangharsh is a collective platform of social movements and people’s organisations from across the country struggling against the process of neo-liberal globalisation and capitalist development leading to SEZs, big infrastructure projects, mining, mega dams, etc. leading to massive displacements of the working class people and traditional craft persons, weavers, fisher people, forest workers, farmers, dalits, women, minorities and adivasis/IPs, etc. The key constituents of Sangharsh include: National Alliance of Peoples’ Movements, National Forum for Forest Right and Forest Workers, National Domestic Workers Union, SEZ Virodhi Manch, National Cyclist Union, National Hawkers Federation, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, Kaimur Kshetra Mahila Mazdoor Kisaan Sangharsh Samiti, Kishan Sangharsh Samiti, Him Niti Abhiyan, Nadi Ghati Morcha, Adivasi Moolniwasi Asthitva Raksha Manch, Jan Sangharsh Vahini, Jai Yuvak Kranti Dal, Maatu Jan Sangathan, Machhimaar Adhikar Sangharsh Samiti, Renuka Baandh Sangharsh Samiti, Birsa Munda Bhu Adhikar Manch, Pennuruimai Iyyakam, Posco Pratirodh Sangram Samiti, Vangram Bhu Adhikar Manch, Tharu Adivasi Mahila Mazdoor Kisaan Manch, Tarai Kshetra Mahila Mazdoor Kisan Manch, Patha Dalit Bhu Adhikar Manch, Delhi Solidarity Group
2 reports on Arundhati Roy’s speech to tribal activists from Orissa
Mass movements must fight corporates
Writer Arundhati Roy, who faced an angry protest by Sangh Parivar activists here on Sunday, urged those involved in mass movements to oppose corporates which she said were eyeing the rich natural resources of tribal heartlands. Ms. Roy came here to attend a meeting on ‘Cultural resistance to war on people in corporate interest.’
As soon as she reached the venue, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Bajrang Dal activists waved black flags to protest her recent remarks on Kashmir, terming them anti-national. They also started shouting that she should leave the venue immediately. Soon a scuffle broke out. The organisers chased away the agitators. The police took at least 10 of them into custody.
Unperturbed, Ms. Roy addressed hundreds of tribal activists from different parts of Orissa. “The number of poor people living in India will be more than that of the total poor in 26 African countries. The condition of poverty in Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and West Bengal is critical. All the attention is, however, trained on these States, as these poor are raising their voice against land acquisition attempts by big corporates of the world,” she said.
She said the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, prohibited land acquisition in tribal areas. “But now, people in power say it is imperative to acquire land from tribals for development. Those who frame policies are the violators.”
“Earlier people’s movements had sprouted to get back excess land lying with zamindars. But the nature of the struggle has undergone a change. Now it is a fight not to let the land — whatever is left with the tribal population — be snatched by the corporate-backed government,” she said.
Ms. Roy alleged that leaders thought development was possible only when 80 per cent of the population started living in urban areas, and they wanted to vacate villages in the interest of corporates. “They are inviting the military to take over the affairs. Our States are becoming military States. Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Lalgarh have already been militarised.”
BJP Protests Arundhati Roy's Trip to Orissa
Times of India, November 22, 2010
BHUBANESWAR: Writer Arundhati Roy was at the receiving end of her own tactic of dissent and protest here on Sunday when ABVP activists tried to stop her from attending a meeting on tribal rights for her controversial remark last month supporting ''azad Kashmir''.
The activists of BJP's youth wing, wearing black badges, shouted slogans like ''Gaddar (traitor) Arundhati hai, hai'', and, ''Arundhati go back'' just as she got down from the car to reach the meeting venue, said an eyewitness, and added, ''They waved black flags and also chucked one of them at her.''
A scuffle between ABVP workers and Roy's supporters, comprising representatives from anti-land acquisition lobby, followed. Her supporters cordoned off the venue at Swadheenta Sangram Manch to stop the ABVP activists from disrupting their meeting.
While some of Roy's lathi-wielding supporters chased the ABVP men, said to be around 12 in number, the latter hurled shoes at them. At least two people were injured in the melee that went on for half-an-hour until the cops arrived and picked up eight ABVP men.
Talking to reporters, Roy said, ''They (ABVP) have a right to protest, I have a right to speak,'' and added that she was sticking to her opinion on Kashmir. She had said, ''Kashmir was never an integral part of India. It's a historical fact.
RED STAR OVER INDIA
Impressions, discussions and documentation as the Wretched of the Earth are Rising -- by JAN MYRDAL
"If an indigenous government took the place of the foreign government and kept all the vested
interests intact, this would not even be the shadow of freedom..."
-Jawaharlal Nehru, "Whither India?", 1933
Officially independent India is engaged in a war against poverty. The phrase in itself is doubtful as it was coined by Lyndon B Johnson in 1964 to gain popular support among the underprivileged in the United States as he was stepping up his war of aggression in Vietnam. But the phrase still sounds good as when Simon Denyer reported for Reuters 2009 :
"India marks 60th anniversary urging war on poverty. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, speaking on the 60th anniversary of independence from British rule, said the country needed to work harder to fight poverty, ignorance and disease despite fast economic growth.
What’s in a name? The demand for political prisoner status
Radha D’Souza
On 11 April 2010, 469 inmates in Alipore Central Jail in Kolkotta (Calcutta) in West Bengal went on hunger strike, demanding recognition as political prisoners. The previous April, two prisoners in the district of Cooch Behar went on a fast to demand political status. On 14 September 2009 an unspecified number of inmates in Nagpur, the second capital of the state of Maharashtra in western India, went on a one-day hunger strike to demand political prisoner status.
What’s in a name? One might ask. It is one thing to ask for fair trial, injunctions against torture and such, but why this insistence on labels – ‘P’ for political, ‘C’ for criminal? Political status does not automatically lead to any special privileges or concessions other than the things civil liberties groups demand for all prisoners: fair and expeditious trial, humane treatment, prohibition of physical and sexual torture, and an end to graft. Yet the very resilience of this demand for categorisation indicates its importance for the civil liberties and democratic rights movements in India today.
In the first place, categorisation helps to count how many people are in jails for political reasons. A simple head count of ‘P’ category prisoners will deconstruct Indian democracy in ways that academic or legal analysis of security laws, or dissertations on Indian democracy cannot do. The trade unionists, the indigenous people opposed to forced sale of lands to corporations, the villagers opposed to chemical or nuclear plants in their village, the women protesting against rape by soldiers or army occupation, Muslims, Kashmiris, Nagas, Mizos, Assamese and other religious and ethnic minorities demanding cultural and social freedoms, slum dwellers protesting against demolitions or forced evacuations, the list could go on, but all of these would count as ‘P’ class.
That would reveal the authoritarian and repressive character of the Indian state and the true face of Indian democracy. The CRPP estimates that in the Indian-occupied state of Kashmir alone 75,000 people were detained for political reasons. It is virtually impossible for civil liberty groups to count political prisoners where access is strictly controlled. After the Kolkotta hunger strike this April, the Inspector General of Prisoners announced he would stop interviews of all prisoners (Indian Express 11 April 2010).
Without such categorisation, the state tars all opposition with the same ‘criminal’ brush. Two consequences follow. First, politics is criminalised, circumscribing democracy to an elite group, the beneficiaries of the system. Criminalisation of politics makes it possible for the Indian state to sanitise democracy for the national and global elite. Second, it delegitimises those struggling for justice in the eyes of the wider society. The concerns they raise about society: the conditions of workers, slum dwellers, indigenous peoples, democratic rights, effects of WTO policies, political corruption and so on become marginalised. Moreover, it creates a rift between those adversely affected by state policies and those who might, potentially, sympathise with the demands for justice.
There is in India today an internal schism. What kind of society should India be and what does democracy mean in a divided society where half the population is undernourished, and vast numbers of the other half are integrated into the global elite of academics, intellectuals, professionals and business people? According to Planning Commission figures published last year 37.7% of the population suffer from chronic malnutrition and 49.9% from undernourishment.
This schism is sustained by the very architecture of India’s laws and institutions constructed assiduously since colonial times. One set of repressive laws for those opposed to the state and another set of democratic laws for those supporting it span the post-independence era. India adopted its republican constitution in January 1950 and enacted the Preventive Detention Act 1950; Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958, Maintenance of Internal Security (MISA) 1971; National Security Act (NSA) 1980; Terrorist and Disruptive Practices Act (TADA) 1985; Prevention of Terrorist Activities Act (POTA) 2002, the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) 2009 and other state statutes interspersed with numerous special ordinances in between.
These laws are used routinely to arrest striking workers, political opponents, the poor, and other sections of the population for demanding justice. On the other hand a multiparty democracy and judiciary allows freedoms for those supportive of the state’s approach to the economy and society. The ‘P’ label will lay bare the schism. It will make apparent the scale and scope of exceptional national security and anti-terrorism laws, and the exclusive and limited reach of regular democratic procedures.
What’s in a name? A great deal indeed!
http://www.revolutionarycommunist.org/index.php/international/1839-india-whats-in-a-name-frfi-215-junjul-2010.html
Khobad Ghandy teaches Maoist classes in Tihar jail
Cops mull changing Khobad ward every two months
The battle to control Maoism has reached the Tihar jail’s barracks.
Exasperated prison authorities are thinking of changing Maoist ideologue Khobad Ghandy’s ward after every two months because he has been propagating ultra-Left ideology among fellow inmates.
Ghandy, 63, has built a captive audience inside Jail No. 3 at Tihar, his home for the past 11 months. He meets fellow inmates, who revere him, every day during his morning and evening walks and often holds “interactive sessions”.
He tells them he had fought for the poor throughout his life and that the government had failed to do anything for the people. The prisoners salute him after every session.
“He is a very good man. He is fighting for the poor and we respect him a lot,” said a 35-year-old inmate of Jail No. 3, a Class X dropout who is facing trial for attempted murder.
Another prisoner, arrested in a blast case in Uttar Pradesh, said: “He (Ghandy) is a very well-read man. He talks of revolution and makes us feel we too should do something for the country.”
Ghandy, a CPI (Maoist) politburo member, was arrested in September 2009 and booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
An inmate of Jail No. 1, who met Ghandy three days ago at a basketball match in the prison, said: “We address him as ‘Sir’ and salute him whenever we see him. We can’t understand why the government is holding him in jail as though he is a terrorist.”
The convict, serving a life term for murdering a relative, added: “I am paying for what I did, but people like Sir should not be treated this way. We are fans of his. He speaks from the heart about the injustices suffered by the poor. We support him for his movement against the government.”
Ghandy’s rising popularity among fellow prisoners is worrying Tihar authorities. A jail official said around 1,500 prisoners — 100 convicts and 1,400 undertrials — were lodged in the 12 wards in Jail No. 3. Ghandy shares his ward with many other prisoners.
“He loves mixing with people and has made several friends inside the jail. But of late his conversation has acquired revolutionary overtones,” the official said. “We are thinking of changing his ward every two months and keeping a watch on his morning and evening walks.”
The official, however, agreed that Ghandy, who is from an upper class background and went to the best educational institutions, was a thorough gentleman.
“He is very enthusiastic and agile for his age. During the basketball match, he was joking with jail officials about many things,” said jail superintendent Vijay Kumar Sharma.
Ghandy had studied at Doon School and St Xavier’s College, Mumbai, before travelling to London to become a chartered accountant. A few years later, he joined the Maoists. He is now believed to be writing a book on his life.
In Chhattisgarh’s war zone, no value on an adivasi’s life
The Hindu, 10 August 2010, Aman Sethi
After ‘encounter’, police try to buy villagers’ silence with money and snacks
A cloud of doubt looms large over the scene of last week’s bloody encounter
Kutrem (CHHATTISGARH): The monsoon skies have cleared over this village in Dantewada district, but a cloud of doubt still lingers over the site of last week’s encounter between the police and suspected cadres of the CPI (Maoist).
On August 4, according to the official version, the Koya commandos spent 18 hours combing through the rain-soaked forests near Kutrem, during which they broke through a Maoist ambush, engaged in a fierce gun battle lasting several hours and ultimately recovered the body of a uniformed Maoist fighter, a 12 bore shotgun and two improvised explosive devices.
The Koya commandos are a specialised police team largely comprising surrendered Maoists or Adivasis whose families have been targets of Maoist violence.
“We were ambushed deep in the jungle and fought the Maoists for about four hours,” said a policeman who was part of the operation, “We fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition … and killed six Maoists, but could recover only one body.” The corpse was identified as Kunjami Joga, a 23-year-old resident of Kutrem.
Villagers’ account
At Kutrem, however, the villagers have a very different account of the circumstances that led to Joga’s death.
About 11.30 a.m. on August 4, the villagers say, a party of the Koya commandos cordoned off Kutrem and took positions outside several houses in its Kotwalpara neighbourhood. Kunjam Hidme, 40, sat quietly in her house when she suddenly heard a policeman scream, “Hold your fire, don’t shoot!” followed by a burst of automatic fire.
“Kunjami Joga was stepping out of his sister, Karti Budri’s house, when he was shot,” said Hidme. He was unarmed, and was wearing a blue shirt. “I could hear him shouting ‘Ma, Ma’ as he lay on the path.” Hidme says the commandos hurriedly dumped the body on a wooden cot they took from one of the houses and left the village soon after.
On August 5, the Chhattisgarh police conducted post-mortem, initiated a magisterial inquiry and handed over the body to Joga’s parents. “When I got back his body, Joga was naked except for his underclothes,” said Joga’s father, Kunjami Lakhma, “He had a bullet here [pointing to the small of the back near the kidneys] and knife marks on his chest.” As per custom, the body was cremated the same day.
On August 7, the villagers say, the Koya commandos visited Kutrem again, this time with a carton of biscuits and sachets of Haldiram’s mixture. “The force called a public meeting outside the primary school,” said Kunjami Aiyte, Joga’s aunt, “They said, ‘If the press comes, tell them that Joga was killed in the forest, not in the village’.” Aiyte says the police then gave Rs. 1,100 to the gathered villagers for “food and alcohol.” The biscuits and mixture were distributed among the children.
“The Koyas gave me Rs. 2,000 and told me to keep quiet about Joga’s death,” said Kunjami Lakhma when asked whether he had been given any compensation.
Police surprised
Senior police officers expressed surprise when The Hindu questioned them about the money paid to Kunjami Lakhma. Sources refused to come on record, citing the sensitive nature of the allegations and the ongoing magisterial inquiry.
“No one has authorised this [payment],” said a senior policeman speaking on background.
“It is hard to keep control of the Koyas once they are sent out on operation,” continued the source, “The wireless set is our only link to the patrolling companies.” On the day of the encounter, this link was severed by heavy rain and inclement weather. Police officers said the Koyas were not supposed to go to Kutrem at all.
“We were just supposed to go up till Hiroli,” admitted a policeman involved in the operation, “But at Hiroli we received information that a Maoist company was moving between Gumiapal and Kutrem village.”
The patrolling party tried to radio headquarters for permission to pursue the Maoists; when the wireless set stopped working, the patrolling party chose to press on moving to Kutrem without waiting for permission.
http://www.thehindu.com/2010/08/10/stories/2010081062401000.htm
Maoist land reform in India
MIDNAPORE: It was land distribution under Operation Barga that brought CPM to power in 1977. Thirty-three years later, the Maoists in Jangalmahal are treading a similar route to consolidate their support base in 200 villages from Goaltore to Midnapore town. The 60-kilometre stretch forms the ” Maoist core zone”, where men most wanted by the police like Manoj Mahato, Asit Mahato and Gopal Pratihar have a free run.
But this new avatar of Operation Barga is different from the one implemented by the CPM. Maoists have set their own parameters for land reform here. Family income and connections with the ruling party get maximum weightage in this reform process.
The jotedars close to mainstream political parties CPM and Jharkhand Party are the targets, and the beneficiaries are the landless farmers. The Maoists have begun this process in two villages Chandabila and Malkuri under the Midnapore Sadar block, six kilometres from Midnapore town.
First, they drove out Toton Singh and Naru Singh jotedars of Malkuri village, who have 150 bighas [about 50 acres] of land and own a huge ancestral house. Like CPM zonal secretary Anuj Pandey’s house, this building too was pulled down by Maoist-led labourers of around a month and a half ago. Then the guerrillas took possession of the entire land and distributed it among 53 local landless labourers. Naru Singh’s son Ajit, who is known for his proximity to CPM minister Sushanta Ghosh, could do little to prevent it.
One such beneficiary is Satrughna Mahato who has been tilling the land as a wage labourer since long. “We are five brothers with a total land holding of one bigha, including our homestead land. That was not enough to run the family. But now, we can make ends meet,” said Mahato.
However, there are not too many such jotedars in West Bengal where the government has carried out the primary land reforms. In the last 33 years of Left Front rule, villages in the Jangalmahal saw the emergence of a new breed of CPM leaders who have been enjoying vested government lands and even forest land distributed to some non-existent land labourers. Villagers call it kalo patta a false tiller’s deed. Such a practice has been rampant in the villages under Salboni block Rameswarpur, Kolshibhanga, Malbandi, and Madhupur. The Maoist-led People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCPA) has occupied such lands and has started distributing those among the landless.
This is not all. Maoists are also distributing seeds and fertilizers to the landless to begin cultivation. Kamal Middya of Chandabila has already received it. “I used to till Singh’s land in Chandabila. Now I have three bighas in my possession,” Middya said.
Similar is the scene at Belasol village under Salboni block. Here Maoist-led committees have installed deep tubewells and have set up a water reservoir to provide irrigation water to villagers. Other development activities include running of medical camps and also a rural hospital to treat locals. TOI
India employing Israeli “pacification” tactics in Kashmir
A Kashmiri protestor raises his fist to Indian forces during a protest in Srinagar, the capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, 13 August 2010. (Newscom)
Jimmy Johnson, The Electronic Intifada, 19 August 2010
The 2010 summer in the disputed area of Jammu and Kashmir, administered by India, has been marked by popular protests by Kashmiris and crackdowns by India’s military. The stream of violence has left more than fifty dead, mostly young protestors. The situation in Kashmir has some parallels with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even borrowing the term intifada to describe the uprising. But the connection is more than analogy — Israel’s pacification efforts against Palestinians have proven valuable for the Indian police, army and intelligence services in their campaigns to pacify Jammu and Kashmir with numerous Indian military and security imports from Israel leading the way.
India and Israel had a limited relationship prior to 1992. India, as a prominent member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), had helped to form the NAM political positions on Palestine as part of the “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism, including Zionism and all forms of expansionism, foreign occupation and domination and hegemony” (1979, Havana Declaration). Beyond its anti-colonial and Third World solidarity politics, India also had realpolitik reasons for keeping a distance from Israel. The nation had a developing economy with a huge need for petroleum resources, of which it had no domestic source. Good relations with the Arab League and the Soviet Union helped to secure access to resources necessary for India to become the regional and global economic power it aspires to be.
With the beginning of the Oslo negotiations process between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the mid-1990s and the end of the Cold War, India was free to pursue relations with Israel from a NAM standpoint. An end to the Israeli occupation was assumed a formality under Oslo by most international observers, especially early on — and had, by that time, gained the economic strength to pursue a policy taking it, as described in a US Army War College (USAWC) analysis, “from a position of nonalignment and noncommitment to having specific strategic interests taking it on a path of ‘poly-alignment.’” The report states that India has been in a “scramble to establish ‘strategic relationships’ with most of the major powers and many of the middle powers,” including Israel.
Israel rendered limited military assistance to India in its 1962 war with China and the 1965 and 1971 wars with Pakistan. It was not until after the Oslo process began though, that the limited military contacts developed into a fuller strategic relationship. According to The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, in 1994 “India requested equipment to guard the de facto Indo-Pakistan Kashmiri border. New Delhi was interested in Israeli fences, which use electronic sensors to track human movements” (Thomas Withington, “Israel and India partner up,” January/February 2001, pp.18-19). The remaining years of the decade were peppered with arms sales from Jerusalem to New Delhi, most notably unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and electronic warfare systems.
The strategic military relationship picked up even more steam in the new millennium and annual arms sales average in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The shift of Israel being a major defense supplier to a strategic partner was formalized in a September 2003 state visit by then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to India where the Hindu nationalist government then in power, the Bharatiya Janata Party led by then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, hosted the Israeli delegation and coauthored the Delhi Statement on Friendship and Cooperation between India and Israel. The statement’s longest segment is on terrorism. It declares that “Israel and India are partners in the battle against this scourge” and that “there cannot be any compromise in the war against terrorism.” The relationship has expanded drastically since 2000 with, in some recent years, Israel even supplanting Russia as India’s largest arms supplier. Surface-to-air missile systems, naval craft, advanced radar systems and other remote sensing technologies, artillery systems and numerous joint production initiatives ranging from munitions to avionics systems have all further boosted the relationship.
But as the Kashmiri uprising enters its third decade, the most telling part of the relationship is the export of Israeli pacification efforts against Palestinians to India, and their use in Jammu and Kashmir (and elsewhere as India faces multiple popular revolts). Israel has trained thousands of Indian military personnel in counterinsurgency since 2003. According to a 2003 JINSA analysis, “Presumably to equip these soldiers, India recently concluded a $30 million agreement with Israel Military Industries (IMI) for 3,400 Tavor assault rifles, 200 Galil sniper rifles, as well as night vision and laser range finding and targeting equipment.”
In 2004, the Israeli intelligence agencies Mossad and General Security Services (Shin Bet) arrived in India “to conduct the first field security surveillance course for Indian Army Intelligence Corps sleuths.” The Globes article on the topic cites an Indian source stating “The course has been designed to look at methods of intelligence gathering in insurgency affected areas, in keeping with the challenges that Israel has faced.” The further acquisition of UAVs, their joint production and the acquisition of other surveillance systems, notably 2010 agreements for both spy satellites and satellite communications systems, have all helped to further India’s pacification campaigns in Jammu and Kashmir. A notable example of how deeply embedded in India the Israeli counterinsurgency and homeland security industries are is the May 2010 agreement whereby Ra’anana-based Nice Systems will provide security systems and a command and control center for India’s parliament. Parliament security head Sandeep Salunke noted the context for the $5 million contract being “In light of the recent increase in global terrorism” (Nice Systems press release, 25 May 2010).
India’s political trend towards poly-alignment whereby it can have both strategic energy agreements with Iran and strategic defense agreements with Israel is part of a broader strategy the USAWC report noted by which “India will fiercely protect its own internal and bilateral issues from becoming part of the international dialog (Kashmir being the most obvious example).” This hostility towards international engagement with its occupation is not the only resemblance to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Both were born out the the end of the British colonialism, both are seen as front lines of the “War on Terror,” both the Kashmiri and Palestinian armed groups are erroneously seen as illegitimate in their own right, being mere tools of a foreign aggressor (Pakistan for Kashmir and Iran or Syria for Palestine), both have widespread abuses of human rights, and the Israeli public’s general apathy about or hostility towards Palestinian self-determination is surpassed by the domestic discussion in India, where Kashmiri self-determination isn’t even an issue, though pacifying Kashmir and securing the border with Pakistan is.
The analogy between the two conflicts can only be taken so far, but the direct connection by which Israel’s pacification industry exports tools of control developed for use against the Palestinians (and Lebanese) to be deployed against Kashmiris (as well as against the Naxalites and others in India) shows a deep linkage between the two conflicts and how one feeds the other. So long as Israel seeks to maintain control over Palestine it will continue to develop pacification tools, and so long as India continues its campaigns in Jammu and Kashmir, Kashmiris can expect to taste the fruits of Palestinian pacification.
Jimmy Johnson is a Detroit-based mechanic and an organizer with the Palestine Cultural Office in Dearborn. He can be reached at johnson [dot] jimmy [at] gmail [dot] com.
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The story of dispossession and criminalisation of the Adivasis of central India
by Stan Swamy, August 03, 2010
1. The sad story of impoverishment of the Adivasi : A few examples will suffice. GladsonDungdung is a young human rights activist and writer. His family had 20 acres of fertile land in Simdega district, Jharkhand . It was forcibly acquired by the govt for the construction of a dam at a terribly low rate. The compensation for the 20 acres fertile land the family got was Rs. 11,000. Even by minimal standards, it should have been at least Rs. 20 Iakhs. This is just one example among many many such deprivations. Is this not deliberate impoverishment of a people ?
India is a Corporate Hindu State: Arundhati Roy
Karan Thapar , CNN-IBN, Sep 12, 2010
Hello and welcome to Devil’s Advocate. At the end of a week when the Maoists have been on the front pages practically every day, we present a completely different perspective to that of the government’s. My guest today is an author, essayist and Booker Prize winner, Arundhati Roy.
Karan Thapar: I want to talk to you about how you view the Maoists and how you think the government should respond, but first, how do you view the recent hostage taking in Bihar where four policemen were kidnapped and kept kidnapped for eight days, and one of them – Lukas Tete – murdered?
Arundhati Roy: I don’t think there is anything revolutionary about killing a person that is in custody. I have made a statement where I said it was as bad as the police killing Azad, as they did, in a fake encounter in Andhra. But, I actually shy away from this atrocity-based analysis that’s coming out of our TV screens these days because a part of it is meant for you to lose the big picture about what is this war about, who wants the war? Who needs the war?
U.S. poised to overtake Russia as biggest arms supplier in India’s rapid military buildup
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO100…-structure.htm
Rick Rozoff
A September 8 report by a leading Canadian newspaper cited the Indian branch of the Deloitte consulting firm estimating the world’s second most populous nation plans to spend as much as $80 billion for its defense sector in the next five years. It quoted an Indian journalist, Rahul Bedi, a contributor to Jane’s Defence Weekly, as stating “No one else is buying like India.” [1]
Earlier this year the authoritative Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) disclosed that India had become the world’s second-largest importer of weapons from 2005-2009, “importing 7% of the world’s arms exports.” Only China imported more weaponry, though that nation is slated to purchase less foreign arms, both aggregate and percentile, in the coming years and the largest foreign supplier of its weapons is a non-Western country, Russia.
During the five-year period mentioned above, Indian arms imports more than doubled from $1.04 billion in 2005 to $2.2 billion in 2009. Over the past 20 years Russia has been far and away the main provider of arms to India, as the Soviet Union had been in previous decades, though “The United States, currently India’s sixth-biggest arms supplier, seems likely to leapfrog to second position once New Delhi starts paying for a series of recent and ongoing acquisitions.” [2]
Those contracts include $1.1 billion for C-130J Super Hercules transport planes, $2.4 billion for Globemaster airlifters and $2 billion for P-8I long-range maritime patrol aircraft. (A version of Boeing’s Poseidon reconnaissance and anti-submarine warfare Multimission Maritime Aircraft modified for Indian use.) Reports in both the Russian and Chinese press speculate that when U.S. President Barack Obama visits India in November he “may secure $5 billion worth of arms sales,” a deal that “would make the US replace Russia as India’s biggest arms supplier” and “help India curb China’s rise.” [3]
The unprecedented weapons transactions could include “Patriot air defence batteries and Boeing mid-air refueling tankers.
“Observers point out that the role of India’s biggest arms supplier is shifting from Russia to the United States.” [4]
A Chinese news source added that Washington will also supply New Delhi with howitzers and that “the total cost of the deal may exceed $10 billion….”
The Economic Times of India disclosed in July that “talks are underway between Indian and US officials over a deal to sell 10 Boeing C-17 [Globemaster III] military transport aircraft to the Indian Air Force (IAF).”
Wang Mingzhi, a military strategist at the People’s Liberation Army Air Force Command College, warned “once India gets the C-17 transport aircraft, the mobility of its forces stationed along the border with China will be improved.” [5]
The C-17 carries a payload of 164,900 pounds for 2,400 miles and 100,300 pounds for 4,000 miles without refueling.
In late August the U.S. signed a $170 million deal to supply India with 24 Harpoon Block II advanced air-to-surface anti-ship missiles.
This February the Wall Street Journal revealed that the Obama administration, with a renewed focus on the Asia-Pacific region, intends to massively increase arms sales to both India and its nuclear rival Pakistan. U.S. military sales to Pakistan have risen to $3 billion a year and are expected to nearly double in 2011.
As for its neighbor, “India is one of the largest buyers of foreign-made munitions, with a long shopping list which includes warships, fighter jets, tanks and other weapons. Its defense budget is $30 billion for the fiscal year ending March 31, a 70% increase from five years ago.” [
Government rejection of Vedanta bauxite mine a “landmark victory” for Indigenous rights
Written by David Pugh
Dongria Kondh protesting Vedanta's bauxite mine project
Amnesty International: 24 August 2010
Amnesty International today described the Indian government’s decision to reject the bauxite mine project in Orissa’s Niyamgiri Hills as a landmark victory for the human rights of Indigenous communities.
India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests today rejected the mine project proposed by a subsidiary of UK-based Vedanta Resources and the state-owned Orissa Mining Corporation, after finding that the project already extensively violates forest and environmental laws and would perpetrate abuses against the Dongria Kondh adivasi and other communities on the Hills.
“The Dongria Kondh and other local communities have been struggling for years for this decision, which is a very welcome one,” said Amnesty International’s Asia-Pacific Deputy Director, Madhu Malhotra.
“The companies and the Orissa government should now guarantee that they will not attempt to simply move the project to another site without ensuring adequate safeguards – they must ensure they will respect the human rights of Indigenous and local communities wherever the companies operate.”
Amnesty International also welcomed the government’s decision to suspend the clearance process for the six-fold expansion of the Lanjigarh refinery at the foothills of Niyamgiri, operated by Vedanta subsidiary Vedanta Aluminium, after a government’s expert committee found it to be illegal.
“The authorities should order a clean-up of the Lanjigarh refinery, which has caused air and water pollution, seriously affecting the rights of neighbouring communities who are finding life there unbearable”, said Madhu Malhotra.
Amnesty International called on government authorities to establish a clear and transparent process that seeks the free, prior and informed consent of any Indigenous communities who may be affected by such projects, and respect their decision, in accordance with national and international law.
The Ministry-commissioned expert report that underpinned today’s decisions, documented the companies’ legal violations and human rights abuses. Its findings and the rejection of the project are consistent with Amnesty International’s extensive report published in February 2010, Don’t Mine us out of Existence: Bauxite Mine and Refinery Devastate Lives in India.
For eight years, the Dongria Kondh and other communities in Niyamgiri have been protesting against bauxite mining plans by Vedanta Resources subsidiary, Sterlite Industries India, and the Orissa Mining Corporation.
The communities were concerned that the project, which would have been situated on their traditional sacred lands and habitats, would result in violations of their rights as Indigenous peoples to water, food, health, work and other rights to protection of their culture and identity.
“After years of struggle and visits by committees our voice has finally reached Delhi,” a Dongria Kondh leader today told Amnesty International.
From http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/indian-government-rejection-vedanta-bauxite-mine-%E2%80%9Clandmark-victory%E2%80%9D-indigen
In Shining India, Over 5000 Children Die Every Day from Hunger and Malnutrition
Kandhamal district of Orissa has the highest Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) i.e. 121 out of one thousand live births among the 593 districts of India.
By Devinder Sharma
Ground Reality
The startling figure still resonates in my memory. Some 25 years back, I remember reading a report in one of the major dailies which said that some 5,000 children die every day in India. Today morning, my attention therefore was automatically drawn to a news report: 1.83 million children die before fifth bithday every year: Report (Indian Express, Sept 8, 2010).
I immediately took out a pen and paper to find out the per day child mortality rate. I wanted to know whether the child mortality rate has come down, and by how much, in the last 25 years or so. My disappointment has grown. The calculations shows that every day 5,013 children are succumbing to malnutrition. Given that a half of all children in India are under-nourished as per the National Family Health Survey III (2005-06), of which over 5,000 die every day I think every Indian needs to hang his/her head in shame.
Globally, 14,600 children die every day. This means that India alone has the dubious distinction of having more than a third of the world’s child mortality. This is ironically happening at a time when food is rotting in the godowns.
Yes, India is surely an emerging economic superpower, but building an Empire over hungry stomachs! Mera Bharat Mahaan!!
A new global report “A fair Chance at Life” by the international child rights organisation Save the Children is not only a damming indictment of the supplementary nutrition programmes that have been running for several decades now, but also is an eye-opener in many ways. While it tells us how hollow the global claims under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are, nationally it shows us the stark hidden realities. A country which doesn’t get tired of patting itself in the back for creating an impressive list of 50 billionaires, and off and on does bask under the fictitious glow of Shining India, the dark underbelly remains deliberately hidden from the media glare.
Let us look at what the report says: “Of the 26 million children born in India every year, approximately 1.83 million died before their fifth birthday. “What these aggregate figures do not reveal are the huge inequities in mortality rates across the country, within States and between them, as well as between children in urban and rural areas.”
Half of these children actually die within a month of being born. In other words, nearly 2,500 children of those who die have not even survived for more than a month. This is an indication of not only the inability of the parents to provide adequate nutrition to their new born, but more than that is a reflection of the impoverished condition of the especially the mother. Does it not tell us to what extent poverty and hunger prevails in this country? Do we need to still work out more effective parameters to measure hunger and malnutrition? Do we really need to find a new estimate of people living below the poverty line (BPL)?
Madhya Pradesh tops the list, followed closely by Uttar Pradesh. The under-5 mortality rate in Kerala was 14 deaths per 1000 live births. This stood at a sharp contrast to Madhya Pradesh at 92 per 1000 and 91 per 1000 for Uttar Pradesh.
I am reproducing below a news report from the pages of The Hindu (Sept 8, 2010):
‘Children from poorest section 3 times more likely to die before age of 5 than those from high income groups’
Children from the poorest communities are three times more likely to die before they reach the age of 5 than those from high income groups, Save the Children, a non-governmental organisation has said.
In a global report titled A Fair Chance at Life, the organisation said the policy to lower child mortality in India and elsewhere appeared to focus on children from better-off communities, leaving out those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.
“The 41 percentage decline in child mortality over the last two decades masks a dangerous expansion of the child mortality gap between the richest and poorest families in India,” Save the Children CEO Thomas Chandy said.
Child mortality is often described as the best barometer of social and economic progress. Despite being one of the fastest growing economies, there has been no visible pattern between per capita income growth and the rate of reduction of child mortality rates. In 2008, 5.3 lakh children under 5 died in the lowest income quintile in comparison to 1.78 lakh among the wealthy quintile. The rate of decline between 2005-06 and 1997-98 among the lowest income quintile is 22.69 per cent, compared to 34.37 per cent among the high income quintile for the same period.
Of the 26 million children born in India every year, approximately 1.83 million died before their fifth birthday. “What these aggregate figures do not reveal are the huge inequities in mortality rates across the country, within States and between them, as well as between children in urban and rural areas,” Mr. Chandy said.
“Every child has the right to survive and the Indian government has an obligation to protect them. Save the Children’s research shows that prioritising marginalised and excluded communities, especially in the States lagging behind, is one of the surest ways that India can reduce the number of children dying from easily preventable causes. The National Rural Health Mission, for example, should have a clear focus on social inclusion of Dalits and adivasis in terms of access to healthcare,” he said.
Save the Children’s report comes two weeks before a high-level U.N. summit in New York from September 20-22 to assess progress against the Millennium Development Goals.
By demonstrating a political will and the right policies, MDG4 could be achieved in India. The good schemes in place needed to be matched by effective implementation. And there was enough experience in India proving that low-cost interventions can make the difference between life and death for a child, the report said.
Huge inequity in child mortality rates: Survey
http://www.thehindu.com/news/article617626.ece
http://www.countercurrents.org/dsharma090910.htm
Report of torture, sexual assault and illegal detention of adivasis in Chhattisgarh
Chhattisgarh Police with Lathi
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT
The Indian authorities should order a prompt, impartial and independent investigation into reports of torture and ill-treatment, including rape and other sexual violence, against adivasis (indigenous people) illegally detained in Chhattisgarh, Amnesty International said today.
Adivasis from Pachangi and Aloor villages in Kanker district told Amnesty International that paramilitary Border Security Force (BSF) personnel and the Chhattisgarh state police rounded up 40 adivasi men from their villages on 5 and 6 September, stripped them and beat them with sticks. Five men – Narsingh Kumra, Sukram Netam, Premsingh Potayi, Raju Ram and Bidde Potayi were reportedly raped with sticks and are still being treated at the Kanker government hospital.
These violations followed the 29 August ambush of a BSF-police patrol by members of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) in which three BSF personnel and two policemen were killed.
Seventeen people from the two villages were also detained– blindfolded, split into batches and taken to the BSF camp at Durgkondal in closed trucks. Amnesty International has been informed that at least two of those detained – Dhansu Khemra and Sarita Tulavi – were 16 year old girls while another four were women and girls between 16 and 20.
During their detention, security forces beat the detainees in an attempt to force them to confess that they were Maoists involved in the 29 August ambush. The interrogators gave electric shocks to at least 10 detainees and sexually assaulted two female detainees.
Villagers said that on the morning of 7 September the Kanker police released one female detainee Sunita, as she was suffering from malaria, and her father, Punnim Tulavi, a school-teacher, but then arrested two more men.
The five remaining female detainees were taken to a local court along with two of the adivasi men on 8 September, while the remaining ten male detainees were taken to court on 10 September. All of the adivasis were charged with involvement in the 29 August ambush by the banned Maoist armed group and are presently in Kanker and Jagdalpur prisons, after being denied bail.
Indian law requires that arrested persons be produced before a court within 24 hours of the arrest. In an attempt to circumvent this requirement, the police claimed the two groups of detainees were arrested only one day before their respective appearances in court.
Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, including sexual violence, are prohibited in all circumstances, including war or other emergency under international law, and in particular the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Geneva Conventions. India is also a signatory to the United Nations’ Convention Against Torture and the Indian Parliament is currently engaged in passing a new law against torture in accordance with the provisions of the Convention before its ratification.
Amnesty International calls upon the Indian authorities to:
·- ensure a prompt, impartial, independent and effective investigation into the allegations of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual assault, and the illegal detention of adivasis. Those suspected of involvement in the violations, including persons bearing command responsibility, should immediately be suspended from positions where they may repeat such offences, and brought to justice; award the victims of torture and other ill-treatment full reparations. In particular, immediately ensure that all victims of torture and other ill-treatment, including sexual violence, are provided with proper medical care, both physical and psychological, by professionals trained and sensitised to treat such victims; and
--ensure that, if – as a measure of last resort – those under the age of 18 are kept in prison, they are held separately from adults and otherwise treated in accordance with India’s juvenile justice legislation and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which India is a state party.
Over the last five years, Chhattisgarh has witnessed an escalation of violence between the banned Maoists who claim to be fighting on behalf of the adivasis and India’s paramilitary forces. At least 600 people have been killed and some 30,000 adivasis continue to be displaced from their homes in the state.
http://www.amnesty.org
http://www.asiapacific.amnesty.org
Bihar police in no mood to fight the Maoists
Tehelka Magazine, September 17, 2010
Bloomberg Financial News, Sept 17, 2010
Union Home Secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai
Getting difficult for Indian government to control Manipur
Obstacles put up along NH-39 and a deserted street in Imphal due to a bandh
Rural India and Rural China: Both Battling Forced Displacement
Demonstration against the Narmada dam project
In a few days from now, the Narmada Bachao Andolan will reflect on the 25 years of struggle ’questioning displacement, assertion of land and forest rights, right to fisheries, right to food and health, livelihood security, exposure of corruption and navnirman (reconstruction) through the Jeevanshalas (life schools), micro-hydel projects, and solar projects.’ The struggle that began in 1985 questions the flawed policies in the name of development and economic growth. Growth for whom and what cost?
According to the NBA, rallies and public meetings at both the places — Dhadgaon in district Nandurbar in Maharashtra, and Badwani in district Badwani in Madhya Pradesh on Oct 22 and 23, respectively — amidst adivasis of Nandurbar, Alirajpur and farmers from the plains of Nimad would be reinforced with presence of some of the well-wishers from outside. Some months back, after I returned from the Narmada valley, I had written an analysis: Over 200,000 Narmada Dam oustees still to be rehabilitated; a crime that goes unpunished for 25 years.
DSU report on Kashmir conference in Delhi
Arundhati Roy & SAS Geelai on the dais in the historic public meeting on 'AZADI: The only way' 22nd October 2010 in LTG auditorium (Delhi)
A report (and great pictures) from the Democratic Students’ Union (DSU) at Jawaharlal Nehru University, October 23, 2010
Azaadi (Freedom): The Only Way Ahead in Kashmir
Yesterday in a historic convention in LTG Auditorium, Mandi House, many voices representing various peoples’ movements of South Asia reverberated to collectively assert that Azaadi is the only way ahead for Kashmir. Along with the prominent speakers from Kashmir, the struggling nationalities of Manipur, Nagalim, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, as well as activists, writers, intellectuals from India hailed the heroic struggle of the people of Kashmir for their denied self-determination, the aspiration for justice and dignity.
The communal-fascist lumpen brigade of RSS, ABVP and Panun Kashmir repeatedly tried to disrupt the proceedings, create a ruckus and assault the speakers on the dais, but were successfully resisted by the audience present there. The convention extended an overwhelming support to the ongoing movement against the occupation by the Indian armed forces, and the inalienable right of the Kashmiri’s right to self-determination, including secession from India. Once again, the corporate media today carried more of the news of the disruption with its general misinformation campaign, while purposefully erasing the solidarity which was reasserted in the assembly.
Varavara Rao & SAS Geelani being flanked by the Kashmiri youth and student volunteers as some right wing miscreants attempt to disrupt the proceedings for a while.
The media neither cared to report about the deliberations at the convention, nor about the spirit of unity among the oppressed peoples of Kashmir, India and other persecuted nationalities of South Asia. Far from a truthful reporting of the various views kept in the meeting, the Hindu-fundamentalist Indian corporate media demanded the booking of the organizers and speakers under charges of sedition!
At the same time, having failed to stop the convention from its successful completion, the Sangh-giroh has today gone to the parliament demanding a clampdown on all democratic spaces and platforms of solidarity among the people of India and Kashmir.
From June this year, Kashmir has witnessed one of the largest mass mobilizations against the Indian occupation. People of Kashmir have come out on the streets in tens of thousands braving the teargas, bullets and batons of the armed forces. With nothing but courage in their hearts and stones in their hands, the youth, men, women and even children of Kashmir continue to defy curfew and relentlessly uphold their aspiration of Azaadi. Since June this year, 111 Kashmiris including two children have been brutally shot dead by the police and CRPF. Neither the Indian ruling class nor the corporate media are ready to hear this clarion call of the people of Kashmir.
The response of the Indian state to this mass upsurge has yet again been bullets and brute force first, followed by sham committees and promises of ‘dialogue’. A delegation of parliamentary parties who are directly responsible for ordering the killings in Kashmir visited the Valley in the pretext of discussions. All that the Indian state could come up with following this much-hyped visit was to appoint a committee of ‘interlocutors’ who will further ‘interact’ with people in Kashmir to recommend some measures for reconciliation. This shows the complete lack of commitment of the Indian state to the settlement of the Kashmir dispute.
The people of Kashmir have proposed a five-point charter of demand to the Indian state, which asked for : 1. acceptance of the disputed nature of the territory of Jammu and Kashmir, 2. repeal of AFSPA and other black laws, 3. release of political detainees and prisoners, 4. withdrawal of the armed forces and 5. punishment of those police officers and armed men guilty of taking life in the past few months.
The fascist Indian state is yet to respond to these demands. What they came up instead is an ‘8 point formula’ which basically included ‘economic packages’. The Indian state is not ready to withdraw Indian Army or even review the draconian AFSPA. And all that the Indian state is doing is to delay any dialogue with the people in Kashmir and in the meantime employ more force to crush the movement of the people. It is not ready to accept Kashmir as even a dispute for that will bring out all ugly facts which are forcibly buried in the past.
The unfulfillment of the promise for plebiscite in United Nations in 1952, the prolonged suppression of peaceful movement till 1980s, the imprisonment of elected representatives in 1989, the presence of 8 lakh armed forces, the draconian AFSPA and PSA, the 70,000 people killed, the thousands who have simply ‘disappeared’, the thousand of rapes, the torture centers, the fake encounters, the crackdowns, the mass graves, the massacres… do we need more evidence of the real status of Kashmir, which was never an ‘integral part of India’.
We do not need any more ‘interlocution’ to hear what the people of Kashmir are saying.
In Solidarity with the brave Stone-pelters of the Valley
The writing is loud and clear on the walls of Kashmir. Slogans like ‘Go India Go Back’ and ‘hum kya chahte? Azaadi’ are echoing in the streets of the valley every single day!
With those braving the Indian Occupation Forces in Kashmir
The deaf Indian state might try to silence it, its corporate media lackeys might try to ignore the reality but this is what the millions of Kashmiris are saying in unison. No might of the colonizing Indian state can dominate this unflinching aspiration of the Kashmiri masses. It is the united fight of other oppressed nationalities along with the oppressed masses in India which can defeat this fascist brahminical state and its oppression.
A human-chain being formed by Kashmiri youth, students and organizers to shield the speakers from the sanghi hooligans who made a failed attempt to disrupt the historic meeting
Operation Green Hunt creates huge market for choppers
The Telegraph (Calcutta)
Maoist whirr in chopper race
SUJAN DUTTA
Bell’s Huey helicopter (top), which was used in the Vietnam war, and Eurocopter’s Fennec
New Delhi, Oct. 24: The counter-Naxalite drive often called Operation Green Hunt has resulted in a huge demand for helicopters that two global majors are vying to capture for the millions of dollars on offer.
The market for choppers has suddenly expanded with state and central police forces asking for more rotary-wing aircraft. There is a spurt in the demand because the Indian Air Force has told the Union home ministry it does not have enough to spare.
The Indian Air Force and the Indian Army are also in the middle of trials to buy hundreds of military helicopters. But global chopper-makers, Bell Textron and Eurocopter, are more enthused by the demand from the police forces because of the tardy process of military procurement.
Bell Textron is best known for the the UH-1 “Huey” – a legendary flying-machine that the US used in the war against the communist guerrillas (role models for the Naxalites) in Vietnam in the early 1970s – and was quicker off the blocks having sold its first helicopter in India nearly 53 years ago.
It has now sold more than 100 of different types of helicopters from its stable, increasingly to private and public sector companies. In 2009 alone, the company sold 22.
This week Eurocopter, part of the European aviation firm EADS, announced that it was setting up an Indian subsidiary. The company estimates that the Indian market will be worth nearly $ 140 million dollars in five years.
Bell Textron has 50 per cent of the Indian market for helicopters. Eurocopter India’s chief executive officer Marie-Agnes Veve said the company currently has 30 per cent of the market and is targeting a share of half the new demand in five years.
The market is estimated to be growing at 20 per cent year on year.
“We are looking only at the civilian and paramilitary markets,” she said. “We think we can sell 25 helicopters each year until 2015 because they are required in the (anti-) Naxalite operations and by private companies and as ambulances,” she added.
Bell and Eurocopter have been rivals for the military market in India too. In 2007, Eurocopter claimed to have won a bid to supply 197 helicopters for high-altitude tasks for the Indian army outracing Bell. Both Eurocopter and Bell also touched down on Mount Everest to demonstrate the power of their machines in the severe environment.
But Antony’s defence ministry cancelled that competition after suspicion that it was not conducted by the book. The companies are competing for the same order again.
Indian government backs off on filing charges against Arundhati, Geelani
Writer and activist Arundhati Roy addresses a seminar ‘Whither Kashmir: Freedom or enslavement', organised by the Coalition of Civil Societies, in Srinagar, on Sunday.
The Union government has no intention of filing criminal charges against Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, writer Arundhati Roy and others who spoke in favour of ‘azadi’ for Jammu and Kashmir at a seminar here last week, highly placed sources told The Hindu on Tuesday.
The Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party is taking a strident position, insisting that a case of sedition be lodged against those who spoke at the seminar, but the Centre believes that acting on this demand will undermine the fragile dialogue process the government’s three interlocutors have begun in Srinagar.
With Dileep Padgaonkar, Radha Kumar and M.M. Ansari urging those Kashmiris raising slogans in favour of ‘azadi’ to put their thoughts down in writing, the irony of criminalising a mere speech has not been lost on New Delhi.
“We knew the BJP would try and make the holding of the seminar an issue,” the sources said, adding police permission for the public event was given because the organisers could easily have gone to court had the authorities tried pre-emptively to gag them. The meeting was thus videographed, and the proceedings were scrutinised.
The sources said permission of the Ministry of Home Affairs was not needed for the police to file a case of sedition, but added that North Block did not believe that charging or arresting Mr. Geelani and Ms. Roy made sense.
“Geelani himself has said some 70 cases have been filed against him so let there be a 71st,” the sources said. They also admitted — as Ms. Roy herself notes in a statement issued on Tuesday — that scores of people in the Kashmir Valley say every day what the writer and the Hurriyat leader are accused of saying at the meeting. If the two of them are now to be arrested for sedition on the basis of their speech, so would scores of people in Srinagar.
The sources welcomed the efforts the three interlocutors had made so far and said the Centre’s aim was to begin a broad political process with all sections of the people in the State, but especially with those who say they want autonomy and ‘azaadi.’
Reactionary mob attacks Arundhati Roy's house
Neha Alawadhi, The Hindu, Nov 1, 2010
NEW DELHI: A large group of BJP Mahila Morcha activists protesting Arundhati Roy’s recent remarks on Kashmir broke into the compound of the writer’s residence here on Sunday.
The mob assembled outside Ms. Roy’s house in the high-security diplomatic enclave of Chanakyapuri around 11 a.m. and shouted slogans against her for more than half an hour. “Curiously, three news channel vans were stationed outside our house even before the protest began…the mob was abusive and broke through the front gate of the house,” Ms. Roy’s husband, Pradip Krishen, said.
Ms. Roy was not in the house at the time of the attack. In a statement, she said the mob numbered as many as a hundred persons. The activists broke a few flower pots kept outside the house and dispersed before the arrival of the police. They were prevented from entering the house by the guard and servants.
Mr. Krishen later lodged a complaint at the Chanakyapuri police station, following which police personnel were deployed outside the residence. He said this was the second such attack at their Kautilya Marg residence since June 2010, when some men on motorbikes pelted stones and smashed some windows.
Though Mr. Krishen had no idea about the identity of the protesters, he suspects that they were supported by a section of the Sangh Parivar “who have already declared their intention to harm and harass Arundhati Roy.”
Meanwhile, Shika Roy, Delhi unit president of the BJP Mahila Morcha, who led the protest, said: “The protest was organised against Arundhati Roy’s remarks on azadi for Kashmir. We chose to protest on Sunday as it happens to be the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhai Patel who united the whole country.”
The police have registered a case and are investigating.
Something for the media to think about
This is the text of the statement issued by writer Arundhati Roy:
A mob of about a hundred people arrived at my house at 11 this morning (Sunday October 31st 2010.) They broke through the gate and vandalized property. They shouted slogans against me for my views on Kashmir, and threatened to teach me a lesson. The OB Vans of NDTV, Times Now and News 24 were already in place ostensibly to cover the event live. TV reports say that the mob consisted largely of members of the BJP’s Mahila Morcha (Women’s wing).
After they left, the police advised us to let them know if in future we saw any OB vans hanging around the neighborhood because they said that was an indication that a mob was on its way. In June this year, after a false report in the papers by Press Trust of India (PTI) two men on motorcycles tried to stone the windows of my home. They too were accompanied by TV cameramen.
What is the nature of the agreement between these sections of the media and mobs and criminals in search of spectacle? Does the media which positions itself at the ‘scene’ in advance have a guarantee that the attacks and demonstrations will be non-violent? What happens if there is criminal trespass (as there was today) or even something worse? Does the media then become accessory to the crime?
This question is important, given that some TV channels and newspapers are in the process of brazenly inciting mob anger against me. In the race for sensationalism the line between reporting news and manufacturing news is becoming blurred. So what if a few people have to be sacrificed at the altar of TRP ratings? The Government has indicated that it does not intend to go ahead with the charges of sedition against me and the other speakers at a recent seminar on Azadi for Kashmir.
So the task of punishing me for my views seems to have been taken on by right wing storm troopers. The Bajrang Dal and the RSS have openly announced that they are going to “fix” me with all the means at their disposal including filing cases against me all over the country. The whole country has seen what they are capable of doing, the extent to which they are capable of going.
So, while the Government is showing a degree of maturity, are sections of the media and the infrastructure of democracy being rented out to those who believe in mob justice? I can understand that the BJP’s Mahila Morcha is using me to distract attention from the senior RSS activist Indresh Kumar who has recently been named in the CBI charge-sheet for the bomb blast in Ajmer Sharif in which several people were killed and many injured. But why are sections of the mainstream media doing the same? Is a writer with unpopular views more dangerous than a suspect in a bomb blast? Or is it a question of ideological alignment?
Bhopal gas victims protest against Obama
Bhopal, November 07, 2010
US President Barack Obama’s visit to India seems to have infused a new zeal in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy survivors who organised a protest in Bhopal on Sunday demanding action against American companies allegedly responsible for the disaster.
Their campaign started gaining momentum a few days before Obama’s arrival.They demonstrated near the now-shut Union Carbide India factory on Nov 6, the day Obama arrived in Mumbai.
The survivors staged a demonstration on Sunday at Neelam Park in Bhopal, posing as dead bodies.
The survivors have always been unhappy with the Indian government’s stand on not taking action against American companies and are now accusing the US president of adopting “double standards” on industrial disasters.
They are demanding that Obama and the US administration act against the erstwhile Union Carbide, owner of the pesticide plant in the city from which poisonous gas leaked in 1984, and Dow Chemical, which took over Union Carbide in 2001.
“It is understandable that America will not like to take action against a multinational company that plays a vital role in their economy. But that does not mean that our leaders will not raise concern or shy away from initiating talks with them,” said a survivor-turned-activist Abdul Jabbar of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan.
Bhopal tragedy survivors want action against Dow Chemical and erstwhile Union Carbide on the same lines as was proposed by Obama administration against British Petroleum whose oil spill contaminated the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year.
Safreen, a resident of Bhopal’s Gupta Nagar is a victim of the tragedy who now runs an organization called Children Against Dow-Carbide, said: “It’s high time we got justice.”
“We are expecting Obama to make both the accused companies – Dow Chemical and Union Carbide – accountable for the Bhopal tragedy,” she said.
Safreen’s mother was partially blinded by the gas leak. The toxic fumes left her father and brother, who was two years of age then, with a chronic heart disease.
Tonnes of poisonous methyl-iso-cyanate gas spewed out of the now-shut pesticide plant of Union Carbide India located in a congested part of Bhopal Dec 2-3 night in 1984, killing over 3,000 people overnight.
In the years that followed, people exposed to the gas kept dying or suffered from life-long ailments and complications. The deaths in the world’s worst industrial disaster are believed to have mounted to about 25,000 over the years.
On June 7, a Bhopal court held seven officials of the Union Carbide India plant and the company itself guilty of criminal negligence and causing the industrial disaster.
But as the guilty were bailed out within minutes of the verdict, survivors and activists called it a mockery of justice.
“If the Indian government is at all sympathetic to Bhopal gas tragedy survivors, then officials will talk to Obama on the issue,” said Rachna Dhingra of Bhopal gas tragedy information cell.
“Obama is only talking about the Mumbai terror attack but the corporations of his country have been terrorizing people of Bhopal for more than 26 years,” said Rashida Bee, a survivor and leader of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmachari Sangh, during the Sunday protest.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/623131.aspx
Indian State’s policy towards the Indigenous Adivasi People
Adivasi women protest government repression in Lalgarh, West Bengal
by Stan Swamy, November 9, 2010
Dispossess them first . . .
Displacement is painful for anybody. To leave the place where one was born and brought up, the house that one built up with one’s own labour can be even more painful. Most of all, when no rehabilitation has been worked out and one has nowhere to go, it is most painful. And when it comes to the Adivasi People for whom their land is not just an economic commodity but a source of spiritual sustenance, it can be heart-rending.
Displacement in Jharkhand
Undoubtedly the most pressing problem facing the poor, rural and tribal population in Jharkhand is the constant threat of their displacement from their ancestral habitat. This displacement is being justified by the politicians, bureaucrats and the urbanites, (totaling only 23% of the population of Jharkhand), as necessary for the progress(?) and development(?) of this State. The progress and development is for whom and for whose benefit is a matter that is often left unsaid.
The figures for displacement resulting in misery for the majority of Jharkhandis are quite revealing – a population of about 17 lakhs [1.7 million] have been displaced so far, out of which almost 85% are tribals and locals and only about 25% have been halfway and half-heartedly resettled. The above figure points out only the formally displaced for various projects and not the informally displaced.
A recent report says that about two lakh [200,000] Adivasi young women from Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal are presently working as house-maids in middle-class homes: 61,000 in Delhi, 42,000 in Kolkata, 36,000 in Mumbai, 13,000 in Bangalore, 26,000 in Goa. (Source: ‘Two lakh young adivasi women working as house-maids in big cities’, by Manoj in Hindustan (Hindi, March 24, 2003).
Land alienation
During this same period, about 15 lakh acres of land has been alienated from the Adivasi / Moolvasi people for various projects. This again does not include the illegal alienation amounting to about 8 lakh acres in and around the towns & cities of Jharkhand .
The Permanent Forum of the Indigenous Peoples of the U.N. has spelt out some principles to guide the process of the rehabilitation of the indigenous people when they are displaced: Free, prior and informed consent of the displaced persons/ families/communities must be ensured before displacing them.(Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues-UN- Sixth Session, 25 May 2007)
Their CONSENT must be
* Free: People’s consent has to be free of all coercion, pressure tactics, threats, promise of employment etc. The way the Indian govt and the companies go about the process of acquiring the land of the Indigenous People is the opposite of what it should be.
* Prior: The usual practice is first to start the project and when the to-be-affected people gather to protest or stop the project, the concerned company or the govt give them some scanty and incorrect information about the project and make some vague promises in terms of compensation / rehabilitation.
* Informed: it is necessary that people give their informed consent because otherwise they are forced to say yes without knowing all the implications and how exactly they will gain or lose.
* Consent: First of all, we must be very clear that consultation is not consent. Often the govt or the company go through the pretence of consultation with a few pliable persons from the affected villages, offer them some gifts in cash or kind, and afterwards claim that they have consulted people and the people have agreed for the project, to the compensation/rehabilitation package. This is a cheating game.
Let it be made very clear that the Indian State and corporate houses are guilty of violating the above norms.
Plethora of MoUs [Memoranda of Understanding between the government and the companies]
* Over the last decade, Jharkhand govt blindly went on signing one MoU after another with national and multi-national companies, totalling to more than a hundred, in complete disregard of existing constitutional provisions in favour of Adivasi People such as the CNT / SPT Acts, the Vth Schedule of the Constitution, the PESA Act, Forest Rights Act etc. Sad but true, neither the concerned company nor the govt ever thought that the people who are to sacrifice their land should also be consulted and their consent obtained. It is an irony of history that the incumbent Chief Minister Arjun Munda, during his two previous avatars as chief minister, signed the most number of MoUs (54 to be precise) .
Resistance to displacement:
* Not being able to put up any more with the callousness of the govt, the arrogance of the industrialists and the unsympathetic attitude of the police, people have started to resist displacement & land alienation on their own in and through local & regional level Resistance Movements. More than 100 groups and people’s organisations have come together under three to four umbrella organisations and are expressing mutual solidarity & support to each other’s struggles vs displacement & land alienation by holding big rallies & public meetings in major cities like Ranchi, Jamshedpur to express their unity, renew their resolve and manifest their show of strength.
Ants driving out the elephant
* An important achievement of this united people’s action has been that no big company has been able to set up shop in Jharkhand. Even the giant Mittal company was forced to roll up its mat and leave. True, some smaller companies (cement, sponge iron etc.) have succeeded in setting up their production units mostly by wholesale cheating and dividing local communities in connivance with local administration & police.
. . .and hunt them down as criminals
Operation Green Hunt
* This state of affairs was too much for the corporates to digest. Using their concerted pressure on the central govt and the men at helm such as Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, a new path was found by which all those leading the people’s movements vs displacement & land alienation would be considered enemies of the state and their proper name from now on will be ‘extremist’, ‘naxalite’, ‘maoist’. By the stroke of a genius, the name Operation Green Hunt was invented. Para-military forces from far and wide, known by their stinging names such as greyhounds, cobras, scorpions, have been brought in their thousands to do the hunting. . . not of any animals but of the impoverished and starving Adivasi people .
* The Home Minister did not tarry long to assure the nation that all the naxals / Maoists will be physically eliminated in five years time. He went further to announce that all those young men & women who will be suspected as “supporting / aiding” the naxals will be booked under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act with ten years in jail.
* The stage is all set to reach the peak of Operation Green Hunt. Hundreds of young men and some young women have been arrested as being naxals or supporters of naxals. About 50 village schools have been occupied by the para-military forces and another 40 schools on an on-and-off basis, thus halting the education of the little ones. The mid-day meal which for most of the children is the only full meal they get to eat has also been stopped in these schools. Any one found coming from the forest is assumed as having met the naxals, taken for questioning and beaten up. As women and children are forbidden to go into the forest they cannot collect any forest produce. For the first time in adivasi history, weekly village bazaars are closing down for lack of people to buy & sell forest produce. In short, our people are passing from the stage of hunger to one of starvation. Added to it is the state-sponsored programme of treating them as criminals.
The ‘encounter-killings’
* During the past five months, three encounter-killings of “naxals” by para-military forces were reported in the media. (1) a 30 year old house wife and mother of three small children by name Jasmintha Devi of Kherwa primitive tribe was killed in Ladhi village, Barvadih Block, Latehar Dist. on 27 April 2010, (2) a 45 year old Etwa Munda was killed near Gunti village, Tamar Block, Ranchi Dist. on 5 July 2010, (3) a 22 [?] year old Rajesh Singh Munda was killed near Heso village, Namkum Block, Ranchi Dist on 1 August 2010.Operation Green Hunt Virodhi Nagrik Manch, composed of some concerned citizens, did a fact-finding study of all three incidents and found none of the three killings were encounter-killings but murder in cold-blood.
* The comfortably settled govt bureaucrat babus, the ‘profit-first’ business fraternity, the up-coming amoral professionals, the slumbering self-styled ‘intellectuals’, the consumer-thirsty urban middle class are the least concerned about the harassment and atrocities perpetrated on the meek and humble people living on the periphery of society. Religious bodies know what is happening but will not sully their hands with what they consider ‘dirty politics’ and prefer to look the other way. Social organisations and most NGOs realise the gravity of the situation but would rather not meddle with it lest it jeopardises the copious foreign funds they are receiving.
So, finally it is a handful few from different walks of life who enter the arena knowing full well the risk they are taking and start blowing the whistle. This small group includes several men and women from the exploited, oppressed communities. The emergence of Op Green Hunt Virodhi Nagrik Manch (OGHVNM) is one such effort.
Four members of OGHVNM have been arrested during the past three months
On 25th June 2010 OGHVNM organised a rally & public meeting against Op Green Hunt in Ranchi. Over a thousand men & women who were on their way in about ten buses from some outlying districts were stopped by the police and prevented from proceeding to Ranchi.
First disposess them then hunt them down is the policy of the state
* Most of the Adivasi People living in the far flung villages are an impoverished people. The whole state of Jharkhand has been declared ‘drought-affected’ but no relief packages have been mobilised. Every day a few hundred men, women and children are migrating to far off places without even knowing the destination they are headed to. Young Adivasi women are disappearing by the dozens under a well designed racketeering system.
* All this does not seem to be a matter of concern to the govt, the predominantly outsider bureaucrats of local administrations, the industrial & business class, the upper & middle classes. In fact they are all very much for Operation Green Hunt. The print and electronic media do not lag far behind in so far as they vie with each other in highlighting the “success stories” of the police & para-military forces in arresting and killing young Adivasi men & women who have become automatic suspects of either being naxals or supporters of naxals. In short, the Adivasi People of central & east India are perhaps at the lowest ebb of their existence as a people . At least they were never hunted like animals in their own land in any other part of their history.
http://sanhati.com/articles/2943/
'Trading Kashmir for Boeing,' says Arundhati Roy
NEW YORK CITY, US—India’s renowned activist and novelist Arundhati Roy has made another impassioned plea for Kashmir’s right to self-determination in an op-ed in The New York Times. In her ironic style, she has ridiculed US President Barrack Obama, the Indian military and government, and reintroduced Shakeel to the world, the young Kashmiri whose 22-year-old wife and 17-year-old sister were raped and murdered by Indian occupation soldiers and thrown into a river.
But the best part of her op-ed, titled, Kashmir’s Fruits’ of Discord, is her take on the Indo-US double blackmail: how the United States is using Kashmir to blackmail India, and how India is using arms purchases to blackmail the US. This is how she puts it:
“While [Obama] spoke eloquently about threats of terrorism, he kept quiet about human rights abuses in Kashmir. Whether Mr. Obama decides to change his position on Kashmir again depends on several factors: how the war in Afghanistan is going, how much help the United States needs from Pakistan and whether the government of India goes aircraft shopping this winter. (An order for 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III aircraft, worth $5.8 billion, among other huge business deals in the pipeline, may ensure the president’s silence.) But neither Mr. Obama’s silence nor his intervention is likely to make the people in Kashmir drop the stones in their hands.”
Speaking out about Kashmir and Palestine
Yasmin Qureshi, The Electronic Intifada, 9 November 2010
Kashmiri protesters throw stones at paramilitary soldiers and police during a protest in Srinagar, September 2010. (Rouf Bhat/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom)
The United States has become a battleground for both the struggles of the peoples of Palestine and Kashmir, for freedom from military occupation and for justice. Awareness amongst the US public is broadened as the repression of both struggles grows ever more violent, and meanwhile those wishing to stifle debate on these issues in the US resort to harassment and intimidation.
The same day that renowned activist and writer Arundhati Roy commented that “Kashmir was never an integral part of India,” for which her home was later attacked, I was subjected to harassment here in the US while I spoke about the human rights situation in Kashmir. Though not threatened in the way that Roy was, what we both experienced were attempts to silence us. Forces sympathetic to the same right-wing ideology as those who attacked Roy mobilized their ranks by putting out an alert stating: “An Indian Muslim Woman is speaking about azadi [freedom] of Kashmiris and we should protest.”
After my presentation at the main public library in San Jose, California last month, I was told by one member of the audience that “You are the very reason why we Hindus hate Muslims,” and that comment was followed by many that were worse. I was called an extremist and told “Your presentation is a lie; this is India-bashing.” The abuse I received will be familiar to those who have been on the receiving end of the backlash when speaking about the Palestinian cause.
Indeed, a week earlier, Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa was called an extremist by Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz at the Boston Book Festival after she presented well-established facts about Palestine. He resorted to name calling and ad hominem attacks.
Israel and India are often represented in US media as bastions of democracy in the Middle East and South Asia, respectively. Supporters of the policies of both governments delegitimize any resistance or criticism and discourage revelation of the truth through intimidation and personal attacks.
Kashmir is the most militarized zone in the world with close to 700,000 Indian troops. According to Professor Angana Chatterji of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), between the years of 1989 and 2000, “In Kashmir, 70,000 are dead, over 8,000 have been disappeared and 250,000 have been displaced … India’s military governance penetrates every facet of life. … The hyper-presence of militarization forms a graphic shroud over Kashmir: detention and interrogation centers, army cantonments, abandoned buildings, bullet holes, bunkers and watchtowers, detour signs, deserted public squares, armed personnel, counter-insurgents and vehicular and electronic espionage” (“Kashmir: A Time For Freedom,” Greater Kashmir, 25 September 2010).
Because she has spoken out, Chatterji has become a target of right-wing Hindutva groups — those espousing an exclusivist Hindu nationalist ideology in India that often denigrates and denies the legitimacy of non-Hindus in India. Hindutva groups in the US and India have attacked her because of her work tracking funding to Hindutva groups from the US after the 2002 pogrom of Muslims in Gujarat and more recently as co-conveyer of the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir. Chatterji told me: “I was threatened with rape by Hindutva groups in 2005. Since announcing the Kashmir Tribunal in April 2008, each time I have entered or left India since, I have been stopped or detained at immigration.” Richard Shapiro, her partner and chair and associate professor at CIIS, was banned from entering India on 1 November 2010.
Hindutva groups try to scuttle any broader discussion about human rights violations in Kashmir, the conditional annexation by India in 1947 or right to self-determination by limiting it to the issue of the displacement and killings of the upper caste minority Kashmiri Hindu Pandits in the late 1980s and by insisting that Kashmir is not an international issue.
Similarly, Zionists seeking to draw attention away from Israel’s abuses of Palestinians’ human rights often focus exclusively on suicide bombings or the rule of Hamas. Their aim is to silence any discussion of the historic Palestinian demands for the implementation of the refugees’ right of return, an end to the military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and equality for Palestinian citizens in Israel.
And the front line in the battle to influence US public opinion towards both the Kashmir and Palestine struggles can be found at the university campus.
“There is a well-orchestrated and funded campaign of intimidation and harassment by Zionist and Hindutva groups on campuses to target academics,” says Sunaina Maira, Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis campus. Zionist academics tried to pressure the University of California, Berkeley to cancel an event last month titled “What Can American Academia Do to Realize Justice for Palestinians,” organized by the Students for Justice in Palestine. In a letter to the school’s chancellor, the groups urged him to withdraw official university sponsorship of the event and publicly condemn the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid at the school’s campus.
A similar attempt was made in 2006 by Indian American members of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, when they tried to cancel a panel titled “South Asian-Arab solidarity against Israeli apartheid” at Stanford University. The objective was to bring South Asians and Arabs together to take a unified stand against US imperialism and Israeli apartheid and speak up against the Zionist-Hindutva alliances. Despite the attempts by outside groups to stifle free speech, both these events eventually did take place on the campuses and were quite successful.
The attempts to silence those who speak out in the US are not the only thing that Kashmir and Palestine have in common. Both Kashmiris and Palestinians are struggling for justice and freedom against highly-militarized occupations. The recent protests by stone-throwing Kashmiri youth drew comparisons to the first intifada in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
And it is perhaps the linking of these struggles that those who stand in the way of freedom for oppressed peoples fear the most. Notably, Zionists and Hindutva advocates have adopted a similar Islamophobic language and worldview that considers any grievances or struggles by Muslims to be simply a cover for “jihadism” or “wahhabism” and thus justifies treating all such movements for justice — however they are conducted — as “terrorist.”
While the situations in Kashmir and Palestine are not completely analogous, in recent years India and Israel have fostered political and military links, including arms sales, joint intelligence, trade agreements and cultural exchanges.
Historically India has been supportive of the Palestinian struggle. But in 1992 India established diplomatic relations with Israel and ties were further strengthened in 2000 when India Home Minister L.K. Advani visited Israel; Advani is considered the architect of the rise of the Hindutva movement in the 1980s and ’90s. Today India is the largest buyer of Israel’s arms and Israel is training Indian military units in “counter-terrorist” tactics and urban warfare to be used against Kashmiris and resistance groups in northeast and central India.
The repressive governments of both India and Israel enjoy a warm relationship with the the US. Bilateral defense ties between US and India — based on the new strategic realities of Asia — is one of the objectives of US President Barack Obama’s current visit to India, according to the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), a Washington-based think tank. The US also gives $3 billion in military aid to Israel annually.
Such alliances between states, which aim to perpetuate injustice and maintain regimes that are rejected by those forced to live under them, underscore the need for education and solidarity among supporters of those long denied their freedom, equality and self-determination.
Those in the US who defend the status quo may resort to tactics of intimidation. But just as state repression in Kashmir and Palestine has failed to quell those struggles for freedom, those of us in the US concerned with justice in Palestine and Kashmir — and the US government’s role in each — will not be intimidated into silence.
Yasmin Qureshi is a San Francisco Bay Area professional and human rights activist involved in social justice movements in South Asia and Palestine. Her article on Kashmir, “Democracy Under the Barrel of a Gun,” was published in June 2010 by CounterPunch and ZCommunications.
US rights activists protest ban of scholar from Kashmir
Protest at the Indian Consulate: Revoke the Barring of Professor Richard Shapiro, End the Isolation of Kashmiris
On November 8th at 11am, a group of more than 50 students and community members protested India’s banning of Richard Shapiro. The protest took place at the San Francisco Consulate General of India and lasted over an hour. Statements were read attesting to the violations perpetrated by the indefinite ban placed on Professor Shapiro’s travel to India and called for its revocation. A memorandum crafted and signed by students and friends of Richard Shapiro was delivered to, and accepted by, consulate staff.
On November 1st, 2010, Professor Shapiro was denied entry by the Immigration Authorities in New Delhi. Professor Shapiro is a US Citizen and Chair, Anthropology Department, at California Institute of Integral Studies.
Professor Shapiro traveled to India with his life partner, Professor Angana Chatterji, a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the US. Professor Chatterji, a prominent and frequent visitor to the region, was granted entry to India while Professor Shapiro was prevented from entering the country. Reports indicate that no legal basis was given for the decision to deny his entry. Professor Shapiro was in possession of a valid passport and visa.
Given that Professor Shapiro’s work focuses neither on South Asia nor India, it appears that his right to travel has been restricted in an attempt to further intimidate Professor Chatterji, and to discourage her from continuing her work as Co-Convener of the International People’s Tribunal for Human Rights and Justice in Kashmir (IPTK)
Since 2006, Shapiro has regularly traveled to Kashmir, and interacted with various human rights defenders, scholars, and youth to bear witness and to learn from their experiences. The focus of his scholarship and academic work is not India or Kashmir, but issues of race, class, gender, and alliance building in the United States, and discourses on power and subjectivity.
Richard Shapiro had written an op-ed on Kashmir in 2009 and another in September 2010. These were analytical pieces based on articles and newspaper reports, and not on primary research that had been conducted by him. Any scholar can do that. This is a matter of academic freedom, and beyond the control of states and their desire to regulate thinking on the injustices they perpetrate.
The Indian state has regularly targeted those that have been outspoken on injustices and military governance in Kashmir. The Indian state has targeted Professor Angana Chatterji and her colleagues in Kashmir, Parvez Imroz and Khurram Parvez, for their work defending human rights. Recently, writer Arundhati Roy was a target. When academics, writers, and journalists are banned, such actions speak to the intent of the Indian State in maintaining impunity, and in deliberately isolating Kashmiris from the world and the world from Kashmiris.
Friends and Allies of Richard Shapiro point out that when academics, writers, and journalists are banned, such actions speak to the intent of the Indian State in maintaining impunity, and in deliberately isolating Kashmiris from the world, and the world from KashmirisThis arbitrary and undemocratic act by the Indian government is an affront to academic freedom, the right of families to be together, and further isolates Kashmiris from international solidarity in their struggle for peace and justice. The barring of an international scholar to Kashmir raises?serious questions into the functioning of democratic rights and human rights conditions of Kashmiris. Denying Shapiro entry without due cause impinges upon academic freedom, freedom of movement, and the right to travel with his legal partner and to visit his family in Kolkata.
The demonstrators called upon the Government of India to:
* Revoke the entry ban of Richard Shapiro from India.?* Stop obstruction of the IPTK’s work.?* End barring without due cause.?* Support democratic processes, the exchange of ideas.
For more information on the IPTK, see http://www.kashmirprocess.org.
For a press note by Scholars at Risk regarding Professor Shapiro, please visit:
http://scholarsatrisk.nyu.edu/Events-News/Article-Detail.php?art_uid=2454
The op-eds by Richard Shapiro:?Governing Kashmir (August 2010):
http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2010/Aug/29/governing-kashmir-17.asp
A Just Peace in Kashmir? (August 2009):
http://www.zcommunications.org/a-just-peace-in-kashmir-by-richard-shapiro.
Indian-Israel military ties strengthen
From antipathy to military cooperation–India and Israel: an unlikely alliance
by Isabelle Saint-Mézard, Le Monde Diplomatique
India has the world’s third largest Muslim population, and political and economic ties with Arab nations. It is also buying weapons and military expertise from its new friend Israel.
India and Israel were born (in 1947 and 1948) through long and violent partition processes, from the ruins of the British empire. Both were caught up in inextricable armed conflicts. Yet this did not make for any particular affinity between the countries: rather the reverse.
India had its reasons: it was worried that the Muslim world would side with Pakistan over its claim to Kashmir; it was concerned about energy security (India depends largely on the Middle East for its oil); and in the late 1980s and 1990s, when it had a serious payments imbalance, it relied on money sent back home by the many expatriates working in the Gulf states .
From the 1920s onwards, the leaders of India’s nationalist movement sided with the Palestinian Arabs against British imperialism, opposing the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state. India voted against the partition of Palestine at the UN General Assembly of 1947, and only recognised Israel in 1950. Until the 1980s it formed a bloc with the Arab countries at the UN and within the Non-aligned Movement, in defence of the Palestinian people’s right to a sovereign state.
But the gap between India and Israel has narrowed over the years. As early as the 1960s the two countries established secret military and intelligence contacts. Israel was willing to help the Indian army in its conflicts with China (in 1962) and Pakistan (in 1965 and 1971). In 1978, Israel’s foreign minister Moshe Dayan even made a secret trip to India to propose cooperation.
In 1992 New Delhi established formal diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv. The decision was facilitated by the end of the cold war and the Madrid Middle East conference of October 1991, which gave hopes for peace. But it was also prompted by India’s disappointment with the meagre results of its foreign policy: it had never managed to neutralise Pakistan’s influence among the Arab countries and its own position on Kashmir had been repeatedly condemned by resolutions of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
Diplomatic relations with Israel were initiated by the centre-left Indian National Congress (Congress Party) but it was the extremist Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power between 1998 and 2004, which developed the partnership and gave it meaning. Suspicious of, if not hostile to, the Muslim world, the BJP did not hesitate to show its sympathy for Israel. Unlike the Congress Party, the BJP has never felt constrained by the opinion of India’s Muslim minority in its domestic policy. The post-9/11 situation strengthened the relationship as the BJP-led coalition government eagerly promoted the idea of liberal democracies forming a united front against Islamist terrorism. The BJP invited Israel’s prime minister Ariel Sharon to visit India in September 2003, to commemorate the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the US.
This led to the dream of a strategic triangle between Israel, India and the US, an idea first put forward on 8 May 2003 by Brajesh Mishra, then India’s national security adviser, in a speech at a dinner of the American Jewish Committee: “Our principal theme here today is a collective remembrance of the horrors of terrorism and a celebration of the alliance of free societies involved in combating this scourge. The US, India and Israel have all been prime targets of terrorism. They have to jointly face the same ugly face of modern day terrorism”. Later, representatives of the governments discussed defence and anti-terrorism issues. Meanwhile, a decisive rapprochement was taking place between pro-Indian and pro-Israeli pressure groups in Washington.
Congress in Power
After the Congress Party’s return to office at the head of a coalition government in 2004 there was less emphasis on the ideology, but the Indian-Israeli relationship was not fundamentally affected because it concerned the priority areas of defence and security.
The range of links has diversified and there is now collaboration in agriculture, tourism, science and technology. Although largely dependent on the diamond industry, which accounted for nearly 50% of all trade between the two countries in 2008, commercial exchanges between India and Israel rose in value from $200m in 1992 to $4bn in 2008. But defence remains the core of the cooperative relationship.
Israel’s defence industry relies on exports for its survival. Until the end of the 1990s most shipments were to China. But the US veto on the transfer of sensitive technologies to China forced Israel to look to other markets, including India. This proved fruitful as economic growth allowed India to finance its (considerable) requirements for defence equipment. India was looking for new suppliers, as Russian manufacturers were only able to fill part of the void left by the disappearance of its former Soviet suppliers. (Many Soviet production lines were dismantled or put out of action after 1991.) The US was also moving closer to India, which facilitated technology transfer.
The Phalcon radar systems developed by Israel Aerospace Industries for the Indian air force are a good example. Having forbidden their sale to China in 2000, the US authorised their sale to India. The conclusion New Delhi drew was that a rapprochement with Tel Aviv would give it access to technology the US was reluctant to export.
In a decade, Tel Aviv has become a leading supplier of arms to India, now its largest export market. The value of the contracts signed over the last 10 years is estimated at nearly $10bn. Flexibility and responsiveness are Israel’s great strengths. It was able to adapt right away to the needs of India’s armed forces (most of whose equipment is Soviet or Russian) and gained lucrative contracts for the modernisation of Russian equipment: tanks, aircraft carriers, helicopters and fighter aircraft have all been fitted with Israeli electronics; it was able to respond quickly when supplying the Indian army with munitions during the 1999 confrontation with Pakistan in Kashmir, the “Kargil crisis”.
Industrial cooperation has centred on surveillance radar and drone aircraft, and on missile systems. India and Israel signed a contract worth $1.1bn for three Phalcon radar systems in 2004. Cooperation on missiles began in 2001 with a contract worth $270m for a ship defence system based on Barak missiles. It reached a new level in January 2006 when the countries agreed to jointly develop a new generation of missiles. This brought Israel into competition with Russia, which was also jointly developing cruise missiles with India. In 2007, India and Israel unveiled a joint project worth $2.5bn for the development of a new air defence system based on Barak missiles, for use by the Indian air force and army.
[The pilotless drones mentioned above and the satellite mentioned below are not just spying on Pakistani forces; they are being used to gather intelligence on the people's uprising in Kashmir and the Maoist-led resistance of the adivasis in eastern and central India.-ed]
Spy Satellites
Another area of cooperation is satellite imaging. In January 2008 India launched an advanced spy satellite on Israel’s behalf, capable of providing information on strategic installations in Iran. In April 2009 India launched its own spy satellite, acquired as a matter of urgency after the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008 that left 170 dead and revealed serious gaps in its territorial surveillance network. India also spent $600m on Israeli radar to strengthen the warning systems along its western seaboard.
Israel is certainly a privileged partner in India’s efforts to improve its territorial security systems. The countries are strengthening an already close cooperative relationship on counter-terrorism. Israel has helped India to build a barrier along the “line of control”, its de facto border with Pakistan; it has provided surveillance systems to prevent infiltration by Islamist militants and Israelis are among the few outside consultants to have visited the theatre of operations in Kashmir.
New Delhi, like most of the international community, still supports the creation of an independent and viable Palestinian state. But the crises between Israel and its neighbours have taught India to hedge its diplomatic bets. It tries to keep the relationship with Israel separate from the Middle East situation – to protect its cooperative relationship with Israel while taking care not to antagonise Arab countries. India’s official statements are carefully worded, condemning in turn the violence of the terrorist attacks against Israel and the brutality of the reprisals.
While moving closer to Israel, India also began to develop ties with Iran in the early 2000s. Before Ariel Sharon’s visit in September 2003, New Delhi had received the Iranian president Mohammad Khatami. Paradoxically, the rapprochement with Israel has given India new leverage in its Middle East policy: since they cannot be sure of India’s support, Middle East countries pay greater heed to Indian interests.
The relationship with Israel is a delicate matter for internal even more than external reasons: India needs to consider the feelings of its Muslim minority (14% of the population). It also has to take account of the left wing, heirs to the anti-imperialist tradition, who protest against any overtly pro-Israel policy. Indian decision-makers strive for discretion in their dealings with Israel, but maintaining a balance is much more difficult in times of crisis: during the Lebanon war of 2006, New Delhi at first confined itself to hesitant condemnation of Israel’s actions, then hardened its tone under pressure from the communist parties and Muslim voters. Exasperation eventually led the Indian parliament to the unanimous adoption of a resolution condemning the offensive.
At a diplomatic level, India’s hesitation over the Middle East is the result of a predictable polarisation between those who take the traditional pro-Arab position and those in favour of partnership with Israel. But it also reveals internal tension between the need to appease a minority of 160 million who make India the world’s third largest Muslim population and a fascination with Israel’s methods, which some in New Delhi would like to try against terrorist movements based in Pakistan.
AREVA Nuclear Power Project in Maharasta: 3000 Villagers Court Arrest
MADBAN VILLAGE (RATNAGIRI): This tiny village took on the might of the state on Friday and by the evening, victory clearly belonged to it. Despite preventive arrests, prohibitory orders and road blocks more than 3000 villagers’ courted arrests, as part of their ‘Jail Bharo’ agitation. By 6 pm, the police requested the leaders of the agitation to stop the flow of people.
The agitation was primarily in response to the government claim that the villagers were quiet and only a handful of outsiders were leading the agitation against the proposed 10000 MW nuclear power project in the village.
The villagers were angry because the government was refusing to tell them the truth and releasing information in bits and pieces. “After all, we are the ones to be directly affected,” said Sanjay Gavankar, a villager, who runs a cashew nut factory.
The villagers had steadfastly refused compensation and even lit bon fires of the revised compensation package announced by the state revenue minister Narayan Rane, whose son Nilesh, is the MP from Sindhudurg-Ratnagiri.
Jail Bharo demonstration in New Delhi
Retired High Court judge B G Kolse-Patil, who had being served orders preventing him from entering Ratnagiri District, flouted the ban and attended the rally. While the police were looking for him on the road, he took the sea route and appeared dramatically in the temple at 3 pm. “I will oppose this sort of high-handedness by the state tooth and nail,” he said. The police had to physically carry him off to arrest him.
Retired Admiral L Ramdas and retired Supreme Court Judge P B Samant, who were coming to the rally, were stopped by the police at Hativali junction on the Mumbai-Goa Highway.
The NPCIL (Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd) is planning to import untested nuclear reactors from French company, Areva. The reactor is not in operation anywhere in the world. US and European nuclear regulators have identified severe flaws in the reactor and none of them have approved the complete details of the design.?To keep India safe from these risky reactors sign the petition to Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh here
Why is the ‘adivasis soldier’ silent when the government attacks them?
Rahul Gandhi, Congress Party leader, momentary self-proclaimed "adivasi soldier"--now inexplicably silent
By Gladson Dungdung (Guest Contributor, Sanhati)
On August 26, 2010, the Congress leader and self-proclaimed soldier of the Adivasis, Rahul Gandhi visited to Niyamgiri in Orissa just two days after the Indian government denied clearance to the Vedanta Resource’s Rs.4500 crore bauxite mining project in Niyamgiri Hills.
While addressing a rally of 3000 colourfully dressed Dongria Kondh and other Adivasis at Jagannathpur village who have been fighting to save their holy mountain he said, “I am your soldier in Delhi. Whenever you need me, I will be there for you.” He got a huge ovation when he said, “True development takes place by respecting the interests of the poor and Adivasis.”
However, just two months later, the migrant Jharkhandi Adivasis were attacked by the Forest Department in Assam but the Adivasis’ soldier is still silent. Therefore, the Adivasis want to know why their soldier is silent. Is he shocked at the incident or is he silent because if he opens his mouth the Congress Government may face severe problems in Assam?
Update on people's struggle against South Korea's POSCO steel project
POSCO, a large corporation, wants to invest in the mining industry in Orissa (India) and build a steel plant, captive power station and port in Erasama block of Jagatsinghpur district – people’s protest intensifies.
Police at the 1st April, 2008 rally
A Note of POSCO Pratirodh Sangharsa Samiti ( PPSS), Jagatsinghpur, Odisha
A Brief Background:
On June 22 2005, Pohang Steel Company (POSCO), a large South Korean corporation, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Orissa in eastern India. This MOU outlined POSCO’s proposal to invest in the mining industry and build a steel plant, captive power station and port in Erasama block of Jagatsinghpur district.
For the last five years, people living in the villages of the proposed site under the banner of POSCO Pratirodh Sanghrsa Samiti (Anti-POSCO People’s Movement) have been relentlessly protesting against the land acquisition process. More than 4000 families totaling a population of 30,000 will be affected by the project. These include all those persons directly dependant on the betel vine cultivation, pisiculture, cashew nut cultivation, and fishing in the Jatadhari Muhana (estuary) where the port has been proposed.
Another 20,000 people from Erasama, Tirtol, and Kujang block will be affected if the port comes up at Jatadhari. Loss of self-sustained and thriving local economy, of livelihood and of an entire way of life is the major concern on which the local resistance to the project is based.
POSCO has applied for prospecting licenses and direct leases for mining. The license would allow the company to mine on 2,500 hectares in iron ore rich Khandadhar in Sundergarh district. These areas are currently covered with dense forest, which is home to a wide variety of wildlife and flora. The Indigenous communities living there are totally dependent on these forests for fuel, fodder, fruits and medicinal plants. The water springs that exist there provide water for drinking as well as irrigation. The proposed steel plant is predicted to have devastating impacts on the environment and ecology in the area. Furthermore, the mining will affect the Khandadhar waterfall – a famed tourist destination in the state.
The opposition to the plant and port site has rapidly built up. While there were mixed reactions initially, people of Dhinkia, Gadakujang and Nuagoan panchayats soon realized that they faced the threat of losing their land without gaining anything in return. The news of the MoU to be signed was already out in early April 2005. The MoU was signed in June and on July 11 of 2005, the three Panchayats Nuagoan, Gadakujang and Dhinkia came together and formed POSCO Pratirodah Sangram Samiti (PPSS) to oppose the project. Villagers across different party lines and ideology have converged to form the PPSS.
This lopsided, iniquitous, and environmentally destructive process of development has propelled the people to stand up against the state. The traditional modes of livelihood are seriously threatened. There are no appropriate alternatives in sight. It is at this juncture that PPSS gave expression to the common demand and will of the villagers.
Organizing the Struggle:
The Erasama constituency was a stronghold of the CPI in the post-independence period. Loknath Chaudhary, who was a member of parliament from this area in the 1970s and 1980s built local cadre in some pockets such as Dhinkia panchayat. He earned a great deal of goodwill in the area. He had a reputation for his integrity. The CPI thus has a strong base in the area.
Mr. Abhay Sahu, state secretary of the CPI was sent to the area in July 2005 to lead the anti-POSCO movement and mobilise the party cadres. According to Mr. Abhya Sahu, the CPI does not own the anti-POSCO movement, it merely provides the leadership. He sees it as a people’s struggle. The PPSS has 21 members in its executive committee who are chosen by the people.
Reactions to the Struggle:
POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS) have peacefully protested for the last five years. They have struggled to protect their life and livelihood despite repression by the state machinery. PPSS activists are also facing intimidation and assault from hired goons of POSCO and members of the United Action Committee (UAC) a pro-POSCO outfit active in the area. On April 20, 2008, people under the banner of PPSS offered Shramadan (Voluntary labour ) by digging at the confluence of the river Jatadhari with the Bay of Bengal.
This was done to avoid the continuous water logging problem in their agricultural lands.On 21st April, 2010, when the villagers were returning after finishing the dredging work; they were attacked by a few pro-POSCO villagers in Govindpur village. Dula Mandal of PPSS was killed in the bomb attack. Another PPSS member, Dhruba Sahani was critically injured. The leader of PPSS did not allow people to retaliate. Instead, the attackers were held hostage for two days and then handed over to police unhurt.
Public Support.
The struggle of the PPSS has received legitimacy from the general public from across the state, from left parties in the state and social and political movements from the state and across the country. It has also received the support of various human and environmental rights groups across globe including South Korea.
The key strategies of protest used so far include:
* Sending memorandum to the authorities
* Picketing at POSCO’s local office
* Holding rallies and demonstrations
* Gheraoing the local MLA
* Blockading the area to prevent the entry of all government and POSCO officials
The most effective strategy to stall progress of the project has been the setting up of check-posts in the area by the local communities. These check-posts have restricted the movement of local officials and POSCO staff at the project site.
Now the struggle has reached the decisive stage since both the state and PPSS are determined to have their way.
Demands of PPSS:
1. The government puts a stop to such grave human rights violations in the proposed project area.
2. The government immediately withdraws its police force from the area.
3. The government ensures that POSCO immediately withdraws from the proposed project for the greater benefit of the state of Orissa, India.
4. The government comes up with planned and sustainable initiatives for social and environmental development in the area, such as the promotion of paddy cultivation, fishery related activities. These will help to ensure the future livelihoods of communities living there.
For more information about the people’s concerns about the project, please read the detailed note attached below.
Prashant Paikray
Spokesperson, POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti (PPSS)
Women at the 1st April, 2008 Rally from Dhinkia to Balithutha
Official statistics indicate that only 438 acres of the 4000 acres required for the POSCO site is private land. The rest of the land required officially belongs to the government, and this has been recorded as “under forest” in official documentation. Government records do not show that the majority of this land has been under cultivation by the people living in these areas for generations .
The people of Jagatsinghpur are dependent upon the beetle, paddy and fish for their livelihoods. Around 30,000 families earn about Rs one lakh (approx $ 2000) yearly from these cultivations. There are approximately 5000 vines of beetle in the three panchayat areas, which are tended by about 10,000 cultivators. Many landless families depend on basket making, work as daily labourers on the betel vine farms or are engaged in pisiculture, mostly prawns.
In response to the claim of this land by POSCO, the local people have submitted applications for claims on titles repeatedly however regularization and settlement of the betel vine lands has not yet been initiated by the government. The Settlement record was prepared last in 1984.
POSCO began its operations in India by registering POSCO-India. The first attempt by the district administration to acquire land for the proposed plant and port was thwarted by strong local opposition, which began in early 2006 under the banner of ‘POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti’ (PPSS) (Anti-POSCO People’s Movement), based in Dhinkia village.
*** Scarcity of water for Irrigation
The volume of water required for the project is predicted to have a detrimental impact on water irrigation for the local population. According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the Government of Orissa is to permit draw and use of water (near about 12 thousand to 15 thousand crore liters) from the Mahanadi barrage at Jobra and Naraj in Cuttack for construction and operation of the “Overall Project”.
Concerns have been repeatedly raised over the past two years by citizens of the area and technical experts that this would severely impact the drinking and agricultural water supply of Cuttack and neighboring four districts. These concerns have not been addressed by the government yet.
Destruction of the Environment
Threat to Gahirmala Marine Sanctuary
The proposed port to be built by POSCO at Jatadhari (Estuarine region of Ersamma) has also evoked environment concerns of damage to the coastline Conservationists. They have pointed out that any damage to the coastline by the construction of the port could pose a threat to the nesting habitat of the endangered Olive Ridley turtles. Especially at risk are the turtle-nesting beaches in the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary, where nearly 400,000 Olive Ridleys come to nest every year.
Jatadhari : the proposed port site
Environmental research has shown that the nesting turtles are already threatened by illegal mechanized fishing, rapid loss of nesting beaches due to casuarinas plantations and industrial pollution. The proposed POSCO port poses a fresh threat. The port if built would also directly displace the livelihoods of several fishing communities as the Jatadhari estuary serves as a spawning and breeding ground for several species of fish. The recent analysis report prepared by Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report of POSCO Captive port at Jatadhar Mohan Creek Paradeep Port points out that the “EIA report has completely missed out on addressing the issues of cumulative impact on people and habitat residing in the close vicinity as well as the land where the project is proposed”.
Implication of proposed mining in Khandadhar hills
Khandadhar waterfall at the mining site
The mining sites which have been proposed in the district of Keonjhar are also predicted to have detrimental impacts. Communities within these areas are already suffering under the social and environmental impacts of large-scale mining activity. Health problems are rampant in the region, particularly amongst the mine workers and their children. The poor health status of the mine workers and the increasing incidence of waterborne and respiratory diseases have been highlighted in a recent ‘State of the Environment’ report.
The Khandadhar hills where POSCO is being allotted the mines, spread over 6000 hectares, are covered with forests, inhabited by a wide variety of wildlife and as well as flora. The adivasi (Indigenous people) communities, which form 74% of the population in the surrounding area will be severely impacted by the proposed mining.
Ongoing Human Rights Violations
Over the past four years, there have been a number of allegations of government repression from the local community. Local anti-POSCO activists have stated that the Government has filed several false cases against them, and that POSCO has been working to suppress the movement. In October 2008, the leader of anti POSCO movement, Mr.Abhaya Sahoo was arrested and 32 “false cases” were charged against him. To date, the movement has been democratic and non-violent, however, a recently released video reflects that Mr. Abhaya is being kept against his will by the government. You can view this video online at the following link www.youtube.com/watch?v=px3d52vTEuM
For more information, you can visit the following links
http://stoposco.wordpress.com
http://www.freewebs.com/epgorissa/posco.htm
**** Update of the Struggle ****
On Aug 9, 2010 The Ministry of Environment & Forests constituted a four member Committee to investigate and ascertain status of implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 and Rehabilitation and Resettlement provisions in and around.
On September 21, 2010, the four member team headed by Meena Gupta visited the area to assess its compliance with the environmental protection act, coastal regulation zone act and other clearances granted to it. Besides, they also reviewed its compliance with statutory provisions, approvals, clearances and permissions under various statutes, rules and notifications.
On October 18th, 2010 the four-member committee comprising Meena Gupta, Urmila Pingle, Devendra Pandey and V Suresh submitted two different reports on POSCO’s proposal to set up an integrated steel plant and a captive port in Orissa. While Pingle, Pandey and Suresh submitted a joint report, Gupta gave a separate one.
Both the reports, however, agreed that provisions under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) need to be re-looked at by the Orissa government in a transparent and democratic way and ensure setting of individual and community rights as per the provisions of the Forest Rights Act and Rules made there in.
The matter will now be discussed by the Expert Appraisal committee on coastal regulation zone (CRZ) of the environment ministry on November 6 and 7.
The environmental committee felt that the final forest clearance of the ministry of environment and forests has overlooked serious violations of their own directions and the procedures prescribed by law.
The report submitted by the three members further felt that the ministry should not have granted environment clearances on the basis of rapid environmental impact assessment (EIA) for port which was based on one season data.
Contending that there have been many serious lapses and illegalities in the EIA process, the report said that the Environmental Clearance given by the MoEF for minor port and for the steel plant should be immediately revoked.
It felt that POSCO-India Pvt Ltd has not been able to address all the issues relating to CRZ notification. There are a number of serious lapses and violations, including suppression of facts. The environment clearance given should therefore be revoked forthwith.
However, Gupta differed on this, saying that the existing environment and CRZ clearances should continue and POSCO should be asked to carry out a comprehensive and integrated environment impact assessment which has not been done so far.
On November 2, 2010 the Forest Advisory Committee, a panel under the Union ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has recommended scrapping of forest clearance given to the project.
On November 10, 2010, The Ministry of Environment and Forest’ decision on POSCO’s forest land clearance has been deferred by 10 days. The expert appraisal committee on POSCO would meet again to review Environmental Impact Assessment report.
Statement of Benita Pandey, Hem Chandra Pandey's wife
Hem Chandra Pandey's wife protests in a press statement against the raid and false propaganda that Andhra Pradesh Police claim to get Maoist literature in their house four months of killing Azad, Polit Bureau member and Spokesperson of CPI (Maoist) along with a journalist from Delhi. The statement in English is followed by the original statement in Hindi.
On "Justifying The Murder Of Hem Chandra Pandey"
by Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), Delhi
Press Release: 15th Nov 2010
Peoples Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) considers the raid and alleged recovery of "banned literature" and correspondence from Babita Pandey's rented accommodation in New Delhi by the Andhra Pradesh State Intelligence Bureau (APSIB) to be an attempt at justifying the cold blooded killing of her husband Hem Chandra Pandey and Cherukuri Rajkumar (Azad). By showing him to be member of a banned organization, the APSIB and its political bosses want to suggest that Hem Chandra Pandey's alleged membership of a banned organisation somehow justifies his execution.
CONDEMN THE ABDUCTION AND ILLEGAL DETENTION OF ANTHONY SHING
THE HEAD OF THE FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE NSCN (IM) WHICH HAS BEEN HOLDING PEACE TALKS WITH THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA!
RELEASE IMMEDIATELY ANTHONY SHING UNCONDITIONALLY!
It is with deep concern that the CRPP has been observing the ongoing tragedy of the deliberate kidnapping and illegal detention of Anthony Shing, Head of Foreign Affairs of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) with whom the responsible actors of the Government of India has been holding talks for the last 13 years! The farcical nature of the whole incident is evident from the fact that the person who is being kidnapped and kept in illegal detention was on his way to be part of the peace talks with the Government of India to be held in the last week of September, 2010.
State Brutality knows no Frontiers: Kashmiri Prisoner in Kolkata's Guantanamo Bay
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Amit Bhattacharyya
Secretary General, Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners(CRPP)
(On 31 October 2010, the Hindustan Times, Kolkata edition published a front-page report captioned "Kolkata's Guantanamo Bay" where it was reported that on October 15,when the entire city was celebrating Saptami during the Pujas, Sheikh Farhat Mehmood, a 29-year-old Kashmiri under-trial prisoner lodged in Presidency Jail, Kolkata, West Bengal, was stripped, tortured and kept naked throughout the night in his cell: Mehboob's offence: he protested against the quality of food and demanded his basic rights according to jail rule. Following the 'punishment', Farhat observed a two-day hunger-strike in the jail. The matter was hushed up by the Presidency jail authorities. The picture of the prisoner in a naked state was published in the paper.
Contemporary anti-displacement struggles and women's resistance
Women's exclusion in the present model of development needs to be understood as inherent to a system that benefits from patriarchy. Seen as a reserve force of labour, women, excluded from economic activity are valued for their unrecognized role in social reproduction. The capitalist, patriarchal system that keeps the majority of women confined to domestic work and child rearing uses this as a way of keeping the wage rates low. The limited participation of women in economic activity is also an extension of their traditional gender roles (nursing, teaching,or labour intensive jobs requiring patience and delicate skills) with wages based on gender discrimination. Largely part of the unorganized sector, deprived of the benefits of labour legislation, insecurity leads to sexual exploitation at the workplace. In the paradigm of globalization, these forms of exploitation, in export oriented industries, SEZs and service sector have greatly increased.
Maoists call Bharat bandh to protest Obama visit
THE HINDU, Kolkata, November 2, 2010
Maoists today called for a 24-hour nationwide shutdown on November 8 to protest against the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama.
"The Maoist Central Committee will observe a 24-hour Bharat bandh on November 8," Maoist Central Committee member Kishenji told PTI over the phone from an undisclosed location.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi were out to sell the country to American imperialism and Mr Obama's visit to the country was just another step in the process, Kishenji alleged.
Leader of War Mongers Looters and Exploiter of World People, US President Obama Go Back!
Join Demonstration at Jantar Mantar At 2 PM on 8 November, 2010
Dear Friends, At a time when US imperialism has escalated the war against Afghanistan and is even extending this war by assaults by NATO forces led by it against northern districts of Pakistan, leader of warmongers, looters and exploiters of the world people, President of USA, Barack Obama, is visiting India from 6th Nov. 2010. Since Obama came to power, US forces have increased their numbers several times over in Afghanistan. There are innumerable proven instances of deliberate targeting of innocent civilians by these forces in the name of "targeted" attacks on "enemy". In essence, US imperialism under Obama administration is continuing the Bush era attempt of a permanent base in Afghanistan from where it will interfere in central Asia. India should be in the forefront of opposing the US move. Let us use the opportunity of Obama's visit to strongly demand that US and NATO forces immediately withdrawn from Afghanistan.
SEEMA AZAD : NINE MONTHS BEHIND BARS WITHOUT TRIAL NOW
it is now nine months to the date that our dear comrade Seema Azad, editor of the leftist bi-monthly Dastak and a committed social activist was taken into custody on the the 6th of February 2010, along with her husband and fellow-activist Vishwadeepak and lodged in Naini jail. Despite all efforts of the PUCL, Allahabad whose office-bearer Ravi Kiran Jain is appearing on Seema's behalf, she has not been granted bail. Every fifteen days or so, for the last nine months, she is brought before the judge at Allahabad civil courts and sent back to jail on remand. Even after these long months of incarceration there seems to be no progress in the case.
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Daily Standard: Wright man for the job
Kip Wright of Celina has long served as an unpaid tour guide, showing off the Mercer County Courthouse to visitors from across the nation and Canada. He is looking to recruit a new generation of guides to fill in for him occasionally and to prepare for the courthouse’s 100th anniversary in 2023.
During a lengthy and robust law enforcement career that started in 1971 and continues to this day, Kip Wright said one role in particular has given him considerable satisfaction – courthouse tour guide.
Wright, 69, said nothing beats the experience of having adults walk up to him to ask if he remembers taking them as a child on a tour of the Mercer County Courthouse 30 years ago. He then knows he’s made a lifelong impact.
“It’s such a remarkable building,” Wright, a dedicated advocate of local government, said of the courthouse. “I just want to share that exuberance with kids.”
Wright, who is semiretired, still working as an instructor for the Wright State University-Lake Campus Police Academy, which he helped found as its first commander, isn’t stepping down as courthouse tour guide. However, he is looking to recruit a new generation of guides to fill in for him from time to time and to prepare for the courthouse’s 100th anniversary in 2023, when the tour circuit will ramp up considerably.
“I want to continue as much as I can, maybe in a little bit lesser capacity, but I think this is an opportunity for us to start training some people to help with the 100th anniversary,” Wright said. “If we open this courthouse up to tours, we can be running three and four tours at the same time.”
In 1977, when Wright left his position as lieutenant with the sheriff’s office to become an adult probation officer/court investigator under Common Pleas Court Judge Dean James, he started to pay attention to the building’s finer details.
James began pointing out to Wright the impressive Greek-styled architecture, the ancient fossils embedded within the million-year-old black marble on the third floor and much, much more.
“He said, ‘You’ve heard the term take the time to smell the roses?’ ” Wright recalled. “He said, ‘Why don’t you take some time and look the building over a lot and then do some research on it?’ ”
Wright took the judge’s suggestion and began learning all he could about the building described by The Daily Standard in September 1923 as a “veritable marble palace.”
About two decades after taking the job, Wright was named co-chairperson of a steering committee that for about two years laid the groundwork for the 75th courthouse anniversary celebration in 1998. That celebration was an almost entire summer of events, including open houses and public tours of the courthouse, that culminated with a rededication ceremony on Sept. 6, 1998, he said.
“I don’t know if I ever became official. I just started doing it,” Wright said of his role as volunteer courthouse guide, which began to grow as he took groups of students through the building.
Over the years he’s ushered through the courthouse Fort Recovery third-graders, Red Hat Ladies, Celina-Mercer County Chamber of Commerce Adult Leadership groups and many other organizations and individuals.
He said he conducts about 20 tours a year that acquaint as many as 400 people with the courthouse.
“So we have people come here from all states that come and want to see it. Some of them have check-off lists (of courthouses),” Wright said, noting the county courthouse is on the state and national registry of historical buildings.
Wright likes to keep groups at no more than 25 people and said he’s given tours for as few as two people. His tours can last anywhere from an hour to three hours, depending on what the group wants.
“I thoroughly enjoy introducing adults, kids, junior high, government and civic classes to why we’re here,” he said.
Forty-foot-tall Corinthian columns grace the four entrances of the gray Bedford limestone building in the heart of downtown Celina. Its open interior is enhanced with large bronze doors (now faded from oxidation) and marble floors, walls and staircases. Visitors can climb the ornate, winding staircase to view the rotunda below or look upward to see the stained-glass dome.
Asked what impresses him most about the courthouse, which was financed with a $500,000 voter-approved bond issue, Wright pointed to the “opulence of marble.”
The interior walls and floors consist of the finest marble that had been pulled up in huge blocks from Vermont quarries and sliced into slabs.
“These are about three-quarters of an inch thick,” he said of the marble slabs that are polished on the outside and rough on the back side.
Each slab was numbered so workers could install them in sequence.
“Right here where we’re standing, there’s a two-basement system that supports all of this weight. A lot of it’s used for storage and such,” he pointed out from the first floor. “This floor is concrete and then laid with this marble like we would lay tile today.”
Black marble accentuates the main entrances and the grand staircase rail. Wright said a couple of hundred fossils can be seen in the black marble, among them a seashell and a baby shark tooth.
Wright said an alcove between the second and third floors best exemplifies the architectural historical value of the courthouse.
“See that vein in that marble? It goes all the way up,” he said. “Each of those panels had to come in a natural sequence.”
The craftsmanship on display throughout the building is extraordinary, Wright said, as he focused his attention on the balusters of the marble handrail that runs along the stairways.
“Someone had to take a block of marble and turn that on a lathe to make all these,” he marveled aloud. “This was done by hand.”
Another prominent feature of the courthouse is the stained-glass dome.
Unbeknownst to many, the courthouse’s glass dome is not directly exposed to the elements. Rather, an octagonal structure with a flat roof consisting of a frame of blocks or panels containing half-inch thick glass surrounds it.
“That’s leaded glass. It looks transparent but for insurance purposes many years ago the commissioners were required to put a … plastic bubble over that,” Wright said.
That protects the precious glass from stress fractures and meteorites, he explained.
“Meteorites, when they hit the earth’s atmosphere, thousands of them fall every day – anything from a speck of sand to a rock as big as your hand,” Wright said.
Wright said anyone interested in becoming an unpaid courthouse guide should call the county commissioners office at 419-586-3178.
View the original post at dailystandard.com
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UT Music professor performs on European tour
Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
Dr. Michael Boyd, Professor of Piano, University of Toledo
University of Toledo professor of piano, Dr. Michael Boyd was invited to co-direct and perform on the Beethoven Tour 2012, which included visits to Austria, Czech Republic, Belgium and Germany. The summer tour featured concerts, lectures and rare excursions to places of significance in the life of Ludwig van Beethoven, including his birthplace in Bonn and Vienna, where he spent most of his life and career.
The tour has been an annual event for 14 years. Normally, it is organized by William Wellborn, a pianist who teaches piano at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Adam Wibrowski of the Conservatory of Paris. Due to illness, Wellborn was unable to serve as director or to perform, so he asked Dr. Boyd.
Dr. Boyd was tremendously honored to be asked. “This tour is one of the best of its kind, because of the unique and historically significant places we were able to visit and to perform in. I presented several lectures throughout the tour in different places. The most memorable was on a visit to the cemetery where Beethoven is buried. I presented the original oration that was written for his funeral—translated into English—but in the very place where it was originally given. That was one of the highlights of the tour for me.”
“I also performed and presented a lecture at the Musical Instruments Museum in Brussels. My program and the lecture were on two Beethoven piano sonatas. It was really a great experience to play in a setting with so much historical importance.” The museum (also known as “the MIM”) is famous for its collection of instruments from many periods of musical history, including the period in which Beethoven lived.
Dr. Boyd performed the Piano Sonata Op. 31, No. 3 in E flat major and Op. 57 (the appassionato) in F minor. The concert and lecture was open to the public and was attended by more than 200 people from the area and around the world.
Dr. Boyd’s biography: http://www.utoledo.edu/cvpa/music/faculty/m_boyd.html
UT Department of Music at http://www.utoledo.edu/cvpa/music/
Posted in Archive| Comments Off on UT Music professor performs on European tour
Artwork of UT Art faculty chosen to display in London exhibition
Dan Hernandez, Assistant Professor of Inter-Disciplinary Art/Foundations – The University of Toledo Department of Art
Dan Hernandez, one of the University of Toledo Department of Art’s newest faculty members has work in an exhibition currently on display in London, England in the Shizaru Gallery. Hernandez’s work will be in excellent company among works from Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, and Ed Ruscha.
The exhibit, titled “Bad for You,” explores the relationship between art and vice. The exhibit’s web site states, “Artists explore these many themes through various moralistic viewpoints. Some works celebrate, disregard and revel in what is seen as being ʻBadʼ whilst others raise alarm and aim to forewarn the consequence of a life of decadence.”
In September, Hernandez held his first solo show, “Genesis,” at the Kim Foster Gallery in New York. “Genesis” refers to the artist’s visual dialogue between religion, mythology, and pop culture. The word “genesis” can refer to the literal definition, the Bible text of the same name as well as the video game system, Sega Genesis. Notions of all three as well as other ideas are incorporated into his work in this exhibit.
Wall Fragment with Flying Transport
Hernandez’s work is often referred to as “high pastiche.” He combines a variety of disparate elements in his work but does so expertly, in a unique way that is artistically sensate.
Beth Rudin DeWoody, one of Forbes top 200 art collectors in the world, attended his show and bought two of his multi-media works, “Colecotari Invasion” and “Destruction of Atega Intelari.” DeWoody is also the curator for the London exhibit “Bad for You,” and chose another of Hernandez’s works—“Wall Fragment with Flying Transport”—for the show.
Hernandez, UT Assistant Professor of Inter-Disciplinary Art/Foundations, received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2000 from Northwest Missouri State (Maryville, MO) and a Masters of Fine Arts in 2002 from American University (Washington, DC). He is currently represented by Kim Foster Gallery in New York City. His work has also been presented in numerous galleries including solo shows at Kim Foster Gallery (New York City, NY) Madhouse Gallery (Toledo, OH), the Fine Arts Gallery at Mott Community College (Flint, MI) and Kresge Gallery at Lyon College (Batesville, AK), and group exhibitions at the Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, OH), Desotorow Gallery (Savannah, GA), Gallery Project (Ann Arbor, MI), Hype Gallery (Milan, Italy), Strohl Art Center (Chautauqua, NY), and many others. Dan was selected for an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellency Award in 2011.
Bad for You http://www.shizaru.com/exhibition/bad-for-you-curated-by-beth-rudin-dewoody/
Bad for You press release http://www.shizaru.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/BAD-FOR-YOU-Press-Release.pdf
UT Department of Art www.utoledo.edu/as/art
Dan Hernandez artist portfolio/bio http://www.danhernandez.org/Art/Home.html
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UT Film faculty member Holly Hey to present paper at Digital Arts Conference
Holly Hey, Associate Professor of Film at the University of Toledo
UT associate professor of film, Holly Hey, has been selected to present her paper, “The Objective Machine and the Subjective Experience: Meshing Methodology and Ideology in Digital Non-Linear Editing,” at the 2012 International Digital Media and Arts Association Conference, “FastForward/2012” November 8-10, at the New World School of the Arts, in Miami, Florida.
For more information visit the conference website www.idmaa.org/idmaa2012/.
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UT Music alumna to present paper, co-authors book
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012
Aura Strohschein
UT Music alumna, Aura Strohschein (Master of Music) will be presenting a paper at the upcoming Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Collegiate Chapters Piano Pedagogy Symposium in Cincinnati http://pianosymposium.com/ She is also working on a book, “Creative Pedagogy for Piano Teachers: Musical Games and Aural Pedagogical Techniques as a Dynamic Supplement for Teaching Piano,” which she co-authored with Jeff Agrell, UI horn professor.
Aura graduated from Ball State University in Muncie, IN with a Bachelor of Music in piano performance and a Bachelor of Arts in French with university honors. She studied piano at the Conservatoire National de Region de Lille in France for three years under the direction of Bernard Lerouge. She obtained her Master of Music degree from the University of Toledo, studying piano with Dr. Michael Boyd. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Iowa under the instruction of Dr. Rene Lecuona.
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Watch for UT Art students’ work on Toledo’s digital billboards
From mid-October through mid-December, students from the University of Toledo’s Department of Art will display work on digital billboards throughout the city. Art students from the Time, Motion, Space class, joined by others representing the BFA program, have created fictional film stills to represent “Stories from Toledo.” These images will be shown in varying locations around the city on twenty Lamar digital billboards over the course of two months. A few noteworthy locations displaying student work will be I-75 at Berdan, I-475 at Upton, and Monroe and Sylvania. Student images will be interspersed among the regular scheduled advertising throughout the period. The project is directed by Barry Whittaker, Assistant Professor of Art and Coordinator of New Media Design Practices at the University of Toledo.
For a map to the boards and a sample of the images, visit the UT Department of Art Featured Projects Gallery
Tags: Bales, billboards, Brown, digital, Gacek, Gao, Hayward, Herman, Hinkle, Johnson, Lamar, Milliken, Mohamed, Ostrander, Pellington, Roszczipka, Tuttle, UT art students, VanSlambrouck, Wittes, Yappueying
Bassist Gene Perla to perform with the UT Faculty Jazz Ensemble Oct. 16
Gene Perla, jazz bassist
Jazz bassist, Gene Perla will join the UT faculty jazz ensemble, CrossCurrents on stage in the UT Center for Performing Arts Recital Hall, tonight, Tuesday October 16 at 8 p.m. Perla also performed to a packed house with the group at its Monday UTJazz Night at Crystal’s Lounge last night. Perla, a UT alumnus, has also been on campus working with students, teaching and sharing his knowledge.
Below is his bio, or visit his web site at http://www.perla.org/
GENE PERLA grew up in northeastern New Jersey attending public school grades 1-12. After one year of postgraduate study at New York Military academy he entered the University of Toledo majoring in civil engineering and business. He then attended Berklee School of Music and Boston Conservatory before heading to New York City.
At age five Gene’s musical studies began with Classical piano. Upon entering high school he was given a trombone, which he played for five years culminating in marching on Fifth Avenue in New York City as part of the Memorial Day Parade. During high school he became aware of Jazz and was thrilled to attend the first New York performance of Ted Heath?s Big Band at Carnegie Hall. It wasn’t until his last year at UT that his interest in music became primary.
After struggling with too many notes, and thanks to Charlie Haden?s performance on Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come, Perla, at 24, switched to bass as his main instrument. Not long after arriving in the City his talents became in demand and he found joy in performing with artists such as Willie Bobo, Carlos “Patato” Valdes, Nina Simone, Woody Herman, Sarah Vaughan, Elvin Jones, Thad/Mel Lewis, Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis, and Frank Sinatra.
As an educator Mr. Perla has taught as William Paterson University, New School University, Center for the Media Arts and is currently at Lehigh University. Sound design has been a significant endeavor yielding credits on Broadway shows, them parks and custom installations.
Having a business sense, Gene has continuously expanded his activities to include music publishing, record labels, recording studios, promotional firms, Internet design and hosting and computer networking businesses as vehicles for his ideas.
Tags: bassist, Gene Perla, jazz, Toledo Jazz
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UT Theatre Alumni & Students “Occupy the Empty Space” in New York
by Megan Aherne
UT Alumnus–BA Theatre/BA Film/Video 2012
(Click the picture to see more images from the performance)
The first weekend of September, a group of talented individuals and I made our way to New York to participate in Occupy the Empty Space: The Human Right to Mobility
University of Toledo Students and Alumni who performed at Occupy the empty Space in NY
festival in Manhattan’s community garden El Jardin del Paraiso. Playwrights from across the U.S. devised 10-minute plays dealing with the struggles and rights of immigrants trying to live in America, and some were selected to be performed at the festival. There were also teach-ins and speeches from various activists and organizations focused on immigrant rights to combine arts and activism in one event.
I directed “Outward Signs of Isolation” by Morgan Mansour. This piece is about a family of Middle Eastern and European descent, who were all inevitably isolated as a result of trying to overcome identity confusion, language barriers and cultural differences. After moving three times in ten years and trying different ways of living, the mother and father became conflicted between their past, present and future. They were unsure as to what set of traditions and values they were supposed to follow, especially as they lived America.
The play takes place in the daughter’s classroom at a parent teacher conference. UT Theatre student, Starr Chellsea Cutino was the private school teacher Mrs. Kibbs, presented as a robotic, politically correct, judge-like figure. The sarcastic, frustrated father, Ahmed, was played by Phillipe Taylor and Ani Copti was Adele, the mother: a hopeful, yet confused, easily assimilable woman. Their 10-year-old daughter, Ayesha, is never physically present onstage, however it is made known at the end that she had been sitting outside in the rain the whole time.
Considering that this play was my first directing experience outside of academia, and in New York, I grabbed that 12-page text and ran as far as I could with it. Through research and discussion, we collaboratively found more layers to this play than perhaps even the playwright was aware of. This is probably because in our first rehearsals we dove into the play with Gabara-esque (Cornel Gabara, that is) detail by dissecting the text word-by-word, then line-by-line.
After understanding the purpose and motivation of each character through the words they are, and are not saying, we proceeded to use Linklater exercises from our Voice and Movement class to bring that mental understanding into the body. The actors really invested themselves in these characters and worked really hard, which definitely showed in their performance.
We were one of two groups from Toledo to be involved in this event. UT alumna Jeanette Turner directed a piece about European immigrants living in Staten Island, starring herself and alumni Jason Santel, Ernest Green and Tyria Allen. Their performance was energetic, funny and thoroughly thought provoking.
To say the least, each of the performances and the experience in general was amazing and truly inspiring. The organizers and performers were so welcoming and talented, while the audience members were attentive and responsive.
The play aside, traveling and staying in New York was surprisingly inexpensive, and if you know me, you know that’s a must. There were five of us on the trip, making gas and the hotel pretty reasonable. We fortunately managed to get a great deal on the hotel we stayed in, which was right in the financial district—a couple blocks away from Ground Zero, and where Occupy Wall Street kicked off.
Our first night in town, we stopped in O’Hara’s Pub to grab a drink. We ended up hanging out with some of the wonderful first responders of 9/11, and were invited to see the firehouse the next day. Thanks to our waiter from that night, who also happened to be a filmmaker, we went to a rooftop party for Fashion Week—severely underdressed. We strolled through China Town, had lunch on the Hudson, hit some fabulous bars, ate great food and learned why you better check your e-mail, baby.
This opportunity really made me realize how getting to, and working and hanging out in New York doesn’t have to be a dream anymore. More than anything I have ever done, this was the most invigorating and life-affirming experience I have ever been a part of—I wouldn’t trade it for anything and I can’t wait for round two!
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UT Theatre & Film production of ORPHEUS opens Friday, October 12
Day of the Dead theme lends brilliant color to Cocteau’s darkly comic play, “Orpheus”
When the University of Toledo Department of Theatre and Film season opens on Friday, October 12 with Jean Cocteau’s darkly comic play “Orpheus,” it will do so in surprisingly brilliant color. Director Jessica Bonenfant and costume designer Erica Frank have chosen to use a Dia de los Muertos (Day-of-the-Dead) aesthetic to represent the invitation of the dead into the world of the living.
Orpheus (Jeffrey Burden, II) and Eurydice (Keely-Rain Battle)
“Orpheus” is Cocteau’s surrealist reworking of the classical myth. Orpheus, a poet, makes an impossible deal with Death to rescue his love, Eurydice, from the underworld: he promises never to look upon her again. A mirror serves as portal between life and death, and movement between the realms is characterized by distinct shifts in color, costume and atmosphere. Cocteau also explores contact with the spirit-world by adding a table rapping horse to the mix.
“The play takes place in the liminal space between magic and reality, where anything can happen,” says Jessica Bonenfant, creative director of Lola Lola Dance Theatre in New York, who is the guest director for the UT production of “Orpheus.”
Both Bonenfant and Frank were intrigued by Frida Kahlo de Rivera, known for her self-portraits and her colorful clothing. Her style as well as traditional Day–of-the-Dead celebrations have served as a kind of muse for the costume design. Flowers, elaborate grave decorations, lavish costumes, food and festivities traditionally mark the Mexican Day of the Dead, similar to All Souls Day, which remembers loved ones who died during the year.
In the play, Death – a young woman adorned with pink flowers, ribbons and paint, visits the living world. “The costuming, skeletons and funeral flowers associated with Day of the Dead are the perfect way for her to fit into and hide out in our world while also being very ethereal,” says Frank.
Bonenfant adds that Frank’s design reflects the fact that “Cocteau’s work uses surrealism to alter the audience’s perceptions of time and reality, yet maintains a narrative that is easy to follow.”
About Jessica Bonenfant
Jessica Bonenfant has been the Creative Director of Brooklyn based Lola Lola Dance Theatre since 2003. Her work, a blend of movement, text and striking imagery, has been seen across the U.S. in a variety of traditional and site-specific spaces, as well as on film. She has created five-evening length works for her company, and is currently developing the sixth, a performance-as-research project presented in installments at Brooklyn’s Micro Museum, ShapeShifter Lab, and the Itinerant Performance Art Festival at Grace Exhibition Space. This past spring, the project received a stipend and space grant from the National Endowment for the Arts via Chashama’s Windows program, which supported a five-day storefront performance installation in New York City’sGarment District. This year, Jessica has also choreographed a music video and stage show for singer Charlene Kaye, and her band The Brilliant Eyes.
Jessica has been an artist-in-residence at The Field, The Silo and most recently at Performing Arts Forum in St. Erme,France. As a dance scholar, her research was presented at the 2011 Congress on Research in Dance conference. She is a certified yoga teacher and a member of CDP/NYC, a group that practices performance improvisation grounded in Buddhist philosophy. She holds an MFA in choreography from University of Michigan and a BA in dance from Marymount Manhattan College. Jessica has taught dance technique, composition and improvisation courses at University of Michigan, where she recently set a work for the 17-member Freshman Touring Company. She has also guest taught at University of Toledo, where she choreographed numerous theatrical productions. More information is available at http://lolalola.org/
About Erica Frank
Erica Frank is a costume designer of theatre, film, TV and music videos. She most recently was the designer on the feature film The Firstling, and assistant designer on the 20th Century film The Watch. Additionally she was specialty costume crafter for Revolution, a new feature television series on NBC, which opens September 2012, and was the Tailor/Set Costumer on the 2011 feature film, The Hunger Games. After completing her BFA at Parsons, she opened a designer shop in New York. She soon found much of her work was gravitating from fashion design to theatre design and specialty craft services for Manhattan’s theatre industry. She has spent the last six years in Los Angeles working in the theatre, film, and television industry. Her unique craft skills, fantasy designs, and familiarity with east and west coast markets makes her an asset to our theatre, film and video production program. She also has an MFA in costume design with California Institute of the Arts.
Erica’s work can be viewed at http://ericafrank.blogspot.com/ or at http://www.ericafrankdesign.com/
TICKETS Play tickets are $12–General Public, $10–Faculty, Staff, Alumni & Seniors, and $7–Students.
DISCOUNTS Student members of fraternities or sororities, who wear their letters or show their membership card at the box office, can get a “Go Greek” discount of $2 off their ticket. Offer good only at the Box Office. A Season Ticket or a Season Flex Pass is 15% off the price of four individual tickets purchased separately. A Season Ticket provides one seat to the opening night performance of each of the four plays. The opening night seat can be exchanged for another performance of the play, if the BoxOffice is notified in advance. A Season Flex Pass provides 4 tickets that can be used in any combination throughout the season. The Season Tickets are available through October 12 and Flex Passes are available all season.
Tickets are available*:
Online: utoledo.edu/BoxOffice
At the Center for Performing Arts Box Office:
Towerview W & W Rocket Blvd, UT Main Campus
*All major credit cards are accepted (AMEX, DISC, MC, VISA), UT Rocket Cards are accepted at the CPA Box Office ticket window only.
“Orpheus,” written by Jean Cocteau and translated by John Savacool from THE INFERNAL MACHINE AND OTHER PLAYS, copyright ©1963, is presented with permission from New Directions Publishing Corp. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.
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Fall piano series to kick off this weekend with Ryan Behan
Thursday, October 4th, 2012
Pianist, Ryan Behan
Ryan Behan will visit the University Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 6 and 7, and be the first artist to perform in the fall Dorothy MacKenzie Price Piano Series.
His program will include works by Beethoven, Debussy, Prokofiev and Rachmaninoff.
The pianist will present a master class at 10 a.m Saturday and a recital at 3 p.m. Sunday. The free, public events will be held in the Center for Performing Arts Recital Hall.
Behan, an adjunct faculty member at Ohio State University, has won acclaim from audiences in Europe and the United States as a soloist and collaborative pianist.
He recently presented a solo concert series for the bicentennial celebrations of Liszt, Chopin and Schumann.
Winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, Behan has served as a collaborative pianist for the Mozarteum International Sommerakademie in Salzburg and the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, He regularly performs with members of the Columbus Symphony, Dayton Philharmonic and Indianapolis Symphony.
The Toledo Piano Teachers Association assists with The University of Toledo Dorothy MacKenzie Price Piano Series. The association provides students for the master class, publicity for the class and concert, and refreshments for the reception in the lobby following the concert.
For more information on the series, contact Dr. Michael Boyd, UT professor of music, at michael.boyd@utoledo.edu or 419.530.2183.
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Art Historian Dr. Kevin Hatch to speak, Thur. October 4 at 3:15pm
Dr. Kevin Hatch – 2012 Emerging Outstanding Alumnus of the UT College of Visual and Performing Arts
The College of Visual and Performing Arts’ Top Alumnus for 2012 KEVIN HATCH will present a lecture Thursday, October 4 at 3:15 p.m. in the Haigh Auditorium of the CVA (next to the Toledo Museum of Art) He says he will speak on the unusual, eccentric and exciting places his art history research has taken him.
“What compels us to study the subjects we pursue? What are the particular pleasures and challenges attending the adventure of art historical research? In this talk, I will reflect on the winding paths that take the researcher through dusty archives and cluttered storerooms, quiet libraries and lively living rooms. Along the way, we’ll meet eccentric characters, luck into troves of documents, and forge unexpected alliances with fellow travelers–all in the pursuit of genuine art historical insight.”
A vintage photograph from the Sutro Museum, a fantastically weird museum on the western edge of Golden Gate Park [which, sadly, burned down in 1966] that played a role in Hatch’s research.
Dr. Hatch is the 2012 Emerging Outstanding Alumnus for the College of Visual and Performing Arts at The University of Toledo College of Visual and Performing Arts.
Kevin Hatch grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, and received his BA from the University of Toledo in 1999. He went on to earn an MA from the University of Delaware in 2001 and a PhD from Princeton University in 2008, both in art history. He is Assistant Professor of Art History at Binghamton University. His research has taken him to Berlin, Germany, and Berkeley, California, among other places.
In his teaching and research he focuses on art since 1945, with particular attention paid to developments outside major art centers; his book Looking for Bruce Conner, published by MIT Press this past February, examines Bruce Conner, a devilishly clever and maddeningly elusive artist who lived and worked in San Francisco.
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Media Appearance: "Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in Are the Negotiators Korea Needs" on Foreign Policy
My latest contribution to the Foreign Policy magazine, previewing the inter-Korean talks that just concluded:
Kim’s successful purges may complicate the practical aspects of dialogue. Among those killed were the intermediaries North Korea previously relied on to speak with South Korea — such as the late Jang, who even visited Seoul in 2002 during the high point of the inter-Korean relations. Jang reportedly returned to Pyongyang so impressed by South Korea’s economic development that he took with him several pieces of South Korean electronics and copies of the research reports from the Korea Development Institute, a government-run think tank. By contrast, Ri Son Kwon, the head of North Korea’s inter-Korean relations agency, who lead the North Korean delegation this week, has a reputation for being a short-tempered loudmouth. But he will be serving a leader whose intentions in building a nuclear arsenal — and, presumably, in negotiating over it — are clearer (to himself, if not yet to others) than those of his predecessors.
Kim Jong Un and Moon Jae-in Are the Negotiators Korea Needs [Foreign Policy]
I'm not a fan of the headline (over which I have no input,) because I don't think Korea "needs" Kim Jong-un in any context. At any rate, talks are a welcome development after months and years of rising tension in the Korean Peninsula.
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Complaints | Contact Us | عربى
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Home > more news
- The management of the South Egypt Institute of Oncology is honored to invite you to attend the opening ceremony of the new linear accelerator device on Sunday, 2019/12/22 at 10:00 a.m. in the administrative building.
- The International Covenant writes "A Long-Awaited Dream at the Southern Egypt Oncology Institute in Assiut",
- Seminar entitled "Breast Cancer and Treatment " sponsored by Mrs. A. D. Maha Ghanem Vice-President of The University of Wa. Dr. Sami Irfan, Dean of the Institute of Oncology and. Dr. Ahmed Saber, Dean of the Faculty of Arts
- Announcement of spss training course at the computer training center in the second floor of the institute
- Announcement of a leisure trip on Saturday, 14 December 2019
- Conditions for registration in the presidential program for the qualification of executives for leadership
- Vice-Chancellor of Assiut University reviews the most important visions and main themes of combating corruption in the presence of Dr. Sami AbdulRahman, Dean of the Institute
- The Scientific Day of the Southern Egypt Oncology Institute in the presence of Prof. Dr. Sami Abdel Rahman, Dean of the Institute
- اليوم العلمي لقسم التخدير والانعاش وعلاج الالم بمعهد جنوب مصر للاورام بحضور السيد الاستاذ الدكتور سامي عبدالرحمن عميد المعهد والسيد الاستاذ الدكتور اشرف امين رئيس قسم التخدير بالمعهد
- Condolence duty
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Address: South Egypt Cancer Institute, Assiut University, Assiut.
Tel:20-88-2337670 & +20-88-2337671
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U.S. Presidents John Tyler
Capitol building in Richmond, Virginia, which also served as the capitol of the Confederacy
Tyler, His Family and His Allegiance to the South
When Tyler became president in 1841, his administration (and his limited Southern beliefs) strengthened the division in America that led to the Civil War. By the time he left office, Tyler's Cabinet secretaries were all Southern conservatives, men who ultimately returned to the Democratic Party from the Whigs.
By the time of the Civil War, the Democrats had become identified with planter interests, states' rights and slavery. Despite his conservative views, Tyler was strongly against the Civil War and wanted to preserve the Union. He tried avoiding conflict by chairing a "Peace Convention" involving Northern and Southern states' representatives. The conference failed, however, and Tyler became a supporter of Southern secession, serving as a delegate to the Virginia Secession Convention.
After Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, Tyler was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but he died in Richmond, Virginia, on Jan. 18, 1862, just days before its first meeting. John Tyler was the only president who also served in the Confederacy.
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Marián Boguñá
In the age of Information Technology, the Internet has become our primary communication system. It is estimated that more than a billion users surf every day the web looking for information, sharing files, or developing new applications. The physical Internet is like a new world where all kind of new social and technological structures are constantly emerging. The Internet has thus become a common good, such as roads, railways, or airline connections and, as such, should be considered. The most surprising fact about the Internet is that, despite some preconceived ideas, its complex architecture is the result of a self-organized process where individual agents (Internet Service Providers or ISPs) interact locally without any central authority controlling its evolution. This turns the Internet into subject of truly scientific research.
Our main motivation for studying the Internet comes from long-standing scalability problems with the Internet routing architecture. To route information packets to a given destination, Internet routers must communicate to maintain a coherent view of the global Internet topology. The constantly increasing size and dynamics of the Internet thus leads to immense and quickly growing communication and information processing overhead, a major bottleneck in routing scalability causing concerns among Internet experts that the existing Internet routing architecture may not sustain even another decade. In our research, we assume that the Internet (and other complex networks) lives in a hidden metric space that shapes its topology. Discovery of this hidden metric space can then be used to greedily route information without detailed global knowledge of the network structure or organization.
Comparing spatial networks: A one-size-fits-all efficiency-driven approach
Ignacio Morer, Alessio Cardillo, Albert Díaz-Guilera, Luce Prignano, and Sergi Lozano
Spatial networks are a powerful framework for studying a large variety of systems belonging to a broad diversity of contexts: from transportation to biology, from epidemiology to communications, and migrations, to cite a few. Spatial networks can be described in terms of their total cost (i.e., the total amount of resources needed for building or traveling their connections). Here, we address the issue of how to gauge and compare the quality of spatial network designs (i.e., efficiency vs. total cost) by proposing a two-step methodology. First, we assess the network's design by introducing a quality function based on the concept of network's efficiency. Second, we propose an algorithm to estimate computationally the upper bound of our quality function for a given network. Complementarily, we provide a universal expression to obtain an approximated upper bound to any spatial network, regardless of its size. Smaller differences between the upper bound and the empirical value correspond to better designs. Finally, we test the applicability of this analytic tool set on spatial network data-sets of different nature.
Food-Bridging: A New Network Construction to Unveil the Principles of Cooking
Tiago Simas, Michal Ficek, Albert Diaz-Guilera, Pere Obrador and Pablo R. Rodriguez
Frontiers in ICT (2017)
In this manuscript, we propose, analyze, and discuss a possible new principle behind traditional cuisine: the Food-bridging hypothesis and its comparison with the food-pairing hypothesis using the same dataset and graphical models employed in the food-pairing study by Ahn et al. (2011). The Food-bridging hypothesis assumes that if two ingredients do not share a strong molecular or empirical affinity, they may become affine through a chain of pairwise affinities. That is, in a graphical model as employed by Ahn et al., a chain represents a path that joints the two ingredients, the shortest path represents the strongest pairwise chain of affinities between the two ingredients. Food-pairing and Food-bridging are different hypotheses that may describe possible mechanisms behind the recipes of traditional cuisines. Food-pairing intensifies flavor by mixing ingredients in a recipe with similar chemical compounds, and food-bridging smoothes contrast between ingredients. Both food-pairing and food-bridging are observed in traditional cuisines, as shown in this work. We observed four classes of cuisines according to food-pairing and food-bridging: (1) East Asian cuisines, at one extreme, tend to avoid food-pairing as well as food-bridging; and (4) Latin American cuisines, at the other extreme, follow both principles. For the two middle classes: (2) Southeastern Asian cuisines, avoid food-pairing and follow food-bridging; and (3) Western cuisines, follow food-pairing and avoid food-bridging.
Competition between global and local online social networks
Kaj-Kolja Kleineberg & Marián Boguñá
Sci. Rep. (2016)
The overwhelming success of online social networks, the key actors in the Web 2.0 cosmos, has reshaped human interactions globally. To help understand the fundamental mechanisms which determine the fate of online social networks at the system level, we describe the digital world as a complex ecosystem of interacting networks. In this paper, we study the impact of heterogeneity in network fitnesses on the competition between an international network, such as Facebook, and local services. The higher fitness of international networks is induced by their ability to attract users from all over the world, which can then establish social interactions without the limitations of local networks. In other words, inter-country social ties lead to increased fitness of the international network. To study the competition between an international network and local ones, we construct a 1:1000 scale model of the digital world, consisting of the 80 countries with the most Internet users. Under certain conditions, this leads to the extinction of local networks; whereas under different conditions, local networks can persist and even dominate completely. In particular, our model suggests that, with the parameters that best reproduce the empirical overtake of Facebook, this overtake could have not taken place with a significant probability.
The complex networks of physics
O. Fajardo
In this work we analyse the American Physical Society database with two objectives focused in the Spanish contribution in physics. The first objective is the development of a web appli- cation which can show the evolution of collaboration networks. Also, the formation of communities is shown in the web application. The identification of the communities were done it thanks to some statistical tools. The other objective is a quantitative analysis of these collaborations. This analysis shows that Condensed Matter has been the most prolific field and that some of its researchers play the most important role in the whole Spanish community.
The Physics of Complex Networks
A. Quinquillà
We provide an updated image of the physicists’ contribution to complex networks. In order to achieve our aim we created a timeline with the most relevant inputs. Furthermore, we present a characterization of the complex network community’s collaboration structure. We display the collaboration network based on the references of a selection of reviews. Finally, we characterize the obtained network by means of the common procedures and concepts widely used in complex networks that come from the physicists community.
Digital Ecology: Coexistence and Domination among Interacting Networks
Kaj-Kolja Kleineberg, Marian Boguña,
The overwhelming success of Web 2.0, within which online social networks are key actors, has induced a paradigm shift in the nature of human interactions. The user-driven character of Web 2.0 services has allowed researchers to quantify large-scale social patterns for the first time. However, the mechanisms that determine the fate of networks at the system level are still poorly understood. For instance, the simultaneous existence of multiple digital services naturally raises questions concerning which conditions these services can coexist under. Analogously to the case of population dynamics, the digital world forms a complex ecosystem of interacting networks. The fitness of each network depends on its capacity to attract and maintain users' attention, which constitutes a limited resource. In this paper, we introduce an ecological theory of the digital world which exhibits stable coexistence of several networks as well as the dominance of an individual one, in contrast to the competitive exclusion principle. Interestingly, our theory also predicts that the most probable outcome is the coexistence of a moderate number of services, in agreement with empirical observations.
Is bigger always better? How local online social networks can outperform global ones
Kaj-Kolja Kleineberg, Marian Boguna
arXiv:1504.01368 (2015)
The overwhelming success of online social networks, the key actors in the cosmos of the Web 2.0, has reshaped human interactions on a worldwide scale. To help understand the fundamental mechanisms which determine the fate of online social networks at the system level, we describe the digital world as a complex ecosystem of interacting networks. In this paper, we discuss the impact of heterogeneity in network fitnesses induced by competition between an international network, such as Facebook, and local services.To this end, we construct a 1:1000 scale model of the digital world, consisting of the 80 countries with the most Internet users. We show how inter-country social ties induce increased fitness of the international network. Under certain conditions, this leads to the extinction of local networks; whereas under different conditions, local networks can persist and even dominate the international network completely. These findings provide new insights into the possibilities for preserving digital diversity.
Evolution of the Digital Society Reveals Balance between Viral and Mass Media Influence
Kaj-Kolja Kleineberg, Marian Boguña
Online social networks (OSNs) enable researchers to study the social universe at a previously unattainable scale. The worldwide impact and the necessity to sustain the rapid growth of OSNs emphasize the importance of unraveling the laws governing their evolution. Empirical results show that, unlike many real-world growing networked systems, OSNs follow an intricate path that includes a dynamical percolation transition. In light of these results, we present a quantitative two-parameter model that reproduces the entire topological evolution of a quasi-isolated OSN with unprecedented precision from the birth of the network. This allows us to precisely gauge the fundamental macroscopic and microscopic mechanisms involved. Our findings suggest that the coupling between the real preexisting underlying social structure, a viral spreading mechanism, and mass media influence govern the evolution of OSNs. The empirical validation of our model, on a macroscopic scale, reveals that virality is 4-5 times stronger than mass media influence and, on a microscopic scale, individuals have a higher subscription probability if invited by weaker social contacts, in agreement with the strength of weak ties paradigm.
Sustaining the Internet with hyperbolic mapping
Marian Boguña, Fragkiskos Papadopoulos, Dmitri Krioukov,
The Internet infrastructure is severely stressed. Rapidly growing overheads associated with the primary function of the Internet-routing information packets between any two computers in the world-cause concerns among Internet experts that the existing Internet routing architecture may not sustain even another decade. In this paper, we present a method to map the Internet to a hyperbolic space. Guided by a constructed map, which we release with this paper, Internet routing exhibits scaling properties that are theoretically close to the best possible, thus resolving serious scaling limitations that the Internet faces today. Besides this immediate practical viability, our network mapping method can provide a different perspective on the community structure in complex networks.
Approximating PageRank from in-degree
Fortunato, S; Marián Boguñá; Flammini, A; Menczer, F
ALGORITHMS AND MODELS FOR THE WEB-GRAPH. LECTURE NOTES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE (2008)
PageRank is a key element in the success of search engines, allowing to rank the most important hits in the top screen of results. One key aspect that distinguishes PageRank from other prestige measures such as in-degree is its global nature. From the information provider perspective, this makes it difficult or impossible to predict how their pages will be ranked. Consequently a market has emerged for the optimization of search engine results. Here we study the accuracy with which PageRank can be approximated by in-degree, a local measure made freely available by search engines. Theoretical and empirical analyses lead to conclude that given the weak degree correlations in the Web link graph, the approximation can be relatively accurate, giving service and information providers an effective new marketing tool.
Decoding the Structure of the WWW: A Comparative Analysis of Web Crawls
M. Angeles Serrano, Ana Maguitman, Marian Boguña, Santo Fortunato, A. Vespignani,
ACM TRANSACTIONS ON THE WEB (2007)
The understanding of the immense and intricate topological structure of the World Wide Web (WWW) is a major scientific and technological challenge. This has been recently tackled by characterizing the properties of its representative graphs, in which vertices and directed edges are identified with Web pages and hyperlinks, respectively. Data gathered in large-scale crawls have been analyzed by several groups resulting in a general picture of the WWW that encompasses many of the complex properties typical of rapidly evolving networks. In this article, we report a detailed statistical analysis of the topological properties of four different WWW graphs obtained with different crawlers. We find that, despite the very large size of the samples, the statistical measures characterizing these graphs differ quantitatively, and in some cases qualitatively, depending on the domain analyzed and the crawl used for gathering the data. This spurs the issue of the presence of sampling biases and structural differences of Web crawls that might induce properties not representative of the actual global underlying graph. In short, the stability of the widely accepted statistical description of the Web is called into question. In order to provide a more accurate characterization of the Web graph, we study statistical measures beyond the degree distribution, such as degree-degree correlation functions or the statistics of reciprocal connections. The latter appears to enclose the relevant correlations of the WWW graph and carry most of the topological information of the Web. The analysis of this quantity is also of major interest in relation to the navigability and searchability of the Web.
On Local Estimations of PageRank: A Mean Field Approach
Santo Fortunato, Marián Boguñá, Alessandro Flammini, and Filippo Menczer
Internet Mathematics (2007)
PageRank is a key element in the success of search engines, allowing the display of the most relevant hits in the first screen of results. One key aspect that distinguishes PageRank from other prestige measures such as in-degree is its global nature. From the information provider perspective, this makes it difficult or even impossible to predict how their pages will be ranked. Consequently, a market has emerged for the optimization of search engine results. Here we study the accuracy with which PageRank can be approximated by in-degree, a local measure made freely available by search engines. Theoretical and empirical analyses lead us to conclude that, given the weak degree of correlations in the Web link graph, the approximation can be relatively accurate, giving service and information providers an effective new marketing tool.
Modeling the Internet
M. Angeles Serrano, Marian Boguña, Albert Diaz-Guilera,
We model the Internet as a network of interconnected Autonomous Systems which self-organize under an absolute lack of centralized control. Our aim is to capture how the Internet evolves by reproducing the assembly that has led to its actual structure and, to this end, we propose a growing weighted network model driven by competition for resources and adaptation to maintain functionality in a demand and supply balance. On the demand side, we consider the environment, a pool of users which need to transfer information and ask for service. On the supply side, ASs compete to gain users, but to be able to provide service efficiently, they must adapt their bandwidth as a function of their size. Hence, the Internet is not modeled as an isolated system but the environment, in the form of a pool of users, is also a fundamental part which must be taken into account. ASs compete for users and big and small come up, so that not all ASs are identical. New connections between ASs are made or old ones are reinforced according to the adaptation needs. Thus, the evolution of the Internet can not be fully understood if just described as a technological isolated system. A socio-economic perspective must also be considered.
Competition and adaptation in an Internet evolution model
We model the evolution of the Internet at the autonomous system level as a process of competition for users and adaptation of bandwidth capability. From a weighted network formalism, where both nodes and links are weighted, we find the exponent of the degree distribution as a simple function of the growth rates of the number of autonomous systems and connections in the Internet, both empirically measurable quantities. Our approach also accounts for a high level of clustering as well as degree-degree correlations, both with the same hierarchical structure present in the real Internet. Further, it also highlights the interplay between bandwidth, connectivity, and traffic of the network.
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Cost of repairing Big Ben tower rockets due to World War II damage
Photo taken on Jan. 29, 2019 shows the Elizabeth Tower, also known as the Big Ben, ahead of the Brexit deal amendments votes in the House of Commons in London, Britain. [Photo/Han Yan (Xinhua)]
The bill for renovating Big Ben, Britain's most famous clock tower, has leaped by a third after the discovery of extensive damage caused during World War II, local media reported Thursday.
The House of Commons (lower house of parliament) Commission said Thursday it was "extremely disappointed" that the cost of repairing the Elizabeth Tower housing the Big Ben bell will have to rise from 61.1 million pounds (about 79.8 million U.S. dollars) to 79.7 million pounds (about 104.2 million dollars).
A statement from the House of Commons Commission said: "It is very frustrating to learn that the Elizabeth Tower project requires yet more funding."
The need for another 18.6 million pounds (24.3 million dollars) was only realized following the discovery of a bomb damage during World War II, among other problems. The new budget will have to be approved by the accounting officers of the Houses of Parliament.
Ian Ailles, director general of the House of Commons, said the Elizabeth Tower restoration -- which began in 2017 and is scheduled to continue until next year -- "had been more complex than we could have anticipated."
It had not been possible to understand the "full extent of the damage" until scaffolding had gone up and a survey was carried out, said Ailles.
Examination of the 177-year-old tower has uncovered decay and damage to hundreds of intricate carvings, asbestos in the belfry, extensive use of toxic lead paint, broken glass in the clock dials and the need for a clock specialist.
Big Ben was silenced in 2017 to protect the health and safety of workers involved in what was initially estimated to be a 41-million-dollar refurbishment of the Elizabeth Tower.
Last month, a campaign to enable Big Ben to chime on the Brexit day failed due to high cost.
Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn
Editor: Lan Suying
2 China becomes second biggest foreign investor of Philippines in 2019
3 Daily sales of passenger cars down 92% in China in first half of Feb 2020
5 Cheetah Mobile banned by Google Play store over ad fraud
6 Apple gradually restores business in China, despite virus impact on quarterly revenue
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KNOCK 'EM DEAD: Killer comedian Margaret Cho explains how she got so skinny and why she refuses Dick Cheney’s invitations to the White House
By Daniel A. Kusner
It’s still a few weeks away, but Margaret Cho is making her way to Dallas for two nights at the Majestic Theatre. Hew new “Assassin” tour is being touted as her most political work yet.
The last time Cho was in North Texas, she was testing new material at the Addison Improv for “State of the Emergency,” a stand-up show that toured swing-states before the 2004 election.
Cho spent most of last year so intensely focused on the presidential race. Her candidate didn’t win. So how is she carrying on?
This interview is running early so that people will buy tickets for your Dallas performances. When was the last time you actually went out and bought tickets? I usually buy on the day of the show. But if it’s Bjork or somebody, I snap them up right away. Right now my favorite band is the Dresden Dolls. And they’re sold out months in advance, so I’m out of luck.
Describe the typical Margaret Cho fan: They’re so atypical. So many different people respond to my work. Some are gay, some are lesbian. There are a lot of people who are feel like outlaws and outcasts.
A lot of married Republicans? Actually, there are a few. My work is very highbrow and very lowbrow. It rarely rides in the middle of the road. That’s part of my appeal — even for people with whom I politically disagree.
What’s the most memorable thing a fan has done for you? Years ago, this guy made me a puffy, satin, baseball jacket with my face etched on the back. Not taken from a photograph — he drew it. So I looked like Aileen Wuornos — ya know, Charlize Theron from “Monster.” It’s the best rendering because it’s the most unflattering picture. I still have it — not that I’ve ever worn it.
During ‘State of the Emergency,’ you said it was impossible for Bush to be re-elected. I know. Now I’m going to have to eat my hat.
So last year, on Nov. 3, what did you do? It was very strange, very sad.
Were you wounded? Or did you see it coming? I saw it coming. When I was in California, I was in this very liberal oasis, and I thought Bush didn’t have a prayer. Then, after going through several swing states, I saw how passionate people were about the election.
What did you notice about Bush supporters? I thought they were very brainwashed and very blinded to any of his shortcomings as a leader. They bought so much into this ‘Us versus Them’ worldview. They needed to kick some ass: Kick some terrorist ass! Kick gay marriage’s ass! That brought out the bully in people and the need to be patriotic. But it wasn’t being patriotic — it was being dumb and following orders.
Looking back, have you made great strides in shaking the world up. I don’t know.
What if John Kerry would have won? Would you have demanded an invitation to his inaugural ball? That would have been great. I’ve been to the White House, and I’ll go again. But it’s not like they’ve stopped inviting me. I still get invitations from Dick Cheney.
Why don’t you accept? They’re fund-raisers. So first you have to pay, like, $10,000, so that immediately excludes me. Now during the Clinton Administration, I could go for free. But for the Bush Administration, you have to pay.
If it was free, would you go? No.
Why? Because they’re The Big Enemy? I just don’t like the administration. I don’t want to be photographed there. I don’t want to be seen there. It’s, like, they’re the popular kids in high school, and you’re the king of the losers. You don’t want to be seen with the popular kids.
But at the end of the teenage movie, don’t all the cool kids and losers get together and dance or make out? That’s true. Maybe there’s an Andrew McCarthy or Molly Ringwald for me somewhere in there. But I don’t think so.
Is the common thread in your work about being an outsider who calls out injustice? I’d really hate to lose sight of being petty and immature. When you get too serious and go on crusades, then it’s impossible to be a comedian.
How come your new show doesn’t touch on your miraculous weight loss. I guess it doesn’t seem so miraculous to me because it’s been pretty gradual. It’s all because I got another job. I’m now a professional belly dancer.
You didn’t have the gastric bypass surgery? No. I wish.
Have you ever been this skinny? Probably when I was 11.
Was it a huge drop in a short period of time? No. I lost a lot because I really got into belly dancing. I dacne under my birth name, Moran. And tomorrow night I’m dancing at a Moroccan resturant for a big St. Patick’s Day celebration. I’ve recently gained some back, which I think looks good. But the weight loss is all due to the steadiness of physical activity, which I never had before.
So where are you in the Michael Jackson scandal? I’m over it. I feel bad for him because there’s no way he can get a fair trail. He was unstable to begin with, now he looks like Ann Curry from the Today show. But I really liked his pajama pants.
As an international celebrity, have you ever been wrongly accused? No, because I’ve done everything I’ve been accused of.
In “Assassin,” who are your targets? The Bush daughters? No. It’s not their fault. They probably hate their dad just as much as we all do. Besides, I can’t imagine the hell of being named after Barbara. But I do go after Laura Bush quite a bit. And Dick Cheney.
Do you go after Mary Cheney? No. I defend her.
How? Well, that she’s not allowed to exist. That perception of her being a freak is just awful. Deep down, I think Dick Cheney’s very accepting and loving toward his daughter. I don’t think he’s homophobic at all. He just knows it will advance him politically.
So the next time the Cheney family invites you to the White House, maybe you can bring it all together. You and Mary Cheney can bridge the chasm between Republicans, their gay children and liberal comedians. Yeah, right. If only.
Cho performs at the Majestic Theatre, 1925 Elm St. April 1 at 8 p.m. and April 2 at 7:30 p.m. $30-$45.50. 214-880-0961.
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Application of MICHAEL J. CIMINO for the removal of Josephine Reder, Rhona Vitagliano, Michael Davis, Tom Dolise, Ellen Ryder, Keith Wilson, and Maryanne Karageorges, as members of the Board of Education, and Gene Grasso, as Superintendent of Schools of the Plainedge Union Free School District.
Ingerman Smith, L.L.P., attorneys for respondents, Warren H. Richmond, Esq., of counsel
MILLS, Commissioner.--Petitioner seeks the removal from office of the members of the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools of the Plainedge Union Free School District ("respondents") due to alleged violations of the Education Law, General Municipal Law and New York State Constitution. The application must be sustained to the extent indicated.
Petitioner alleges that respondents illegally constructed and equipped a board room in the district’s high school for $79,231.40. Specifically, petitioner contends that respondents expended public monies without voter approval, failed to comply with the competitive bidding requirements of the General Municipal Law and failed to publicly adopt a board resolution authorizing the construction of the board room. In addition, petitioner claims that the expenditures for the purchase of computers, computer desks and online service for home use by board members constitutes an unconstitutional gift of public funds.
Respondents argue that all actions were taken in good faith and in furtherance of legitimate district interests. In his affidavit, respondent superintendent states that it was his determination that the project was essentially a maintenance project, and assumes sole responsibility for the decision to fund the project out of the operations and maintenance budget rather than as a capital project. He also accepts full responsibility for the decision that it was not subject to the competitive bidding requirements of the General Municipal Law. He further maintains that respondent board had absolutely no involvement in the project.
In an appeal to the Commissioner of Education, petitioner has the burden of demonstrating a clear legal right to the relief requested (8 NYCRR "275.10) and the burden of establishing the facts upon which he or she seeks relief (Application of Goldin, et. al., 39 Ed Dept Rep 14, Decision No. 14,158; Application of Bushman, et al., 37 id. 576, Decision No. 13,931; Appeal of Marek, 35 id. 314, Decision No. 13,554). Education Law "306 authorizes the Commissioner of Education to remove a superintendent of schools as well as a member of the board of education for a "wilful violation or neglect of duty" (Education Law "306(1); Appeal of Rampello, 37 Ed Dept Rep 153, Decision No. 13,830; Application of Brousseau, 35 id. 291, Decision No. 13,545; Application of Cobler, 35 id. 176, Decision No. 13,506). To be considered wilful, respondents’ actions must have been intentional and with a wrongful purpose (Appeal of Rampello, supra; Application of Cobler, supra). Mere negligence on the part of a school officer is not enough to warrant removal (Application of Brennan, 35 Ed Dept Rep 214, Decision No. 13,520; Appeal of Schofield, 34 id. 143, Decision No. 13,263).
There is no dispute that the project at issue was funded out of the operations and maintenance budget, rather than as a capital project. The issues presented are whether this was appropriate, and, if not, whether respondents' actions warrant removal.
According to the record, the project involved the conversion of an electrical shop to a board room, requiring interior construction, installation of bathrooms, electrical work, installation of an air conditioning unit and the installation of ceiling light fixtures. Maintenance is recurring work intended to promote the upkeep of a property for purposes of ensuring proper operating condition. In contrast, reconstruction means to rebuild, renovate or remodel an existing school building (see, State Education Department’s Office of Facilities Planning Bulletin on State Building Aid for Public School Districts and BOCES, April 1999). Based on the record before me, I find that respondent superintendent erred in his determination that the project at issue was a maintenance project. The nature and scope of the work necessary to convert the electrical shop to a board room clearly demonstrates that the project was a reconstruction project that should not have been funded out of the district’s operations and maintenance budget, but rather should have been treated as a capital project.
The record also demonstrates violations of the General Municipal Law. Article 5-A of the General Municipal Law contains the competitive bidding requirements applicable to school districts throughout the state. Section 103 provides that, unless another statutory provision provides an exception, all contracts for public work involving an expenditure of more than $20,000 and all purchase contracts involving an expenditure of more than $10,000 are subject to competitive bidding (General Municipal Law "103). In addition "101 contains competitive bidding requirements with respect to contracts for the erection, construction, reconstruction or alteration of a building, when the entire cost will exceed $50,000. In such cases, "101 requires the preparation of separate specifications for: (1) plumbing and gas fitting; (2) steam heating, hot water heating, ventilating and air-conditioning apparatus; and (3) electric wiring and standard illuminating fixtures. The specifications must be drawn to permit separate and independent bidding on each of the three categories of work (General Municipal Law "101; 1999 Opns St Comp No. 99-2).
The record indicates that the cost of the capital project exceeded $50,000. Therefore, I find that respondents violated the competitive bidding requirements of the General Municipal Law by failing to bid the reconstruction work.
The record on the purchase of furniture is less clear. It is not apparent whether the furniture purchased for the new board room was of the same or similar nature and is customarily handled by the same vendor as compared to other furniture which may have been purchased by respondents during the fiscal year. Therefore, I am unable to determine whether it should have been included in determining whether the monetary threshold had been met and whether competitive bidding was required (1991 Opns St Comp No. 91-64; 1992 Opns St Comp No. 92-46). In any event, "104-b requires school districts to adopt internal policies and procedures governing all procurements of goods and services that are not required to be made pursuant to competitive bidding requirements (General Municipal Law "104-b[1]). Except in limited circumstances, the policies and procedures must provide that alternative proposals or quotations will be secured (General Municipal Law, "104-b[2][b],[f]). Accordingly, even if the procurement of goods and services is not required to be made pursuant to competitive bidding requirements, it must be made in accordance with the district’s procurement policies and procedures (1992 Opns St Comp No. 92-46). It is not clear from the record whether respondent board has such internal policies and procedures in place, and, if so, whether they were followed in the purchase of the new board room furniture. I remind respondents of their obligation to promulgate such policies and procedures and to follow them where competitive bidding is not required.
Furthermore, pursuant to the regulations of the Commissioner of Education, a school district is required to submit plans and specifications for a proposed project to remodel school district facilities to the Department when the contemplated costs of such project are $10,000 or more, and for all projects affecting the health and safety of students (8 NYCRR "155.2). No such documents were filed with the Department pertaining to the project at issue. Therefore, I find that respondents failed to adhere to the regulations of the Commissioner of Education, and direct respondent to submit the required documents to the Office of Facilities Planning for a health and safety review.
Finally, based on the record before me, I find meritless petitioner’s contention that respondents illegally expended public monies for computer equipment and Internet service for home use by respondent board members. Article VIII, "1 of the New York State Constitution prohibits a gift or loan of public property to any individual or private entity (Application of Schmucker, 32 Ed Dept Rep 643, Decision No. 12,942). Respondents state that the district retains ownership of the property, which is to be returned to the district at the expiration of an individual board member’s term. Respondents further maintain, and petitioner does not refute, that the computers are used to enhance communication on school district matters between the district and board members. There is no evidence in the record that they are being used for nondistrict matters. Therefore, based on the record before me, I do not find the expenditure unlawful.
Removal from office is a drastic remedy that should be taken only in extreme circumstances (Application of O’Connor, 21 Ed Dept Rep 105, Decision No. 10,613). Serious violations of law and policy have occurred in this matter. However, there is no evidence that respondent board members willfully violated the law. Rather, the superintendent takes full responsibility for all decisions that lead to statutory violations, and indicates that the board had no involvement in these decisions. Even if board members should have been involved, any alleged neglect does not appear to have been willful. Thus, there is no basis to remove the board.
However, I am very concerned about the superintendent's actions. His experience as a school business official would suggest that such "misjudgments" should not occur. While there is no evidence that respondent superintendent acted in bad faith, questions remain about how so many "mistakes" occurred. Because, however, the construction itself, although improperly authorized, is not unreasonable and will result in a substantial and continuing benefit to the district and because there is no evidence of bad faith, I decline to exercise my power of removal (Appeal of Steflovich and Stephan, 7 Ed Dept Rep 76, Decision No. 7,827). However, the superintendent and the board members that oversee him should be absolutely scrupulous in their future compliance with the law, as additional violations of these kind may well subject them to removal from office (Appeal of Brennan, supra).
THE APPEAL IS SUSTAINED TO THE EXTENT INDICATED.
IT IS ORDERED that respondents submit the plans and specifications, including addenda and change orders, related to the project at issue in this appeal to the Office of Facilities Planning of the State Education Department within 10 days of the date of this decision.
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Grant McConachie House
12909 - 121 Street, Edmonton
Originally Built in 1917, the McConachie House was later the boyhood home of Grant McConachie, President of C.P. Air, from 1947 to his death in 1965. McConachie's flying career was an exceptional one and his activities spanned Canada's aviation history from the days of bush travel until the days of long distance jet travel.
The house is a simple, two-story wood frame structure with a gambel roof. There are other houses similar to it in the Calder area. Its significance derives from its typicality. Housing similar to it in date and style can be found throughout Alberta usually occupied by middle class families engaged in the trades or business.
-Alberta Culture and Community Spirit, Historic Resources Management Branch, Old St. Stephen's College, 8820 - 112 Street, Edmonton, AB T6G 2P8 (File: Des. 259)
Alberta Register of Historic Places: Grant McConachie House
Registered Historic Resource (1982/09/13)
Themes: Homes
Grant McConachie House. Photo by AB Culture & Community Spirit.
Grant McConachie House (rear). Photo by AB Culture & Community Spirit.
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Escape from the Textbook!
The first Escape from the Textbook! conference was held on February 12th, 2011 at the Urban School of San Francisco. Watch the conference video here.
Sponsoring Organizations
Center for Innovative Teaching (at the Urban School of San Francisco)
Independent Curriculum Group
Math for America (UC Berkeley)
Dr Jo Boaler is a Professor of Mathematics Education at Stanford University. Former roles have included being the Marie Curie Professor of Mathematics Education at the University of Sussex, England, a mathematics teacher in London comprehensive schools and a researcher at King’s College, London. Her PhD won the national award for educational research in the UK and her book: Experiencing School Mathematics won the 'Outstanding Book of the Year' award for education in Britain. She is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (Great Britain), and a former president of the International Organisation for Women and Mathematics Education (IOWME). At Stanford University she won an 'Early Career Award' from the National Science Foundation. Her latest book What’s Math Got To Do With It? (2008) published by Penguin, aims to increase public understanding of the importance of mathematics, and the nature of effective teaching approaches.
More information about Dr. Boaler.
Paul Zeitz got his PhD in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1992 and has been at the University of San Francisco ever since. Between college and math graduate school, he taught math for six years at independent high schools and took many detours, including journalism and geology, before settling down happily with mathematics. He was a member of the first USA team to compete in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), and later helped to coach the USA team at the IMO, leading them to an unprecedented perfect score.
He has been involved with both competitive and extremely non-competitive math enrichment activities for high school and middle school students for most of his adult life. The recent achievements that he has been the most proud of are his book, The Art and Craft of Problem Solving (1998), the Bay Area Mathematical Olympiad (co-founded 1999), and the San Francisco Math Circle (co-founded 2005).
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Ministry slams US attempts to maintain its hegemony
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian speaks at a news conference in Beijing, on Dec 28, 2020. [Photo/fmprc.gov.cn] Beijing said on Wednesday that a report Washington released on its Indo-Pacific strategy had exposed its malign motives to contain China and sabotage regional peace and stability. The recently declassified United States Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, which was released by the Trump administration on Tuesday, includes accelerating India's rise as a counterweight to Beijing, the ability to defend Taiwan against an attack, and maintaining US strategic primacy in the region. The Indo-Pacific strategy aims to maintain US hegemony, Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily news conference. The document has purposefully distorted China's neighborhood policy and sensationalized the "China threat" theory, Zhao said, adding that it "highlights the Cold War mentality and military confrontation". China has made important contributions to regional peace, stability and prosperity, which is obvious to countries in the region, said Zhao, adding that Washington is the real troublemaker and the real force working to sabotage peace, stability and cooperation in the region. The document also reveals that the US government has gone against its own pledge on the Taiwan question, he said. China urges the US to fully understand the sensitivity of the Taiwan question and properly handle it and refrain from sending wrong signals to "Taiwan independence" forces, he said. Beijing hopes Washington will respect China's core interests and major concerns, and will strengthen dialogue with China to properly manage differences, he added. "We need to ensure that the Asia-Pacific region is a stage for China and the US to enhance mutually beneficial cooperation, and it should not become an arena where a zero-sum game plays out," Zhao said. Claims rebuffed Also on Wednesday, the spokesman urged the United Kingdom and Canada to immediately revoke their wrong decisions on imports from the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, adding that China will take all necessary measures to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests. The UK and Canada announced they were banning the import of goods that they claimed were made by "forced labor" in Xinjiang. Zhao said that these moves were untenable, adding that the measures were made based on lies and false information. "The so-called forced labor is nothing but a lie fabricated by certain institutions and individuals in Western countries," he said. "Certain countries, including the UK, have funded the fabrication of lies and rumors and deliberately spread them. They have used the so-called human rights issue as an excuse to smear China, and taken various measures to restrict and oppress enterprises in Xinjiang." This has fully exposed their hypocritical nature and sinister intentions to curb Xinjiang's development and interfere in China's internal affairs, Zhao said.
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Pandemic tells us to expect the unexpected
People sit at a decoration installed for the upcoming New Year and Christmas holiday season in Zaryadye Park in Moscow, Russia on Dec 30, 2020. [Photo/Agencies] It is the season when commentators and experts make their predictions for the coming year. The events of 2020 would appear to underline the folly of that annual exercise. Looking back over the last 12 months, it is apparent that the astrologers did no worse than their more rational counterparts. Hedging their bets, like all successful soothsayers, the stargazers predicted a disruptive year as we approached the long-awaited Age of Aquarius, an era of peace and love that they tell us dawned on Monday. None of the forecasters, however, warned us of the onset of a pandemic that would threaten every country in the world and create the biggest global crisis in most people's living memory. True, the 20th century United States self-proclaimed psychic Jeane Dixon had long ago set 2020 as the date of Armageddon. But she had somewhat dented her credibility by earlier predicting that the world would end in 1962. Even after the first cluster of novel coronavirus cases were reported by Chinese authorities about a year ago, few would have predicted that governments would still be wrestling with the consequences of the outbreak 12 months later. The World Health Organization, to its credit, warned that the world was spending far more money each year responding to disease outbreaks, natural disasters, and other health emergencies than it did preparing for and preventing them. "It is not a matter of if another pandemic will strike, but when," the WHO said in January. "And when it strikes, it will spread fast, potentially threatening millions of lives." Even the WHO, however, did not predict that 2020 would be the long-feared pandemic year and that by the end of it the number of cases of the new disease would have surpassed 75 million, with a death toll of more than 1.7 million. Many governments, particularly in the West, had parroted similar warnings about the need to be ready for an eventual pandemic at some future and indeterminate date. In reality, some had allowed their preparations to lapse as they responded to short-term economic problems by running down their stocks of equipment and trimming hard-pressed medical services. The countries that suffered most from the pandemic were also, ironically, among the most prosperous. The trouble with predictions, whether superficial ones in the daily newspapers or those provided by highly-paid consultants to their investment clients, is that they tend to reflect the concerns of the year ending, rather than the one approaching. Last year's crop focused heavily on predicting growing fears about the climate crisis, which forecasters described as "ecoanxiety", characterized by feelings of depression, grief, rage, despair, and hopelessness. Those feelings have been widespread in 2020 as a result of a different kind of threat that turned out to be even more immediate than the climate crisis. One forecaster foresaw the growth of a new disaster economy in which companies would leverage big data and artificial intelligence to cope with global emergencies. That proved remarkably prescient at the start of a year that highlighted the importance of new technology in responding to the pandemic, whether in the field of medical research, or in communications, as much of the working world moved online. Undeterred by the failure of past predictions, the forecasters are now forging ahead with their expectations for 2021. Some insist remote working and shopping are here to stay, while others opine that the public will rush back to offices and shops once the pandemic has passed. Attempting to predict the future is nowhere more lucrative than in the international financial markets, where armies of consultants and statisticians seek to give their clients an investment edge. Despite current bullish assessments linked to the prospect of a post-pandemic recovery, some are warning of the risks of listening to the so-called experts. According to New York Times columnist Jeff Summer: "The overwhelming evidence from decades of academic research is that nobody can reliably and accurately forecast what the stock market will do." The coming year will be no different, he concluded. The lesson of 2020 is, surely, whatever unseen events lie just around the corner, the most important thing is to be prepared for the unexpected. Harvey Morris is a senior media consultant for China Daily UK.
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Japanese Idols
Fairies – Super Hero / Love Me, Love You More
Rito 17/05/2014
Fairies, Love Me Love You More, Super Hero
Fairies‘ new single Super Hero / Love Me, Love You More is scheduled to be released on May 28.
This is the 8th single from Fairies. It is a double A-side.
The MV has been released.
In June, Super Hero will be the ending theme song for the variety show Uchi Kuru!? Come to my “Home Sweet Home” (ウチくる！？) airing on Fuji TV.
Love Me, Love You More is the theme song for the anime Yuuto-kun ga Iku, the Movie (劇場版 ゆうとくんがいく) that will be screened in Aeon Cinema (イオンシネマ) from May 31. The trailer has been released.
The CD+DVD edition includes a bonus disc with the music video and making-of footage.
The first press editions come with a photo card of a member of Fairies randomly selected from 12 models.
Furthermore, Fairies will hold a live tour in August. The concerts will take place in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka.
Love Me, Love You More
Super Hero (Instrumental)
Love Me, Love You More (Instrumental)
Love Me -Video Clip-
Love Me -Making-
Edition : CD+DVD / CD
Music Video (PV)
Angel365 07/05/2014 at 13:55
I like this single very much
I found the songs in full version here
Fairies-me.tumblr.com
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Mario Rodriguez is the President and founding member of Compendium Strategies. He has been an entrepreneur and community leader throughout his career. In 1986, he founded Jonathan Grey & Associates, and built it into a leading Latino-owned consulting and ad specialty company. His clients include Fortune 500 companies, sports agencies, political firms, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. In 2006, he created his consulting business where he specializes in advising his clients on a wide range of political, business, and social issues.
Mr. Rodriguez serves in many social organizations. He served as board Director for the Tiger Woods Learning Center and is the Chairman of the Hispanic 100. He served on the President?s Advisory Council of Concordia University, as well as the New Majority of Orange County. He formerly served as a member of President George W. Bush?s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, Chairman of the California Athletic Commission, President of the Hispanic Business Roundtable, Chairman of the Latino Coalition Foundation, Board of Directors of the Efren Herrera Foundation, and as member of the Board of Directors of the Boys & Girls Club in the South County area.
Mr. Rodriguez has received multiple awards including the Hispanic Business Roundtable?s ?Circle of Excellence? and League of United Latin American Citizens ?Businessman of the Year?. He has been featured in television, newspapers, magazines, and radio including ?Making It: Minority Success Stories?, and a KTLA Channel special, ?The Top Forty Companies with Owners under the age of Forty? by Entrepreneur Magazine. Mr. Rodriguez received the 2005 O.C. Hispanic Chairman?s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2005 O.C. United Way?s Hispanic Influential Lifetime Achievement award.
Manuel Ramirez
Manuel Ramirez is President and Chief Executive Officer of RJI Ramirez Jimenez International CPAs. Manuel is a founding member of the firm and has served as President and CEO since 1993. Manuel was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as a member of the California Board of Accountancy in 2007. In January, 2010, Manuel Ramirez was elected President of the California Board of Accountancy.
Manuel began his career in public accounting in 1981 in Orange County, California. He has experience in auditing and consulting with financial agencies, governmental institutions, healthcare providers, publicly traded companies, real estate developers, nonprofit organizations, and privately held enterprises. In addition to his extensive financial, accounting and auditing experience, he has specialized experience in taxation and business consulting.
Manuel holds a Masters of Science in Tax Law from Golden Gate University. He has also achieved Fellow of the American Board of Forensic Accountants status. Manuel received his Bachelor?s degree in accounting from California State University, Fullerton. Manuel is a co-founder of Hispanic 100, an organization working to help further the development of local, national and international Hispanic business and political leaders and to be a conduit to facilitate and implement the strategic resolution of issues critical to the Hispanic Community.
He also served as the last elected President and first Chairman of the Board for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Orange County. His business activism also includes participating in the area action council of Orange County for the NFIB, co-founder of NegNext PAC, co-founder of the Orange County Catholic Foundation, board member of Legatus, audit committee chairman of the Santa Ana Business Bank, finance and investment committee chairman of Make-A-Wish Foundation, finance chair for the Boy Scouts of America, along with serving on the board of two dozen other philanthropic and business organizations.
Bob Pacheco
Bob’s career in politics spans a period of over 16 years. During that time he has participated in numerous campaigns both as a candidate and as an advisor to other campaigns. In 1995 Bob ran successfully for city council. Two years later, he successfully ran for the California State Assembly where he served three terms until 2004. While in the state assembly he chaired the Hispanic Republican Caucus. In 2001 he created the California Empowerment Project to elect Latinos to public office. He was successful in raising and funding over 1 million dollars in campaigns to elect Latinos to public office including to city council, school board, water board and members of the legislature.
Bob served as California Statewide Chairman for President Bush?s re-election, Chairman of the Latino Caucus campaign for Governor Schwarzenegger, Statewide Latino Chairman for Senator John McCain for President, Statewide Latino Coalition Co-Chair for Meg Whitman for Governor and Latino Coalition Chairman for Carly Fiorina for U.S. Senate. For over 16 years, Bob has participated in running and advising numerous campaigns or advising candidates for public office. Bob was frequently called upon to be the Latino spokesman for the Republican Caucus and for the Presidential and State Candidates.
Bob’s professional career spans 58 years. He is the Senior Member of Pacheco & Pacheco Law Offices for over 37 years. He was also appointed to the United States Naval Academy Board of Visitors by President Bush, as California Senior Advisor for Jobs and Workforce Development, a member of the Cal-OSHA Board of Appeals and an AVP of a California Bank. Bob and his wife Gayle currently own and successfully operate a multimillion dollar manufacturing company in Walnut, California.
In the California State Assembly Bob served as Vice Chair of the powerful Judiciary Committee, Higher Education, Health Committee and the Local Government Committee. He was a key member of the Budget, Ethics and Appropriation Committees as well. Bob has received numerous awards for his legislative and community contributions:
The Latino Journal Excellence in Public Service award
Legislator of the Year by The Los Angeles Sheriffs Association
Legislator of the Year by The California Community College Administrators
Legislator of the Year by The Community College Student Association
Legislator of the Year by the Orange County Republican Party
Community & Professional Service award from Western State University Law School
Induction into Western State University Law School’s Hall of Fame
Lincoln Clubs Outstanding Contributions Award
Citizen of the Year Walnut Valley Chamber of Commerce
Outstanding Partner-President’s Award Mt. San Antonio Community College
Legislator of the Year Faculty Association of California Community Colleges
Nettie Humanitarian Award for prevention of HIV/Aids
Council of American Islamic Relations Legislator Award
(partial list)
Donald Garcia
With the achievement of a successful financial services industry career spanning two decades, Donald was named President of Pinnacle Consulting Group in 2001.
During his tenure at Pinnacle, Donald has developed unique processes and designs to implement financial strategies for various clients which include affluent business owners, highly-compensated executives, retirees, and those who have inherited wealth. Working with a team of tax professional, legal advisors and investment analysts, Donald and his associates provide comprehensive, innovative solutions to fit the financial needs of Pinnacle?s clients.
It is Donald?s strong belief that community leadership is essential to community growth and strength. He has held numerous executive positions in a variety of non-profit organizations which led him to be inducted into the Orange County Foundation, honoring the most accomplished leaders of the community.
Professionally, Donald has consistently achieved the honors of Million Dollar Roundtable, Top of the Table. Previously he was president of the National Association of Professional Insurance and Financial Advisors of Orange County, and a member of the National Association of Corporate Directors.
On a State level he accepted a Governor?s appointment to serve on the board of the California State Compensation Insurance Fund where he serves on the investment committee. It over sees the positioning of 20 billion dollars in assets. Nationally, Donald was a United State Presidential appointee where he chaired the Finance and Audit committee of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Donald Garcia and his wife, Wendy, reside in Newport Beach, California and enjoy volunteering for various philanthropic organizations. They have been blessed with their daughter, Brooke, and son, Sho (Donald).
Rosario Marin
Rosario Marin is a compassionate mother, dedicated public official and consummate advocate for the disadvantaged and people with disabilities. She has served for 22 years at the local, state, and national levels. In addition, she is the author of ?Leading Between Two Worlds.? Currently she is a principal at Compendium Strategies.
Most recently she worked for Old Republic Title in the Default Management Services company as Vice President for Business Relations. She oversaw the effort to expand into new markets and government contracts.
Previously, she served in Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger?s cabinet as Secretary of the State and Consumer Services Agency from 2006 through March, 2009 where she oversaw the state?s civil rights enforcement, consumer protection, and the licensing of 2.4 million Californians in more than 255 different professions. The agency oversees the procurement of more than nearly $9 billion worth of goods and services, the management and development of the state?s real estate, oversight of two state employee pension funds, the collection of state taxes, and programs managing the hiring of state employees ? in addition to the administration of two state museums and a state park.
Secretary Marin chaired the Building Standards Commission, the Victim?s Compensation and Government Claims Board, the Governor?s Green Action Team and the Mexican-American Veterans Memorial Committee. During her tenure the state buildings codes were updated in record time and published the first in the nation Green Building Standards. The Governor?s mandate to have 25% of the states procurement go to small business were attained and surpassed and she led the development and implementation of the plan to ?green? the 1600 state?s buildings by the year 2015.
She hosted 18 foreclosure prevention workshops throughout the state bringing together financial institutions, consumer, advocates, government officials and the media to reduce the number of foreclosures in the state of California. The model was replicated by other governmental and non-profit entities.
John G. Cruz, Esq.
John G. Cruz, Esq., served as Appointments Secretary to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from August 2007 to December 2010. From 2005-2007, Mr. Cruz served as a Commissioner on the California Gambling Control Commission. Prior to entering government service, and having earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School in 1979, Mr. Cruz was a practicing lawyer who handled sophisticated real estate and business transactional law matters. From 2002 to 2007, he served on the Federal Service Impasses Panel (having twice been appointed by President George W. Bush), where he resolved disputes between federal agencies and unions representing federal employees.
Mr. Cruz has lived in Orange County since 1966. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration (with an emphasis in Accounting) in 1975 from California State University, Fullerton. Among other activities, he previously served as an Officer and Trustee for the Orange County Hispanic Bar Association, as a member of the Board of Directors of the Santa Ana Education Foundation. He was also a co-founder of the Hispanic 100.
Jerry Silva
William ?Jerry? Silva is the Compliance Reliability Manager for Southern California Edison, where he joined the organization in October of 1982 working his way through many positions. He is presently responsible for leading a team of Senior Project Managers to review all proposed and adopted electric reliability regulations for applicability to Power Supply operations for SCE.
Jerry in his previous position helped sucure the required licenses/permits for capital investments in Sub-stations and Transmission projects to meet the growing demand for energy in California. He had served as the Licensing and Environmental project manager for Eldorado Ivanpah project that presently serves as the largest solar development in the United States permitted at the Nevada/California border adjacent to Primm, Nevada. He worked and managed many project teams for major SCE capital projects, met with many community leaders and regulators to address the project?s purpose and need in a particular commuunity, and manages the multi million dollar budgets. Prior to this positon, Jerry was in Public Affairs from 1993-2007 where he managed government and community relations, communications, media relations, and community outreach benefit for several communities in the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire areas. Worked closely with Local, state and federal government agencies in these communities.
Mr. Silva has held past positions of Project Engineer, Area Manager, and Strategic Information Manager.
Jerry is an active member of the community and serves on a variety of boards including the Hispanic 100, Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute, and International Visistor Council of Los Angeles.
Mr. Silva has also served as regional judge and Chair of the Los Angeles Regional Panel for the prestigious White House Fellows program from 2000-2010. Jerry also recently received a gubernatorial appointment in early 2015 by Governor Jerry Brown and was first appointed in 2008 to serve on the Professional Engineer and Land Surveyor?s commission.
He received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration, his Bachelor of Science in Management and Organizational Behavior from La Verne University receiving Magna Cum Laude honors.
Jerry is active with family activities and traveling thoughout Europe and the Carribean. His hobbies include basketball, racquetball and an occasional game of golf.
Rudy M. Beserra
Rudy M. Beserra is Senior Vice President for Latin Affairs at The Coca-Cola Company. He began his career 27 years ago, in 1989, after serving as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan on Latino and Small Business Affairs.
A native of Albuquerque, Rudy is a graduate of the University of New Mexico. From modest roots, he has built a long, successful career as an advocate and voice for the Latino community. With Coca-Cola, he has strengthened the company’s bridge to hundreds of Latino organizations and small businesses in the U.S.
Rudy is an active member of a number of prominent Latino-focused organizations, including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC); the Congressional Hispanic Leadership Institute (CHLI), of which he is a founding member; and he serves on the board of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI). In the past, Rudy has served as chairman of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF).
In 2016, Rudy was included in Latino Leaders magazine’s “101 Most Influential Latinos of 2016”, recognized as one of the “exemplary individuals” who “have dedicated their lives to education, culture and the success of generations to come.”
In 2011, Rudy received the NFL Hispanic Heritage Leadership Award. That same year, he was awarded the Hector Barreto “Con Ganas” Award at the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC) annual convention in Miami for his advocacy promoting Latino businesses in the private sector.
In 2007, he received the Executive of the Year Award from the Association of Latin Professionals in Finance. His other citations include the 1995 Hispanic Community Commitment Award by the Latin American Management Association; a special recognition award in 2006 by the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; and the 2007 Hispanic Leadership Award from the Dominican Times.
In 1987, during his tenure with President Reagan’s administration, Rudy was a special assistant to President Reagan in the Office of Public Liaison. He was instrumental in creating The Hispanic Heritage Foundation’s (HHF) Hispanic Heritage Awards. They were established by the White House to commemorate the creation of Hispanic Heritage month in the United States.
For the past 29 years, the Hispanic Heritage Awards have honored Latino leaders in various fields who have made a positive impact in the United States and around the globe. The awards are unique in that physicians, scientists, educators, innovators, public officials, community and business leaders, and even young leaders are presented the coveted award.
Rudy lives in Atlanta with his wife, Lois, and two daughters.
R. Julio Gudio III
R. Julio Gudi?o III, is an exclusive agent and personal financial representative for Allstate Corporation, based in California since 1999. As such, he serves as an insurance agent and personal financial representative for over 4,500 business and individual clients in the Southern California Region.
Mr. Gudi?o is a top Allstate agent nationwide in auto, property, business and life insurance. He has a full service agency that sells all types of insurance, from personal auto and business insurance, to kidnap and ransom coverage. He was recently awarded the prestigious Allstate Chairman?s Inner Circle award for customer satisfaction, retention and profitability. He is in the top one percent of Allstate agents throughout the country, and one of only twelve agents in the state of California, to attain this level of achievement. Along with the Chairman?s Inner Circle Award, he was awarded the Allstate Insurance Co. Ray Lynch Community Service Award in 2002. This award is given to only ONE Agent out of approximately 15,000 agents nationwide per year for their dedication to their communities.
During this time, Mr. Gudi?o Founded and served as CEO and Publisher of bello Magazine, the largest national English language magazine targeting the acculturated and affluent Latino. bello Magazine was recognized by industry experts as one of the most influential Hispanic magazines of its time.
He also manages the WBC Boxings #1 mandatory challenger middleweight boxer.
Mr. Gudi?o is also called upon as a commentator for Univision and Telemundo as an Insurance Expert.
Prior to joining Allstate, Mr. Gudi?o, at the age of 23 was the youngest salesman for BASF Corporation, where he was the number one salesman nationwide for three years in a row managing a territory of over 25 million dollars.
Before Mr. Gudi?o began his corporate careers, he began working at a young age at his family?s businesses. These businesses included, auto dealerships, auto body shop, retail stores, and an ostrich and cattle ranch in Mexico.
Mr. Gudi?o also serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Rancho Santiago Community College District Foundation in Santa Ana, CA. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Goals for Life Foundation and is a former member of the Allstate Foundation Board, The Latino Coalition Foundation Board, Hispanic Business Roundtable Board and Children?s Protective Identification Video Foundation. Mr. Gudi?o is also the Chairman and founder of the United Hispanic Foundation.
Mr. Gudi?o and his wife Denise have been married for 15 years and have two beautiful children, Ariana Chanel (10) and Julio Christian (8).
Richard S. Figueroa, PIA, CPRC, CFM, CSNA
Rick Figueroa, a native Texan with over 25 years of experience in the financial sector, serves as 1st Vice-President with UBS Financial Services in Houston, Texas and is a partner of the Caton Figueroa Group; which provides financial strategy, solutions and reviews. Rick received a B.A. in Accounting and M.S. in Land Economics from Texas A&M University in 1991 and 1992, respectively. He has since earned numerous certifications which include: CPA, Chartered Retirement Planning Counselor (CRPC), Certified Financial Manager (CFM), and Certified Special Needs Advisor (CSNA) with the Private Client Group.
Rick joined Arthur Andersen in 1992; in 1995 he transferred to Halliburton and from 1997 to 2008 served as a Vice President and Senior Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch, where in 2007, he was honored with the Leadership in Diversity and Inclusion Award and the Merrill Lynch Greater Houston Complex Values Award. In 2009 he joined UBS Financial Services Inc. where he currently is employed.
As a community leader, Rick is actively involved by serving on the governing boards of numerous community organizations. He has held leadership positions with the National Hispanic Coalition for the Trump Campaign in 2016, appointed commissioner of the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation by Governor Greg Abbott in 2016, and appointed to the Texas Judicial Council by Governor Rick Perry in 2008. That same year former President George W. Bush invited Rick to the White House to be recognized as a leader within the Hispanic community.
(Please see below for an overview of Rick’s community involvement)
In addition to his work in the community, Rick is often quoted in the media, both broadcast and print, as an expert on investing and personal finance trends.
Rick’s business philosophy is centered around the client, looking at the big picture and focusing on client’s goals and aspirations. While insisting on understanding the specific situations and goals of the clients he works with, Rick endeavors to establish deep and valued and lifelong relationships. He enjoys traveling with his wife and four children, playing golf, spending time at his ranch with family and friends, and being involved with his church Champion Fellowship in Brenham, Texas.
Jerome (Jerry) Pierce Jr.
erome (Jerry) Pierce Jr. is the President of The Interamerica Group, (TIG) a leading management consulting and government relations firm based in Washington DC. and Sao Paulo, Brazil. In this capacity, Mr. Pierce has advised hundreds of companies and federal government agencies on improving efficiencies and outputs while reducing costs by incorporating the latest in innovative technology. He is an expert on Brazilian commerce, government and culture and advises US companies on strategies on entering the Latin American market. Mr. Pierce is also an owner and board member of USA Hispanic and Politico Hispano newspapers where he writes on issues pertaining to business, government, and politics in the US and Latin America. He is fluent in both Spanish and Portuguese.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Pierce served as Deputy Mayor of Jersey City, New Jersey where he supported the Mayor with the successful introduction of the medical saving accounts, school choice programs, and property tax debt securitization programs, which helped, lead to the resurgence of the city.
Prior to this Mr. Pierce served President George H.W. Bush and Secretary Jack Kemp as an Assistant Secretary of Administration. In this capacity, he had direct oversight over the Housing agency’s annual budget, information technology, finance and accounting, personnel, procurement and contracts. During this time, Mr. Pierce received exceptional insight to the inner workings of the U.S Congress, the White House/ Executive Branch and the diverse government agencies.
Mr. Pierce has experience in the corporate world working as an executive with Mobil Oil and Unocal Chemicals. During his tenure at the companies, Mr. Pierce worked in sales and business development of petroleum products and chemicals and created the direct export division of these products to the Caribbean and Latin America
Immediately upon graduation from college, Mr. Pierce served as a missionary and volunteer with El Verbo Ministries in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. In this capacity, he provided diverse services to people with special needs, including teaching at local schools, working on prison rehabilitation projects, and providing counseling for drug-addicted teens.
Pierce received his Bachelor’s Degree in Latin American Studies and Spanish from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he excelled as captain of the football team. He is the all-time leading tackler at Dartmouth with 387 tackles including 35 in one game. He is recognized by ESPN in its encyclopedia of college football as a part of the all-time Dartmouth Team. He received the prestigious Swede Nelson Award given by the Boston Gridiron Association for outstanding achievement in academics, athletics, sportsmanship and citizenship. He performed his graduate studies in Public Administration at American University.
Politically, Mr. Pierce served as a member of President George W Bush’s Transition Advisory Committee, and worked on the Bush-Cheney ’00 and ’04 National Finance Committees, and the Rudy Giuliani 2008 presidential campaign. He worked on the finance team for the Donald J Trump presidential campaign and served as a Trump surrogate to the international media. He is now a member of the Trump Hispanic Advisory Council.
Mr. Pierce is a 2014 recipient of the Golden Rule International Award given out by the United Nations for his service to humanity. He is a contributing writer to China Go Abroad, Latam Founders newsletters Politico Hispano newspaper and to his blog at www.theinteramericagroup.com/blog.
Grace Flores-Hughes
The Honorable Grace Flores-Hughes serves as Vice Chair, F&H 2, Inc., a management consulting business. She is a public speaker, television and media commentator and was a weekly contributor to VOXXI.com and currently guest contributor to Latino Magazine. Mrs. Flores-Hughes’ memoir, A Tale of Survival was published in 2011 and was awarded Honorable Mention by the New England and Southwest Book Festivals and the International Book Awards in 2013.
Mrs. Flores-Hughes has had a successful public service career both as a civil servant and as a political appointee. Her expertise lies in strategic managerial structure, including management crisis, conflict resolution and mediation and immigration/refugee policy. She has arbitration skills as a member of the Federal Service Impasses Panel. Additionally, Mrs. Flores-Hughes has been a college instructor in the areas of American Government and Public Policy.
Her last presidential appointment was in 2009 when President George W. Bush reappointed Mrs. Flores-Hughes as a member of the Federal Service Impasses Panel (FISP)–the Federal Labor Relations Authority to a five-year term. As a member of the FISP she was responsible for resolving impasses between federal agencies and unions representing employees arising from negotiations over conditions of employment through arbitration.
Prior to serving in the Bush Administration, Mrs. Flores-Hughes served in the Reagan and Bush Administrations in various capacities among them was being appointed to the Community Relations Service (CRS) at the Department of Justice where she served as the first woman Director/Assistant Attorney General from 1988-92. As Director, Mrs. Flores-Hughes led an agency with close to 100 employees and a budget of approximately $30M. She was responsible for developing policies and establishing priorities with respect to the resolution of racial and ethnic conflict in communities throughout the country, and the resettlement of Cuban/Haitian refugees in the United States. CRS partnered with the National Center for Missing & Exploited as part of the agency’s hotline initiative. CRS also assisted during national disasters to provide disaster relief and recovery activities as part of its conflict resolution mandate. And was part of a federal effort to reduce youth gangs and drugs.
During the late 1980’s and early 90’s, Mrs. Flores-Hughes led the federal resettlement plan of unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. from Central America. She set in motion a resettlement plan that is in place today at the Dept. of Health & Human Services. The plan included but not limited to the following; working with non-profits that would help to provide shelters for unaccompanied minors, working with local and state officials regarding placing minors in their communities until reunited with their families or deported and coordinating federal efforts with the Border Patrol to ensure the minors were processed quickly so they could be sent to temporary shelters and/or foster homes in anticipation of their being reunited them with their families or deported. She has extensive experience working in immigration and refugee policy issues.
Before joining the Department of Justice, Mrs. Flores-Hughes was the first woman to serve as Associate Administrator for Minority Small Business and Capital Ownership Development at the Small Business Administration. As Associate Administrator, Mrs. Flores-Hughes managed over 20 employees with a budget of approximately $40M. During her tenure, Mrs. Hughes initiated a number of innovative policy changes associated with reforming the 8(a) program.
Mrs. Flores-Hughes has extensive knowledge of the federal government. She began her federal career as a GS-2 at Kelly AFB and subsequently transferred from the Department of Defense to the Department of Health, Education & Welfare where she assumed higher levels of management responsibility. She later worked in the Department of Health & Human Services as Acting Director of the Office of Hispanic Americans and was responsible for the development and implementation of social policy and programs regarding Hispanic Americans and where she helped coin the term “Hispanic” for the federal government.
Mrs. Flores-Hughes is fluent in both English and Spanish and has written and presented a number of professional papers including, “The Origin of the Term Hispanic,” Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, 2006.
Mrs. Flores-Hughes was a Visiting Professor in the Political Science Departments of the University of Nebraska-Omaha and Nebraska Wesleyan University.
Mrs. Flores-Hughes was appointed by Virginia Governors George Allen and Jim Gilmore to serve on the VA Board of Professional and Occupational Regulation & the Board of Agriculture and Consumer Services. She served on the 1st Board of Visitors, Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute and served on the Diversity Advisory Committee for the Virginia National Guard.
She has received numerous awards and recognitions including, CNN Hero, 1990 Outstanding Public Service Award presented by the American Society for Public Administration. She is included in Who’s Who in America, in the Hispanic American Profiles, Ballantine Book and in Notable Hispanic American Women, Gale Research. Mrs. Flores-Hughes was named in Hispanic Business Magazine’s list of 100 Most Influential Hispanics in the U.S., and awarded Hispanic of the Year, 11th Cong. District of Virginia.
Mrs. Flores-Hughes is a member of numerous organizations and serves on the following non-profit boards; the Harvard Journal of Hispanic Policy, the Media Policy Center and the Hispanic Foundation for the Arts.
She has been an active participant in Republican state and federal political campaigns, including; most recently served as member of the Trump Hispanic Advisory Council, she also worked on the Tom Davis Va. Congressional race, the Reagan/Bush Reelection 84’ campaign, the presidential campaigns of Dole/Kemp, Bush/Quayle, and Bush/Cheney. She also served on the 84’ Inaugural Committee. She was president of the Alexandria Commonwealth Women’s Club and has served in various high level positions in three Republican administrations.
Mrs. Flores-Hughes holds a Master of Arts Degree in Public Administration, Harvard University and a B.A. in Child Psychology, University of the District of Columbia.
Mrs. Flores-Hughes is a native of Taft, Texas. She is married to Lt. General Harley A. Hughes, USAF (Ret), and resides in Alexandria, Virginia.
Fortino Rivera
Staffing Solutions Corporate office is in Santa Ana with a full branch in Montebello. Staffing Solutions has been in business for over ten years and looks forward to adding additional offices in the years to come. Fortino’s sales and marketing experience covers over 22 years. As an owner in the staffing industry, National Sales Manager with a California based manufacturer and Latin America Sales Manager for a multi-national corporation, Fortino has been successful in developing business for over two decades and has established distribution channels nationally and internationally.
Tino married his high school sweetheart Bertha Cortes and have been happily married for 32 years. Tino and Bertha have 3 children; Fortino Rivera Jr., David Rivera and Veronica Flores, as well as two grandchildren, Mario III and Ava. The Rivera family has lived in the Wilshire Square neighborhood for over twenty-eight years.
Tino attended the following Santa Ana public Schools; Monte Vista Elementary, Lincoln Elementary, Spurgeon Intermediate, Santa Ana High School and Santa Ana College. He has lived in Santa Ana all of his life.
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Today you might see...
Mottled Umber
Hebrew Character
Spring Usher
Dark Chestnut
Agonopterix propinquella
Calybites phasianipennella
Acrolepia autumnitella
Pale Brindled Beauty
White-shouldered House-moth
The Huntingdon Moth and Butterfly Group (HMBG)
The group, which began in 1988, provides a focal point for those interested in the butterflies and moths of the historical county of Huntingdonshire (Vice-county 31) to meet to encourage and share their mutual interest in Lepidoptera.
Trapping at Holme Fen July 2011
We hold regular Meetings and Events and encourage active participation in the recording and conservation of Lepidoptera, especially in Huntingdonshire.
The intention of this website is to provide information about the activities of the group as well as providing a resource for the identification of species.
You can use the options and search boxes on the left to identify both adult moths and butterflies as well as caterpillars. Alternatively, you can use a list of all the species on our database and access the species details from there.
Full details of the status of a species within Huntingdonshire and its distribution within the county are available.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to April 2020. The next scheduled update will probably in at the end of 2020.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to the November 2019.
The next scheduled update will probably in mid 2020.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to the end of February 2019.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to the end of August 2018.
The next scheduled update will probably in the beginning of 2019.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to the middle of March 2018.
The next scheduled update will probably in the middle of 2018.
The records have been updated with all the latest additions and changes.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to the middle of October 2016.
The next scheduled update will probably at the beginning of 2017.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to the middle of February 2016.
The next scheduled update will probably be around July 2016.
The web site has been given a make-over to make it more usable on tablets and mobile phones.
If you see any problems, please let us know using the contact us link.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to the beginning of March 2015.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received up to the 25th August 2014.
Records are usually updated every six months, so the next update will probably occur at the beginning of 2015.
The VC31 county records have now been updated to include all records received.
Records are usually updated every six months, so the next update will probably occur around July 2014.
The system has been completely overhauled to use a new species engine which has been developed in preparation for release to the Open Source community.
At the same time, the new British Checklist (Agassiz, Beavan & Heckford, 2013) has been implemented. The ABH number is displayed alongside the BF number and the ABH number is fully searchable. The system can be switched to operate as per the BF, ABH or European checklists.
The British family structure and binomials have been updated as per the new checklist and the old family structure is no longer available. Binomials which have changed have the old name in the form (=oldname) - so, for example, Eriocrania subpurpurella has become Dyseriocrania subpurpurella (=Eriocrania).
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An effort led by Meriden, Conn., Local 457 has put more than 200 Eversource Energy call center workers on a path toward IBEW membership.
Team Effort Delivers IBEW Representation For 200+ at Eversource
Maine Bill Will Protect Call Center Jobs
Staffing Issues Dominate Conn. Utility Negotiations
IBEW Utility Department
Fed up with their deteriorating office environment, a majority of the employees at a utility call center in Connecticut recently voted to join the IBEW in a united effort to improve their working conditions.
“It was blatantly obvious there was no support structure up there,” said Meriden, Conn., Local 457 Business Manager Keith Harris.
“Up there” is Windsor, Conn., a northern Hartford suburb. It’s the location of a call center for Eversource Energy, New England’s largest energy company, providing electrical and gas service to customers in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Western Massachusetts. More than 200 workers there field and answer a variety of phoned-in questions about customers’ services and bills.
“We had attempted to organize the call center in 2009,” said Harris, but a series of issues prevented it from happening. A second try a few years later by a nearby Utility Workers Union of America local also fell short.
But since then, “There was lots of movement [toward organizing],” Harris said. The workers were tired of being talked down to, he said. Disrespect was rampant.
A key complaint stemmed from Eversource’s pay-for-performance scheme. “It’s a horrible system,” Harris said, because it tends to incentivize call-volume quantity over call-handling quality — and that, in turn, can often foster unfair favoritism from managers.
There also were strictly-monitored limits on the amount of time workers could be away from their workstations, Harris said, and managers permitted only two bathroom breaks per day.
Eventually, someone in the call center decided enough was enough and phoned the IBEW’s International Office in Washington, D.C., to ask for help with a third run at an organizing campaign. The I.O. referred the caller to Steve Smith, the organizing representative for the Second District, who got in touch with center workers directly and set up a meeting.
“Steve jumped right on it,” Harris said, “and it just took off from there.”
Local 457’s Assistant Business Manager Scott McCoy collaborated with Smith to helped the center set up an e-mail list, and he enlisted assistance from the Membership Development Department to create a special website, ibew457callcenter.com, to provide center workers with information about the union.
“But as in every successful campaign, the workers were the ones who drove it,” Smith said. They held organizing meetings once a week for more than two months.
“Sometimes 10 people would come, sometimes 20,” he said. “And it seemed like someone always brought someone new with them.”
At the same time, Smith said, members from several other IBEW locals pitched in to help with door knocks and phone calls; some even offered the use of their union halls for organizing meetings.
“I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said, “and the most remarkable thing is how we get help just by asking.”
Some of Eversource’s line and generation workers in other parts of the company are represented by IBEW and UWUA locals, which helped demonstrate to undecided call center workers the benefits of union membership. “They compared that with what they were getting in a nonunion world,” Harris said.
Not surprisingly, Eversource pushed back against the organizing drive, Harris said. “The company started an anti-union campaign,” he said. It brought in union-busters and mandated frequent meetings between organizers and some of the company’s vice presidents.
Eversource is a Fortune 500 company that earned nearly a billion dollars in 2017, Harris said, and the center’s workers easily saw through the company’s efforts.
“The direction the business is going drives workers into the union,” he said. “They wondered why the company was spending so much money trying to get them not to join.”
The company’s union-busting attempts also had an unintended effect: they made the IBEW’s organizing campaign a little easier. “After every meeting, more cards were signed,” Harris said. “It was the fastest campaign I’ve ever been a part of.”
When the call center workers held an election on August 14, nearly two-thirds of the 223 workers eligible to vote cast ballots in favor of petitioning the National Labor Relations Board to be represented by Local 457.
Harris cautioned, however, that the process is just beginning. “Our last contract with Eversource took three years to hammer out,” he said.
A meeting in September explained what stewards are and how they are appointed, how negotiations will work, how the negotiation committee will be chosen, and more. “We have been identifying leaders in the group,” Harris said.
“The mission isn’t complete until these folks are part of the membership of the IBEW,” he said. “That work is just getting started.”
The business manager was grateful for the amount of help he received from several key players at the district level. “Vice President Mike Monahan gave his Second District a mission to organize that was very effectively articulated,” he said. “It’s an ongoing push, and his drive and his leadership style are definitely inspirational.
“It works because we’re all in it together,” Harris said
Second District Organizing Representative Smith recognized the persistence of Local 457’s members and the assistance they received from nearby IBEW brothers and sisters at Hartford Locals 35, 42, and 1040; Waterbury, Conn., Local 420; Springfield, Mass., Local 455; Manchester, Maine, Local 1837; and Cranston, R.I., Local 2323
Smith also highlighted the work from Second District International Representative Mike D’Amico and District Organizing Coordinator Jeffrey Wimette, along with State Organizing Coordinator Scott Munson. And he recognized the contributions of Education Department International Representative Craig Duffy, Third District Local Organizer Maria Vooris and of Steve Rockafellow, regional organizing coordinator for the Second and Third Districts.
Chartered in 1972, Local 457 — now about 1,200 members strong — administers nearly a dozen different collective-bargaining agreements covering employees at public utilities operated by the towns of Wallingford and Norwich, as well as workers at several other gas, electric and water utilities aside from Eversource Energy, including FirstLight Power Resources and NRG Energy.
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Sprawling From Sea to Shining Sea: The Need for a New Urbanism
July 19, 2010 by Kendra Juskus Leave a Comment
by Drew Ward
Flourish magazine, Summer 2010
In my pocket I carry keys to my 2005 PT Cruiser and my Southern California suburban house, and I usually have little loose change, too. Ordinary stuff, really. Or is it? I got to thinking about the role my pocket actually plays. It turns out that my pocket carries, in its dark little pouch, the essentials of my everyday life. It carries my way to work, allowing me to earn a living. It carries my purchasing power, allowing me to feed and clothe and shelter myself, my family, and others. And it carries my way home, allowing me to find shelter and enter into a fellowship of people I love and who love me. To think that I keep, almost without thought, such important things in a little fold of cloth sewn at my hip is a bit shocking to me.
My buddies Chris Elisara, John Paget, and I are working on a film project called American Makeover. Our company, First+Main Media, is on a nationwide search for the antidote to suburban sprawl. We’ve seen and heard about some pretty wonderful places and some pretty heartbreaking ones. This gig is causing me to rethink so much of what I’d imagined the good life to be. And then it dawns on me: On some profound level, my pocket carries something even more transcendent than I’d thought. These jangling objects at my hip are my keys to the American Dream. But I’m realizing that this is a dream I’m dying to wake up from.
The start of sprawl
When our nation was still living under the spreading shadow of the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an idea was detonated in the United States with fallout that has left no corner of the country untouched. The idea I’m referring to is the American suburb, and ground zero was a development of 2,000 mass-manufactured houses on Long Island called Levittown. Levittown is generally considered the very first mass-produced suburban neighborhood in human history. Bill Levitt, a returning G.I. responsible throughout the war for building military housing quickly and cost-efficiently with interchangeable parts, brought this industrial building practice stateside to his family’s building firm, Levitt & Sons.
After this first development of inexpensive, detached family rental units for returning G.I.s in 1947, the practice of mass-manufacturing houses was adopted, refined, and spread, virtually unchecked, as we say, “from sea to shining sea.” Urban centers, with their rising populations, rising crime, and rising rent, became less and less desirable places to live and were increasingly abandoned for a chance to live more affordably in clean, safe, spacious neighborhoods just outside the city, far from the smoking blight of industrial factories. These “bedroom communities” started cropping up in the undeveloped countryside and farmland that flanked the city, and they set into motion a pattern of living that perpetually moved people further and further out of the city center.
This movement outward is called “sprawl.” It continues to draw us because the further from an urban center you get, the less expensive the land. It’s what Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, one of the authors of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, calls “drive till you qualify.” What happens eventually, as you can imagine, is that going into the city to attend to your daily needs becomes increasingly impractical because the city is so far away. So merchants and service providers naturally seize the opportunity to bring the things that people need out to where the people live, until, inevitably, the city centers die out. I’ve grown up and lived in what can be called the suburbs of Los Angeles all my life, and I’m here to tell you, downtown shuts down at sundown. You only have to put quarters in the meters until 5:00 p.m. because most things close around that time and parking becomes irrelevant.
Or take the population of the greater Buffalo area, for example. It has remained almost the same for the last 60 years—about 1.25 million from 1950 until today. The difference now is that the population is spread over three-and-a-half times the amount of land as it was then. In the 1940’s there were 40,000 people living in downtown Buffalo. Today that number is just 2,000.
Life flows outward to the ’burbs. In a dense, diverse city, one million people would be contained within 40 square miles. In the suburbs they cover 400 square miles. Now we follow our headlights home, away from the city, to where the lights of well-lit streets, parking lots, and living rooms ring a darkened downtown. We arrive home on quiet streets, pull our cars into our garages, walk into our nicely appointed kitchens, and look to see what we can heat up for dinner, or maybe grab the family and head out to a nearby mall or big box retail center. What’s left behind are destitute inner cities and desolate town centers where those who are forced to remain—the elderly, the immigrant, and the poor—suffer the oppressive cycles of poverty. As they grow more and more distant in our rearview mirrors, they grow more and more invisible to us. That dark uninhabited island is inhabited, after all, with the ill-fated inmates of an urban Alcatraz.
Driving the American Dream
Winston Churchill once famously observed, “We shape our buildings, and, afterwards, our buildings shape us.” Roughly 50 years into America’s unbridled spread of suburbia, and at the threshold of a growing awareness of suburbia’s role in our current social, economic and environmental crises, it’s time for America to take stock of the inconvenient realities of how the suburbs have shaped us.
No matter what Americans must have imagined before all of this, the American Dream quickly came to resemble, in the American collective imagination, something that looked a lot like Levittown. As my father successfully climbed the corporate ladder through the sixties and seventies, I grew up in a series of these neighborhoods throughout Orange County: first Huntington Beach, then Laguna Hills, Tustin, and Orange. And even though they were all different places, each one a little nicer than the last, they all felt familiar to me as a growing boy. They all had a recognizable look and a reassuring logic to them, places a friend calls “Anytown, U.S.A.”
Embedded in that highly structured, assembly line system with interchangeable parts is the organizing principle of division. Neighborhoods, in fact, are commonly referred to as subdivisions, and different areas of the larger community are zoned separately for single uses. Residential zoning gives way to commercial zones, which give way to municipal zones, which give way to schools, hospitals, industry, and so on. To pick up a carton of milk, I have to drive out of my neighborhood, past a park, and down a busy collector road to the grocery store located on the main drag zoned for commercial retail and restaurants. I’m lucky. It’s only a mile away, a three-minute car ride for me. But if I wanted to walk or ride my bike, an option not very practical for most folks in the community, I’d spend most of my time on wide, high-speed roads with posted speed limits of 45 and 50 mph.
But this organization makes sense. It keeps things where they belong, keeps things tidy. Isn’t this how things have always been, how they were meant to be? Truth is, a lifestyle like this can only be possible through a technology that makes it possible. Phoenix or Las Vegas, say, couldn’t possibly be the two fastest growing municipalities in the nation without the invention, of course, of central air conditioning. Likewise, suburbia is dependent on the invention of the assembly line system, as we’ve seen, but also on the invention of the car—the affordable family automobile. After all, it takes a car to move from zone to zone. A lot of us moved to the ’burbs for the promise of wide-open spaces—why live cramped in the city when you could move to the ’burbs and stretch out? The problem is that with everything so far apart, we became imprisoned in our cars. The average American now spends nearly three hours per day in a car, usually alone. Since World War II, many of us have required a car to conduct our daily lives. It has been the car, in the name of connecting us to each other more easily, that has served instead to isolate us more profoundly. Now we drive through the countryside at high speeds—oblivious to life outside the car—and through our neighborhoods separated from our neighbors by shatterproof glass and tempered steel, right into our houses.
Before World War II, on the other hand, Americans from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine, built and lived in what are being called traditional neighborhoods: Diverse people, living in close proximity, with houses, shops, and business offices all intermixed. A person’s whole world was commonly within walking distance. When we travel on foot, the natural world becomes more present and neighbors become personalities with histories and names. This continues to be the most common pattern of human habitat outside of the U.S. But here in America, suburban sprawl is devouring the landscape: housing subdivisions, shopping centers, office parks, civic institutions (like churches, city halls, and courts) operate out of warehouses and strip malls instead of special buildings that reflect their significance, and a massive system of roadways and parking lots is built to accommodate cars.
A beautiful change in the neighborhood
After many decades of suburban sprawl, Americans are beginning to realize its harmful, unintended consequences: oil-dependence; sedentary lifestyles; traffic jams; obesity; the destruction of farmland and wildlife habitat; and the splintering, atomization, and inequity of society that happens when we no longer have the communal space that fosters community. Andres Duany, one of today’s most prominent architects and urban planners, and another author of Suburban Nation, claims that “every problem we face today can be connected to the dysfunctional way we inhabit the land.”
A popular alternative to suburban sprawl is emerging, however. Today, a new movement of architects, urban planners, and civic designers is building towns and neighborhoods that look nothing like suburbs. This movement is called New Urbanism. It endeavors to develop communities that are walkable, beautiful, and diverse, with mixed-use buildings where, among other innovations, residential apartments sit above street-level retail shops and services. It’s a beautiful antidote to sprawl. And as much as it’s about building new towns, it’s also about the restoration of the old places that America built before the onset of suburban sprawl. New Urbanist projects across America have succeeded in fostering community, increasing walkability, reducing energy use and carbon emissions, and improving the quality of life for residents. At the very heart of New Urbanism is an impulse toward restoration and reconciliation. Implicit within the mixed-use arrangement of its buildings is a notion of social, economic, and environmental diversity and health.
But the word ‘new’ is bit of a misnomer, because New Urbanism is not a new invention or technology; it’s really a return to the principles of old urbanism and traditional neighborhood design using contemporary materials and, often, green technology.
In some cases, New Urbanist neighborhoods are built from scratch. Seaside, Florida, for example, designed by Andres Duany in the mid-eighties, is the benchmark community that is generally regarded as the birthplace of this movement. Other New Urbanist architects are literally retrofitting suburbia—repurposing shopping centers gone bust and remaking streets from “nowhere” wastelands to walkable neighborhoods with distinct identities.
Take Buffalo, again, as an example. The principles of New Urbanism have guided the development of Buffalo’s comprehensive plan to restore and remake Buffalo, the “Queen City in the 21st Century.” The plan was recently awarded the top prize at the Congress for the New Urbanism’s 2009 Charter Awards.
According to the principles of New Urbanism, a city should have a clear center, focused on the common activities of commerce, culture, and governance. All great cities have been built around a central downtown. But, as with many American cities, Buffalo’s downtown was virtually abandoned for an ever-expanding periphery, an expansion in line with Henry Ford’s pronouncement that “We will solve the problem of the city by leaving the city.” This expansion destroyed the social fabric of the city and consumed surrounding rural and agricultural areas. By reinvesting in a vital center, with infill development and smart growth, Buffalo’s center can be revitalized while the surrounding natural and agricultural surroundings that sustain it are preserved. As one New Urbanist put it, “Farmland and nature are as important to the metropolis as the garden is to the house.”
At the same time, historic neighborhoods throughout Buffalo survive as great examples of New Urbanism’s Five-Minute-Walk principle. On the Main Streets of many walkable neighborhoods, a person can go to church, eat Thai food for lunch, have coffee with a friend, stop in at the office, and pick up a gallon of milk on the way home—all on foot. In contrast, a single errand in the Buffalo suburbs might require 20 minutes in the car. There, where walking routes are scarce and traffic is choked on collector roads and highways, the transportation experience can be a nightmare. In the suburbs, only one thing happens on the street: driving – it is a hostile environment to anyone on foot. By contrast, the traditional street grid network of older neighborhoods provides pedestrians and drivers with lots of alternative routes. Because there are so many streets to accommodate traffic, each street can be small. Small streets slow down traffic, making it pleasant and safe to walk. Drivers can constantly alter their route to avoid heavy traffic, and streets are manageable and pleasant for pedestrians.
Looking backward, moving forward
At first glance, a thriving neighborhood looks disorderly and chaotic. As we’ve seen, suburban planners decided to institute some order to all of this activity when they created single-use-zoning. It puts offices, retail, and residences into separate areas, making us overly dependent on driving and effectively isolating people who cannot drive (the young, the old, the poor). In a recent issue of Orion magazine, David Oates paraphrases Gil Peñalosa from a Green Urbanist Conference at Portland State University: “Your workers, your children, your old people—your people in need—are your indicator species. How you treat the most vulnerable reveals how successful your city is.” This could be said of any community. Arguably the best places in America are places that are all mixed-up—stores, offices, houses and apartments all intertwined. To have a walkable neighborhood where every ordinary need—even for the most vulnerable—is a short walk away, you have to have neighborhoods where retail, commercial, and residential uses mix. Though it may like chaos, it actually works.
What a lot of this boils down to is that what looks like a step backward is really the way forward.
Not all New Urban developments are fully successful in restoring what suburbia has broken, however. Often I have seen new developments, as well as downtown restoration efforts, that are largely gentrification projects that drive up property values in the name of “urban renewal,” making it impossible for the current residents, members of the working poor, to remain. It seems to me that these projects risk doing even greater harm than the suburbs, bringing hope and promise to a place without sharing them with the most vulnerable. Revitalization is, in these instances, their doom. So New Urbanism is not necessarily the answer to all our ills. But its principles, when fully realized, offer a worthwhile alternative to sprawl.
It’s been difficult to admit that America is suffering the consequences of suburban sprawl. In my case, Churchill was right: My mind was developed and laid out in a suburban pattern throughout my public school education—ideas and schools of thought organized at right angles to each other, studied in separate classrooms, with different teachers, at regularly designated times every day, and neatly occupying separate blocks of my mind at appropriate distances from each other. My thinking has been zoned. And, now, knowing what I know, I’m living the life I’d always aspired to live, the one I’ve been trained to want: a life in a well-manicured neighborhood with nicely organized streets named to remind us of, and artificially connect us to, those bits of the natural world that we’ve paved and built over—Rainbow Falls, Quiet Meadows, Eagle Glen, and the like.
But across America, a new kind of town is emerging right alongside the restoration and revitalization of the old parts of town that were built right. It’s the ultimate makeover—the transformation of our cities and neighborhoods into healthy, diverse, and strong communities. Places worth making and protecting. Places that will help us live, and even think, differently.
My buddies and I at First+Main will be searching the country for healthy alternatives to sprawl. Our pilot webisode, Sprawlanta, launched in May, looks at the effects of sprawl on public health in Atlanta, the home of our National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other episodes will focus on issues of environment, social equity, and local economy and food, among others. Keep an eye on it and join us at AmericanMakeover.tv.
Drew Ward is part of an ongoing experiment living in intentional Christian community and has been teaching Imagining the Earth in Belize and the South Pacific for the Creation Care Study Program since 2002. With a Masters in English (emphasizing Environmental Literature), Drew recently taught Writing and Literature for Azusa Pacific University, and currently teaches Writing at Chaffey College. A writer himself, he’s a former poetry editor for Creation Care magazine and consultant for Restoring Eden. He speaks around the world about the earth, revolutionary marriage, Christian community, and the Biblical imagination.
Filed Under: Flourish Magazine, Summer Tagged With: Drew Ward, Flourish magazine, local community, New Urbanism, suburban sprawl, walkability
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Korea's trade minister begins WTO chief bid
Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee speaks on her candidacy for World Trade Organization director-general during a press conference at the Sejong Government Complex, Wednesday. Yonhap
By Nam Hyun-woo
Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee launched her campaign for the position of World Trade Organization (WTO) director-general, Wednesday, arguing the organization needs to recover its lost functions of promoting trade pacts and settling disputes.
The bid comes as part of the government's strategy to expand the country's influence in the global trade order, after its involvement in clashes with neighboring Japan. Tokyo delisted Seoul from its list of most preferred trading partners after imposing export controls on key industrial materials crucial to South Korean companies' manufacture of semiconductors and flat panels.
"South Korea is the world's seventh-largest exporter and one of the leading countries which have long supported the free trade order," Yoo said during a press conference at the Sejong Government Complex. "With the WTO-based trade order and international cooperation system at stake, recovering and enhancing them are significant for the Korean economy and its national interest."
Yoo is the third Korean to run for the top position of the Geneva-based trade body. Former Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy Kim Chul-soo made a bid in 1994 and former Trade Minister Bark Tae-ho attempted in 2012, but both failed to secure the position.
During the conference, Yoo said the WTO is "facing the greatest risk since its foundation in 1995" as it has failed to achieve any new trade deal in the past 25 years, as well being unsuccessful in keeping up with the digital innovation that is happening worldwide.
"Since the end of last year, the WTO's Appellate Body has been shut down, losing its dispute settlement function," she said. "Global society is seeing escalating protectionism while the WTO's basic principle of the free movement of goods and services is being neglected in the wake of COVID-19."
Yoo claimed South Korea's economic growth, based on the foundation of free trade networks, will help the body to recover its function in international cooperation in trade, and the country's status as "a middle power" can suggest the vision that can be shared across the world.
She said the WTO is in "a stalemate," failing to draw out meaningful outcomes in multilateral pacts and its reform agenda due to the conflict between developed and developing nations.
To address this, she wants to "upgrade" WTO agreements to restore its "negotiating function" so that the body can see tangible outcomes in dispute settlement, e-commerce rules and other fields which require urgent attention.
With regard to Japan's imposition of export controls, Seoul filed a complaint with the WTO in September last year, but suspended the follow-up process pending further negotiations with Tokyo. However, it resumed the procedure June 18, by requesting the WTO to open a dispute-settlement panel.
So far, the efficacy of this has faced questions due to the possibility of the case reaching the Appellate Body, which has been shut down. The shutdown has caused concern for not only Korea but also other WTO members as many cases will likely end up seeing no meaningful result. Yoo's pledge to restore the WTO's negotiating function appears to be in line with resolving this matter.
The government said Yoo's candidacy has "received unanimous approval and support from the Ministerial Meeting on International Economic Affairs," the top decision-making body dealing with Korea's international economic policies. The candidacy was formally submitted to the WTO through Korea's Permanent Mission in Geneva, Wednesday.
"Yoo is a well-respected leader and an expert in trade policy circles within Korea and abroad," the government said in an English statement. "She has a proven track-record of designing, negotiating and implementing trade deals, as well as developing innovative trade-related policies in domestic, bilateral and multilateral settings."
namhw@koreatimes.co.kr More articles by this reporter
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Welcome to Ontario
Capital: Toronto
Motto: Ut Inceptit Fedelis Sic Permanet (Loyal it began, loyal it remains)
Flower: White Trillium
Population, 1998: 11,404,750<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
The name "Ontario" comes from the Iroquois word "Kanadario" meaning "sparkling water." The name is fitting: not only is Ontario bordered on the south by the Great Lakes and on the north by Hudson Bay, but 177 390 km2, or one sixth of its terrain, is covered by rivers and lakes. Ontario is larger than Spain and France combined. The province has a landmass of 1,068,580 sq km and is the 2nd largest province in Canada. At its greatest extremity Ontario is 690 km in width. the longest distance north/south is 1,730 km. The highest point, at 693 m above sea level, is in the District of Timiskaming, near Lady Evelyn Smoothwater Provincial Park.
With over 11 million people, Ontario is the country's most heavily populated province. While English is the official language, Ontario's Francophones play an essential part in the province's cultural life. The provincial government provides services in French in those regions where the Francophone population is sufficiently high.
Ontario is Canada's most productive province, generating some 40 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Its manufacturing industries lead the way. Ontario's competitive advantages include its natural resources, modern transportation system, large, well-educated labour force, reliable and relatively inexpensive electrical power, and proximity to key U.S. markets: less than a day's drive puts Ontario's products within reach of 120 million American consumers. Automobiles are Ontario's major manufacturing industry and most important export, employing more than 140 000 people. Motor vehicles, parts and accessories accounted for 37% of Canada's total exports in 1998.
*Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, Copyright (c) 2003.
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79th District Court sentences as of March 19
By Allison Scarbrough, Contributing Editor
LUDINGTON – The following were sentenced this past week in 79th District Court:
– Robert J. Lightner, 36, of 3950 E. Decker, Custer, was found guilty March 17 of allowing a person to drive in violation and sentenced to $335 in fines and costs.
– Shawn William Paul, 44, of 1310 N. Rath Ave., Ludington, was found guilty March 13 of operating while impaired by a controlled substance. He was sentenced to one day in jail with credit for one day served; $1,145 in fines and costs; 18 months probation; 93 days discretionary jail for one year; and outpatient counseling. Conviction is reportable to the Secretary of State (SOS). One count of driving while license suspended (DWLS), second offense, was dismissed.
– Michael Charles Stickney, 21, of 2131 E. Meisenheimer Rd., Custer, was found guilty March 13 of operating an unregistered snowmobile and sentenced to $185 in fines and costs.
– Jesse Eli Tyndall, 31, of 34 S. Stephens Rd., Custer was found guilty March 13 of operating an unregistered snowmobile and sentenced to $185 in fines and costs.
– Dyllon Eugene Kissell, 19, of 1713 W. Kenney Rd., Scottville, was found guilty March 10 of DWLS. He was sentenced to 10 days in jail with credit for 10 days served; 30 days discretionary jail for one year; and $285 in fines and costs. Conviction is reportable to SOS. Another count of DWLS was dismissed per a plea agreement.
– Jason Richard Fisk, 35, of 515 Oak St., Manistee, one count of DWLS was dismissed March 11 per a plea agreement.
– Dylan John Boon, 24, of 610 E. Second St., Ludington, one count of operating a motor vehicle without security was dismissed March 4 per a plea agreement.
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911 seeking millage in August election
WEARE TWP. (Oceana County) — Mason-Oceana 911 is expected to request a millage during the August 5 primary. The emergency dispatch center is in the final stages of requesting a .14 millage for six years, once the request is approved next week by the Mason County Board of Commissioners.
Director Ray Hasil said the new millage request is the result of persistant declines in local telephone line surcharge revenues, which account for 80% of the agency’s funding.
“Compared to 2012, the 2013 local surcharge revenues were down 4.50%. Compared to 2009, we’re down 11.22%.
“The reasons for a decline in our local surcharge revenue boils down to two reasons,” Hasil said. “Prepaid plans and the number of (year-round) occupied vs vacant homes in the two-county area.” Traditionally, cell phone users have been on annual plans where a bill is sent every month. “As long as that bill is sent to an Oceana or Mason county address the local surcharge dollars come here to Mason-Oceana 911.”
When users switch to a prepaid plan, the revenue model changes radically. “Prepaid plans and minutes can be purchased anywhere; online, department stores, and gas stations. A 1.92% tax is applied at the point of sale; the tax dollars are collected from around the entire state and redistributed; 17.5% is taken off the top for funding things like 911 training and reimbursing local exchange providers for the costs related to wireless emergency service. The remaining 82.5% is redistributed to counties on a 60-40 formula. 60% is distributed based on population, and 40% is distributed based on the numbers of counties in Michigan. “Saying we get back 50% of what we used to under a monthly plan is being very optimistic. I wish there were a way to measure it.”
The other problem lies in the number of occupied versus vacant houses in the two-county area. “It was an eye-opener for our board,” Hasil said. “Only 60.5% of Oceana County houses and 70.9% of Mason County houses are occupied year-round, compared to the state average of 84.3% (2008-2012 American Community Survey, www.census.gov). That’s huge because these homeowners are disconnecting their home phones and their cell phone billing addresses aren’t in either county. In a case where the homeowner disconnects the house phone and their cellular phone bill is sent out of state, 911 gets $0 annually. The surge in people coming to the area and occupying those homes from Memorial Day through Labor Day is in line with the rise in incidents called in to 911. Call volumes typically double and triple versus the off-season and in many cases they don’t contribute to Mason-Oceana 911 services at all because of how the funding mechanisms are structured.”
These issues have caused a dramatic increase in the 911 budget.
“As we began budgeting for 2014 last year it was obvious there was a huge shortfall”, said Hasil.
“Services traditionally paid by 911 could not be budgeted for in 2014,” Hasil said. Wireless broadband connections and software licensing allow fire, law, and EMS agencies to connect to 911’s Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system with in-car laptops. “Wireless broadband and CAD connectivity for laptops is $43,000 per year alone.” Agencies were notified late in 2013 that 911 would not be able to pay those fees for 2014.
Budget cuts for 2014 included personnel costs. “We cut 5% in personnel costs out of the 2014 budget. On average, every 911 employee will earn 5% less in wages than 2013.” Staffing hours were reduced wherever possible. “We went from three dispatchers to two anywhere we could without affecting public safety.”
With a 2014 budget in place efforts were set on years 2015 and beyond. “We asked both county administrators to sit as ad hoc members on the 911 Finance Committee. Mason County Administrator Fabian Knizacky and Oceana County Administrator Sue Johnson participated in several meetings to observe and provide feedback on 911’s financial health and plans for recovery. “They helped us quite a bit.”
Hasil and the 911 Board sought a solution more inclusive of those vacant homes. A new surcharge revenue was identified to help the declining local revenue stream.
“Without question a new millage was not desirable,” Hasil said. The board was initially adamant in avoiding anything requiring a ballot. But audit results, local surcharge revenue projections, and budget projections for 2015-2017 painted a grim picture. Even with $681,643 in grant monies awarded to consolidate shared 911 technologies with Newaygo County, we are still short $214,071 in 2015, $693,489 in 2016, and $310,480 in 2017.”
A .12 rate was originally identified but bumped up to .14 to allow the outright purchase versus lease of a required $500,000 radio system upgrade in 2016. If passed the proposal would generate $396,667 in the two-county area in it’s first year. That translates to $7 per year per $50,000 of taxable value.”
The request was approved by the Oceana County Finance and Equalization Committee and Oceana County Board of Commissioners on April 24. The request was brought before the Mason County Finance, Personnel, and Rules Committee on April 22 and is expected to be recommended to the Mason County Board of Commissioners on May 13.
“This is our last resort,” Hasil said. “Further cuts will put the public and responders at risk.”
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