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__label__wiki	0.87034	0.87034	IIHF backs Russia’s participation in Pyeongchang Olympics By Scott BilleckNov 28, 2017, 1:30 PM EST The International Ice Hockey Federation doesn’t want to see hockey suffer at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. With the International Olympic Committee set to rule on whether Russia can compete at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games next week, the IIHF threw its support behind Russia’s “clean” athletes on Tuesday. The IIHF released a statement on the matter on Tuesday, stating that they “oppose” the use of collective punishment in what they called a “unanimous opinion.” The IOC will rule on the matter on Dec. 5. The statement, which can be read in full below, said that “punitive measures” the IOC is seeking against Russia would put the “health of ice hockey at risk.” The IIHF Council has reached a unanimous opinion that all clean athletes, including those from Russia, must be permitted to represent their country in the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang. We oppose the use of collective punishment in the case of Russian athletes. Although we recognize the need to confront doping in sport, Olympic participation should not be used to sanction the many for the actions of the few. In addition, the extent to which the IOC is seeking punitive measures in the case of Russia is putting the health of ice hockey at risk. Russia’s role in the growth and development of ice hockey cannot be understated. This country forms a pillar on which our sport’s legacy rests upon. To preserve the integrity of the Olympic ice hockey tournaments, the IIHF in full cooperation with the Russian Ice Hockey Federation and the Kontinental Hockey League initiated a highly structured testing program for the KHL, MHL, and WHL, which went into operation in December 2016 and up to the present has tested nearly 400 Russian players. To this effect, the IIHF Council reiterates its position that clean athletes from all qualified Federations should be permitted to go to the 2018 Olympic Winter Games and represent their countries. “We wanted to outline our position clearly to the IOC, that we are against a collective punishment approach that would unfairly punish many Russian athletes that had nothing to do with doping,” said IIHF President René Fasel in a release. The potential punishment that could be levied against Russia stems from the Sochi Olympics in 2014. The World Anti-Doping Agency claims Russia’s athletes were involved in a state-backed doping program to help boost their medal count at their chances of success at their home Games. Per source Hockey Canada and Czech, Swedish and Finnish hockey associations sent a letter to IIHF supporting team Russia. There's said Russian ice hockey team should play in the Olympics no matter what — Igor Eronko (@IgorEronko) November 28, 2017 Last week, Hockey Canada, along with the hockey federations in Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic sent a letter to the Kontinental Hockey League, encouraging the league not to withhold its players from the games in protest for the potential sanctions of Russia’s Pyeongchang participation. The move by the KHL would have a widespread effect on the composition of hockey teams heading to the Games. The CBC reported last week that “sixteen members of Canada’s 25-man-roster at the recent Karjala Cup in Finland play in the KHL, including goalie Ben Scrivens and forwards Wojtek Wolski and Teddy Purcell.” Fasel said the KHL is obliged to release any players of any nationality. Just had a brief chat with IIHF president Rene Fasel, who said IIHF position is clear: KHL is obliged to release any players of any nationality who are asked by their home country federation to play in Olympics. KHL failure to do so would result in IIHF applying sanctions. — Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) November 20, 2017 NHL players will not be permitted to play in the Olympics, which run from Feb. 9 to Feb. 26. Scott Billeck is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @scottbilleck	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line587
__label__wiki	0.787497	0.787497	Posted by Shollay April 20, 2020 Alhaji Ismaila Isa Funtua, an alleged member of the Nigerian presidential cabal, has dismissed reports that he is in the running to replace Abba Kyari as President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff. Naija News recalls that a national newspaper had on Sunday named Funtua as one of the favourites to replace the late Abba Kyari. Speaking on the issue on Sunday, Alhaji Funtua, a second Republic Minister, advised those linking him with the post of CoS to President Buhari, to look elsewhere. Funtua stated that he is unemployable and not interested in the CoS position. He said: ”I am an employer of labour and, therefore, unemployable. ”I was a minister in 1983. What position will I be interested in now? I am embarrassed that a national newspaper could display such level of ignorance by connecting me with the Chief of Staff job.” Isa Funtua was the Administrative Officer, Katsina Native Authority, for seven years, Minister of Water Resources in the defunct Second Republic, a member of the 1994-1995 Constitutional Conference, and founder of Bulet International Nigeria Limited (the largest wholly-owned indigenous construction company). Naija News recalls that the Presidency in the early hours of Saturday announced the death of Mallam Abba Kyari. A native of Borno State in the northeast. Kyari was a journalist and former banker, who held senior positions in some of the country’s banks. The late 67-year-old lawyer, businessman and politician served President Muhammadu Buhari from 2015 till his death on Friday. Abba Kyari tested positive to coronavirus on his return from Germany and subsequently died of the infection in Lagos. His death has generated reactions and condolences from opposition parties and supporters in Nigeria. The Former Chief of Staff was buried on Saturday at the Gudu Cemetery in Abuja. OPINION \| Buratai: A Strategist and His Magic Wand Peter Obi Warns Fraudsters, ‘Stop Using My Name for Internet Fraud’	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line589
__label__cc	0.547436	0.452564	“Another Case Of Roberts’s Judicial Minimalism”: Supreme Court; Your Facebook Threats Aren’t Necessarily Real Threats Today, the Supreme Court held that you can post a threat to kill your wife on Facebook, but you’re not guilty of making a threat. This is good news if you’re focused on free speech, especially online. It’s bad news if you’re concerned about the capacity of information technology to amplify threats, stalking, and coercion. The result in the case, Elonis v. U.S., comes as something of a surprise, especially because it was a 7-2 decision, with Chief Justice Roberts writing for the court. That means the court’s liberal wing, the moderate-conservatives (Kennedy, Roberts) and even Justice Scalia were all in agreement. The reason, however, was not the First Amendment. Court-watchers, and the defendant, Anthony Elonis, noted that the “threat” was simply a set of rap lyrics, and debated whether they were constitutionally protected. But the Court itself didn’t go there, instead basing its ruling purely on the federal criminal statute. That statute says that anyone who “transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another” is guilty of a felony. But what is a “threat,” exactly? Specifically, does it require evidence of an actual intent to harm the person, or is it enough “that a reasonable person would regard Elonis’s communications as threats”? The district court had said the latter, but today, the Supreme Court disagreed. Threatening language is not enough. Targets feeling threatened is not enough. Criminal law requires mens rea, an “evil mind,” and in this case, the Court held that there must be some specific intention to threaten. Since that wasn’t established in this case (and since Elonis assiduously denied having it) the Court threw out his conviction. (In dissent, Justice Thomas argued that a “general intent” should be sufficient, while Justice Alito argued for an intermediate standard of “recklessness.”) Now, here’s where it gets interesting. Elonis is also known as “Tone Dougie,” and has produced some seriously bad rap lyrics, quoted at length in Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion. Indeed, to bleep out the bad words required 22 asterisks. The best parts of Tone Dougie’s oeuvre aren’t even the initial threats to his ex-wife, but the meta-threats that reference his investigation by the FBI. Here’s a sampling, asterisks provided by the Supreme Court: You know your s*’s ridiculous when you have the FBI knockin’ at yo’ door Little Agent lady stood so close Took all the strength I had not to turn the b• ghost Pull my knife, flick my wrist, and slit her throat Leave her bleedin’ from her jugular in the arms of her partner… S, I’m just a crazy sociopath that gets off playin’ you stupid f*s like a fiddle And if y’all didn’t hear, I’m gonna be famous Cause I’m just an aspiring rapper who likes the attention who happens to be under investigation for terrorism… Fab Five Freddy this is not. It’s not even Biz Markie. But it does bear a passing resemblance to someone Justice Alito referred to as a “well-compensated rapper,” namely Eminem. The difference is that Eminem’s lyrics are clearly contained within a work of art, but Tone Dougie’s were simple Facebook posts. Yes, they rhymed (sort of), but they were simple posts. “If I only knew then what I know now… I would have smothered your ass with a pillow. Dumped your body in the back seat. Dropped you off in Toad Creek and made it look like a rape and murder.” The Court noted that had Elonis typed these words out and snailmailed them to his ex-wife, it would almost certainly constitute a criminal threat, because it was made directly to the intended victim and thus counts as evidence of mens rea. (The Court didn’t use the term snailmail, of course—and referred to Facebook as a “social networking Web site.”) Presumably, if the text was emailed—or maybe direct-messaged?—it would also, thus, be a criminal threat. So the only reason it wasn’t is that it was posted semi-publicly on Facebook. This allowed Elonis to tell one Facebook friend that “I’m doing this for me. My writing is therapeutic,” and to proclaim himself a victim of artistic censorship. Therapy, art, whatever—but not actual threats. (In a detail not widely reported in the press, Elonis also posted “therapeutically” about his co-workers—at one point posting a picture taken at Halloween of him holding a toy knife to a co-worker’s neck, with the caption “I wish.” Classy.) Now, throwing out Elonis’s conviction does not mean that he’s permanently off the hook. He could be tried again, although the state would now have to prove that he intended to threaten his targets. But the Court’s decision is a victory for free speech advocates, and a loss for those worried about harassing speech online. On the one hand, you can’t be convicted just because someone else finds what you said on Facebook to be threatening. As a poster child for civil liberties, Tone Dougie now joins the KKK marchers in Skokie. We may not like what he says, but we’re proud to defend his right to say it. Civil liberties protect all of us. On the other hand, Facebook is a unique, new medium for harassment. (This, incidentally, was the company’s rationale for its “real names” policy.) Arguably, threats made in public are even more terrifying than those made in private, especially if other people “like” what you’ve said. The Court is treating it like a newspaper, or an open mic at the poetry slam, but many of us relate to it far more intimately. It’s a venue all its own—a combination of telephone, bulletin board, and, occasionally, mob scene. Moreover, requiring an intent to threaten makes it very easy for stalkers and vengeful exes to deny liability. Oh, that wasn’t a threat, I was just musing aloud. Right. Of course, since the Court declined to entertain the constitutional questions, this is all just a matter of statutory law, and statutes can be changed. The Court also successfully avoided the question of when art is art. It didn’t say what Elonis’s words were, only that they weren’t actual threats. Elonis is thus yet another case of Roberts’s judicial minimalism. Though I bet it doesn’t feel that way to Elonis’s ex-wife. By: Jay Michealson, The Daily Beast, June 1, 2015 June 3, 2015 Posted by raemd95 \| Free Speech, Spousal Abuse, U. S. Supreme Court \| Anthony Elonis, Civil Liberties, Criminal Statutes, Elonis v U. S., Facebook, John Roberst, Rap Music, Social Media, Tone Dougie \| 1 Comment “The Infinite Circle Of Black Responsibility”: Part Of The Privilege Of Whiteness Is You Don’t Have To Have Responsibility For Anyone Else In 2006, after being a United States senator for one year, Barack Obama made an appearance on Meet the Press. After talking about the Iraq War for a while, Tim Russert asked Obama this: “I want to talk a little bit about the language people are using in the politics now of 2006, and I refer you to some comments that Harry Belafonte made yesterday. He said that Homeland Security had become the new Gestapo. What do you think of that?” Obama said he never uses Nazi analogies, but people are concerned about striking the balance between privacy and security. Russert pressed on, asking Obama to take a position on whether some insulting things Belafonte had said about George W. Bush were “appropriate.” I thought of that interview today as I watched another interview, this one with Bill O’Reilly interviewing White House aide Valerie Jarrett. I bring it up not because it’s important to be mad at Bill O’Reilly (it isn’t), but because it’s yet another demonstration of the rules both prominent and ordinary black people have to live with. Unlike white Americans, they are subject to an entirely different and far more wide-ranging kind of responsibility. A black senator has to answer for the remarks of every black activist, black musicians are responsible for the actions of every wayward teenager, and black people everywhere carry with them a thousand sins committed by others. That burden isn’t just psychological; as we’ve seen in cases like those of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis, it can be deadly. Yesterday, President Obama held an event at the White House called “My Brother’s Keeper,” to encourage people to help create more opportunities for young men of color. Afterward, O’Reilly told Jarrett that on “the streets,” there’s a problematic culture. “It’s not just blacks—it’s the poor, and the hard core, what they call ‘gangstas.'” He went on: “You have to attack the fundamental disease if you want to cure it. Now I submit to you that you’re going to have to get people like Jay-Z, all right, Kanye West, all of these gangsta rappers, to knock it off.” You may laugh at the idea that disproportionately high levels of incarceration among young black men can be laid at the feet of Kim Kardashian’s husband. And I’m pretty sure that crime in America predates “Straight Outta Compton,” though we might have to look that up. But the truth is that Bill O’Reilly could hear a rap song about butterflies and rainbows, and the first thing to pop into his head would be “gangsta rap!” because it’s black people rapping. And in this, O’Reilly resembles Michael Dunn, the man who gunned down Jordan Davis over his music. Over and over in his jailhouse writings, Dunn references the “culture” around rap music as one of criminality and danger, citing it as the source of crimes committed by black people. So naturally, when he heard that music coming from the next car over, he thought he was about to be the victim of a drive-by, and the only alternative was to pull out his gun and start firing first. This is about the collectivization of every misdeed committed by a black person, the way all black people are implicated and have responsibilities imposed on them. When a white man beats his children or kills his wife or robs a liquor store or commits insider trading, nobody tells Bill O’Reilly that he, as a white person, needs to do something about it. And he sure as hell doesn’t go on the air and say that white people need better role models. There isn’t a thing called “white on white crime,” but there is a thing called “black on black crime,” because crimes committed by black people are black crimes, born from blackness and soiling all black people, but crimes committed by white people have nothing to do with the race of the perpetrators; they’re just crimes, no modifier needed. My guess is that if you asked Bill O’Reilly what responsibility white musicians or white politicians have for the thousands of white crimes committed every year, he would have no idea what you’re talking about. It would sound like gibberish to him. As I’ve written before, a big part of the privilege of whiteness is that you don’t have to have responsibility for anyone else. You can be just yourself. The security guard is not going to follow you around in a store because some other white person shoplifted there last week. A TV host is not going to demand that you defend something stupid another white person said, for no reason other than the fact that the two of you are white. No one is going to think that because of the music you’re playing, it might be a good idea to fire ten bullets into your car. Creating that broad black responsibility doesn’t just happen, it has to be reinforced and maintained. Nobody does it with more vigor than Bill O’Reilly and the rancid cauldron of race-baiting that is the network for whom he works. The real mystery is why the White House keeps trying to court him. They actually invited him to that event yesterday. By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, February 28, 2014 March 1, 2014 Posted by raemd95 \| Bill O'Reilly, Racism \| African Americans, Black Males, Jordan Davis, Michael Dunn, My Brothers Keeper, Rap Music, Trayvon Martin, Valerie Jarrett \| 1 Comment “Guns And The Thug Life”: There Was Only One Thug In That Convenience Store Parking Lot, And It Wasn’t Jordan Davis On Saturday night, the jury in the case of Michael Dunn rendered a strange verdict, convicting Dunn of attempting to murder the three teens who survived the hail of fire he sent at their car, but deadlocking on the charge of murdering the one he succeeded in killing. We may never know what went on in the jury room, but if nothing else, Dunn will not be driving into any more parking lots and getting into any more arguments that end in death, at least not for some time. This case is, of course about race, which we’ll get to in a moment. But it’s also about—to use a word that crops up repeatedly in Michael Dunn’s written comments—a culture. It’s a culture where manhood must continually be proven, where every disagreement is a test of strength, and where in the end, your fellow human beings are only waiting to kill you, so you’d better draw first. This was the culture of violence that Michael Dunn carried with him to the convenience store, the one that ended the life of 17-year-old Jordan Davis. It was Dunn’s manic hyper-vigilance, his fear, and the .45 he carried with him that brought death to the parking lot. Dunn’s defense was built on his belief that he saw something that looked like the barrel of a shotgun (or maybe a pipe) emerge from the window of the car holding the teenagers with whom he was arguing about their music, though no shots came from their car and the police never found any gun. Unlike many people, I have no trouble believing that, for an instant at least, Dunn really did think he saw a gun. I also suspect that he realized afterward that there was no gun, which would explain why he never mentioned it to his fiancée. What we do know is that when he encountered those black teens, Michael Dunn was sure he was facing down a group of dangerous criminals who might well try to kill him at any moment. We don’t have to wonder whether Dunn is a racist, because his own words make it pretty clear. The letters he wrote to family and friends while awaiting trial are full of statements describing black people as violent criminals who hate whites. “I’m not really prejudiced against race, but I have no use for certain cultures,” he wrote. “This gangster rap, ghetto-talking thug ‘culture’ that certain segments of society flock to is intolerable.” He wrote to a family member, “I just got off the phone with you and we were talking about how racist the blacks are up here. The more time I am exposed to these people the more prejudiced against them I become. I suppose the white folks who live here are pretty much anti-black, at least the ones who have been exposed to them.” And from another letter: “Remember when your mom was robbed? At gunpoint? Black thug.” So when Dunn arrived at the store and heard that loud rap music, what it meant to him was clear: These are dangerous thugs. After all, they’re young and black, and they’ve got that awful rap music playing, right? And once he began to argue with them, you can bet that he was on high alert, ready to draw his weapon. Think about the last time you got into an argument. Your heart rate accelerated, the adrenaline started pumping, you entered into a state of heightened agitation and awareness. This physiological reaction was bred into us by millions of years of evolution, the fight-or-flight response to danger that ensured the survival of our ancestors. The 7-11 is not the savanna, but Michael Dunn plainly believed he was a water buffalo surrounded by hyenas. So this time, he would be the predator. He grabbed his gun, exited his car, got down on one knee, and began to fire. And then he kept on firing, ten shots in all, even as the car drove away to escape him. Just like the case of Curtis Reeves, the Florida man who shot and killed a man who irritated him by texting in a movie theater during the previews, the argument began over the most mundane thing, but ended in death. Michael Dunn couldn’t abide that loud rap music. Curtis Reeves got popcorn thrown at him, and threw back a bullet. In a reasonable world—or in most countries other than ours—arguments like those would end with someone muttering “Jerk!” under his breath, then getting back to what he meant to be doing beforehand. An hour later, he’d think of the perfect retort that would have put that guy in his place. But in the world gun advocates have made, the result isn’t frustration or resentment, but death. In his letters, Michael Dunn refers to black men, again and again, as “thugs.” But there was only one thug in that convenience store parking lot, one person who was ready to unleash violence at a moment’s notice, one man whose regard for human life had departed him somewhere along the course of his days. That thug wasn’t the 17-yead-old black kid. It was the 47-year-old white guy holding the gun. February 18, 2014 Posted by raemd95 \| Gun Violence, Racism \| African Americans, Black Males, Carter Reeves, Florida, Gun Deaths, Jordan Davis, Michael Dunn, Rap Music, Thugs \| Leave a comment “A Few More Thoughts On Thug”: The Words We Use Are Often Encoded With Racial Presumptions And Expectations “I hate that thug music.” This, according to Rhonda Rouer’s testimony last week, is what her fiancé, Michael Dunn, said when they pulled into a Jacksonville, FL gas station next to an SUV full of black kids who had the stereo up high, pumping some obnoxious, bass-heavy rap. Rouer was inside the convenience store when she heard the shots. Dunn, who is white, had gotten into an argument with the young men about their music, had gone into his glove box for his pistol, and started shooting. As the SUV tried to get away, he fired still more rounds. At least one of those rounds fatally struck 17-year-old Jordan Davis. Dunn drove to his hotel. He did not call police. He ordered pizza. The next morning, he drove home to Satellite Beach, 175 miles south, where police arrested him. Dunn claimed he shot at the SUV because Davis threatened him with a gun. Davis was unarmed. Dunn is now on trial for murder. He’s claiming self-defense in the November 2012 shooting, saying he felt threatened, though his victim wielded nothing more dangerous than the aforementioned “thug” music. And we need to talk about that word a moment. But first, let’s try a thought experiment: Close your eyes and picture a California girl. Close your eyes and picture a chess prodigy. Chances are, you saw the former as a sun-kissed blonde in a bikini running along a beach in slow motion and the latter as a studious-looking boy in owlish glasses. Chances are you saw both of them as white. Now, close your eyes and picture a thug. It is exceedingly likely the person you pictured was black, like Jordan Davis. The point is, the words we use are often encoded with racial presumptions and expectations. Thus, your image of a California girl is more likely to resemble Farrah Fawcett (born in Corpus Christi) than Tyra Banks (born in Los Angeles) and your idea of a prodigy will not include Phiona Mutesi, a teenage chess champion from Uganda. And thus “thug” becomes the more politically correct substitute for a certain racial slur. This is why Stanford-educated black football player Richard Sherman was called a thug for speaking loudly in an interview, but singer Justin Bieber was just a “bad boy” while facing charges of vandalism, assault and DUI. And it is why, in jailhouse letters released to the media, Dunn uses that word to describe the boy he shot. But he doesn’t stop there. “The jail is full of blacks,” he writes, “and they all act like thugs. This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these (expletive) idiots, when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.” In other letters he decries the lack of sympathy from the “liberal b—–ds” in the media, and takes heart that the counties surrounding Jacksonville are dominated by white Republican gun owners. He writes, “The jail here is almost all black prisoners. You’d think Jacksonville was 90-95 percent black judging by the makeup of the folks in jail here!” What he describes, of course, is the great Catch-22 of African-American life. They decide you’re a thug from the moment you’re born, so they lock you up in disproportionate numbers. Then they point to the fact that you are locked up in disproportionate numbers to prove that you’re a thug. Michael Dunn is a hateful man, condemned as a racist by his own words and deeds. But that’s his problem. Ours is that this sickness is not confined to him. And that it causes blindness, rendering sufferers unable to see what is right in front of them. So one can only wonder with dread how many of us gaze upon this man who shot up an SUV full of unarmed kids, then fled the scene, and see a victim. And how many will see a “thug” in a teenager just trying to dodge the bullets. By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., The National Memo, February 12, 2014 February 13, 2014 Posted by raemd95 \| Gun Violence, Racism \| Black Males, Florida, Jordan Davis, Michael Dunn, Race and Ethnicity, Rap Music, Rhonda Rouer, Richard Sherman \| Leave a comment	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line594
__label__wiki	0.703702	0.703702	Al-Qaeda to unleash Western jihadis? By Syed Saleem Shahzad and Tahir Ali ISLAMABAD – With the Afghan war entering its 10th year, completely undeterred by the American drone strikes in the Pakistani tribal region, al-Qaeda is putting the final touches to plans to recruit, train and launch Western Caucasians in their countries; the aim is to spread the flames of the South Asian war theater to the West. Al-Qaeda began planning the operation in 2002, after the fall in late 2001 of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where the group had been given sanctuary. Al-Qaeda had regrouped in Pakistan’s South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, and used this base to developed propaganda media structures to recruit in the West. (See The legacy of Nek Mohammed Asia Times Online, July 20, 2004.) Now, after eight years, a picture is emerging that shows the failure of Western intelligence to asses the real pulse of their societies, and the inability of North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces to prevent Afghanistan from once again becoming the nerve center of al-Qaeda’s terror operations. Canadians head to North Waziristan Well-placed Taliban sources say that a group of Canadian militants is receiving jihadi training in al-Qaeda camps in North Waziristan for terror attacks in Canada, whose troops are a part of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Arif Wazir, a local militant of Darpakhel in North Waziristan told Asia Times Online, “In the first stage of their journey, the Canadians went to Afghanistan in February 2010; there were 12 of them. After nine months, al-Qaeda’s leaders decided to send them to North Waziristan and they reached Darpakhel in November last year. “In Afghanistan they received basic jihadi training, while currently they are busy doing some special courses. Their main learning is how to use sophisticated weapons, and how to connect with local smuggling networks in North America. They are also learning how to use ordinary material like sugar and basic chemicals to make powerful explosives. These militants will then return to their country to execute al-Qaeda’s plan of targeting big cities in Canada,” the militant said. According to available information, the Canadians joined the Egyptian militant organization Jihad al-Islami (JAI), which then helped them reach Afghanistan. The head of the group goes by the alias of Abu Shahid. The 30-year-old, who sports a golden beard, converted to Islam in 2007 and joined the JAI, with which he works to collect funds for the organization. Shahid is responsible for all of the activities of the Canadians in North Waziristan. According to Taliban sources, the 12 will remain in the tribal belt until it is felt that they are sufficiently trained to successfully carry out terror activities in Canada. Shahid apparently is confident he can recruit more Canadians. The sources gave the names of some of the Canadians undergoing training. These could not be independently verified and include: Jeam Paull (local name Sadiq Ullah), Leman Langlois (Sana Ullah), James Richard (Abdur Rehman), Otto Paul (Abu Usman), Thomas (Abdullah) and Paul Gall (Hafiz Ullah). Various militants of other nationalities are also being trained in North Waziristan, probably the most lawless part of Pakistan. Apart from Arab and Central Asian militants, one can find jihadis from the United States, Britain and Germany. In October 2010, eight foreigners were killed in a US drone attack in the region. These included: Brusly (local name Fayaz), Gagarin Gill (Siraj), Smith (Jamal), Anderson (Waqas), Peterson (Shaheen), Walsh (Mustafa), Johnson (Wisal) and Peterson McKenzie (Usman). Prior to this attack, in September 2010 a senior German militant named Abdul Ghaffar was killed in a drone strike. On December 15, 2010, another drone missile killed two Britain nationals in Darpakhel. They were identified as Stephen, age 48, and Darry Smith, aged 25. Stephen (Abu Bakkar), after converting to Islam, went to Afghanistan in 2009 and joined al-Qaeda. He was accompanied by the slain Smith (Mansoor Ahmed). Earlier, in October last year, another British senior militant named Abdul Jabbar was killed by a drone attack in North Waziristan. He was planning to establish a Taliban wing in Britain for attacking Europe. Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online’s Pakistan Bureau Chief and author of upcoming book Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban 9/11 and Beyond published by Pluto Press, UK. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com. Tahir Ali is special correspondent for tribal affairs for AsiaDespatch.com. January 21, 2011 Mohammed Abbasi Previous Previous post: Capital punishment for blasphemy is simply not Islam Next Next post: Stealth fighter sneaks up on Taiwan	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line598
__label__cc	0.710555	0.289445	A challenge to our Antifa critics Tiana Meador, Editor in Chief The Minnesota Republic has always provided a positive space for our writers to openly and freely share their opinions and ideas, regardless if they were deemed controversial by the university community. Here are some of the things we do for our students: Fight for free and equal speech on campus, with a focus on conservative views. Provide an alternative commentary on campus, state, and national issues. Allow for free debates of ideas and ideologies to take place within our pages, including a focus on pro-con issues that divide conservatives, liberals, libertarians, and America at large. Allow a place for conservative journalists to explore longer pieces that wouldn’t be published elsewhere by the University of Minnesota, and balancing these pieces with other alternative views that are suppressed on campus. Serve as a conservative cultural center, acting as a repository for conservative resources and ambassadors to the university community by conveying alternative philosophies regarding issues relevant to students. Our publication has received local media attention from the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune, as well as national media attention from Townhall, the Independent Journal Review, Fox News, the Washington Post, and others. This is a positive experience for blossoming conservative and/or libertarian journalists. However, like most political organizations we have our critics. These critics can hurt the mindsets of the organization’s leaders and often bring out the worst in individuals – but most importantly, these critics often make false claims about our organization and expect it to be taken in truth. This is a perpetual pattern of mass media – an individual hastily makes a false accusation, and that accusation automatically resonates as truth for large swaths of people. As a journalist myself, I thought it would be useful to provide some information to our critics – they can choose to view it, or not – but at least this is a stand-in truth. Our publication has received local media attention from the Pioneer Press and Star Tribune, as well as national media attention from Townhall, the Independent Journal Review, Fox News, the Washington Post, and others.” The Minnesota Republic is written by a student group called Students for a Conservative Voice. We are a student group of the University of Minnesota, funded almost in full by Student Service Fees. For those of you who do not attend UMN, Student Service Fees are a portion of the tuition each student pays. Nearly every student group, especially media student groups, receive funds from SSF. Other student media organizations that receive funds include The Minnesota Daily, Radio K, and The Wake. The other large-scale newspaper, one better known than The Minnesota Republic, is The Minnesota Daily – which receives substantially more funds from the University of Minnesota than The Minnesota Republic does. Since the University of Minnesota is publicly funded, all of this information is published online. All applications for funds and grants are public. Something else worth noting is the fact that Students for a Conservative Voice only costs each individual student $1.36, whereas The Minnesota Daily costs each student $6.44. This is not a slash at MN Daily, rather something notable to add since our considerably smaller staff is repeatedly pitted against theirs. This information can be found here. An example of the rift in funding is accessible here. Students for a Conservative Voice – The Minnesota Republic does not receive benefits from any other group. Income is narrowed to ad revenue – which is noted in our application for funds. We are not affiliated with Koch, Exxon, homophobic groups, xenophobic groups, racist groups – none. As of 2018, our writers are contractually hired to write with integrity and are barred from sharing hateful views – they can have opinions, but cannot write unprotected hate speech. We have historically hosted events alongside Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow, Minnesota Students for Liberty, and The College Republicans, among other student groups. The Minnesota Republic is a part of The Collegiate Network but receives no grants. The only benefits we receive are from the university. Furthermore, our constitution (which can be found at the bottom of that link) bans us from campaigning, donating, or receiving funds from a political figure or campaign. Although we are dominantly Republican, we have no political ties – and never will as long as our constitution is in existence. So – my challenge to our Antifa critics. I have presented you with all the facts and public knowledge that has always been readily available at your fingertips. Your comments are welcome as yes, we do welcome free speech. But make these comments worthwhile. When we receive hundreds of comments in binary code such as, “01100110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101” we will flag them as spam. When we receive hate speech, directly in violation of the Hate Speech Doctrine, we will flag it – because that is not free speech protected by the First Amendment. I challenge you to attempt to educate us, rather than belittle us. Present facts with sources. Utilize the information that I have given you – because you, as well as I, are entitled to our opinions. But neither of us are exempt from presenting facts, and both of us should stay within our Constitutional rights. I challenge you to write a worthwhile, educated, facts-based comment, without making stabs or slurs at my staff. 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__label__cc	0.556875	0.443125	Advisor Council Partners Council Healthcare IT Innovations Task Force Transitions of Care Consensus Policy Statement The Care Transitions Intervention: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial NQF: Preferred Practices and Performance Measures for Measuring and Reporting Care Coordination Abstract: The American College of Physicians, Society of Hospital Medicine, and Society of General Internal Medicine convened a multi-stakeholder consensus conference in July 2007 to address the quality gaps in the transitions between inpatient and outpatient settings and to develop consensus standards for these transitions. Over 30 organizations sent representatives to the Transitions of Care Consensus Conference. Participating organizations included medical specialty societies from internal medicine as well as family medicine and pediatrics, governmental agencies such as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, performance measure developers such as the National Committee for Quality Assurance and the American Medical Association Physician Consortium on Performance Improvement, nurse associations such as the Visiting Nurse Associations of America and Home Care and Hospice, pharmacist groups, and patient groups such as the Institute for Family-Centered Care. The Transitions of Care Consensus Conference made recommendations for standards concerning the transitions between inpatient and outpatient settings for future implementation. The American College of Physicians, Society of Hospital Medicine, Society of General Internal Medicine, American Geriatric Society, American College of Emergency Physicians, and Society for Academic Emergency Medicine all endorsed this document. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2009;4:364–370. © 2009 Society of Hospital Medicine. ntocc The geriatric floating interdisciplinary transition team © 2008-2019 by National Transitions of Care Coalition (NTOCC) ®. All rights reserved. NTOCC is a 501(c)(4) organization.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line601
__label__wiki	0.681945	0.681945	Whoniversaries 8 August: George Cormack, John Baker, Terry Nation, Tom Georgeson, Pooja Shah doctor who, doctor who: anniversaries Fri, 12:56: The Atomic Bombings of World War II: The Views of the Radar Man https://t.co/nIsAfsHVyG Jacob Beser was the only ma… https://t.co/WHFnzo2ANS Fri, 13:06: RT @DelsolClaire: Stay in Ireland, they said. It's BEAUTIFUL, they said. Just as good as any European place. Our beaches, our mountains, ou… Fri, 18:33: George Eliot, by Tim Dolin https://t.co/XMmtwAfOWX Fri, 20:48: The Beirut Blast: An Accident in Name Only https://t.co/9JdZFYlT4a @CrisisGroup reports. Sat, 07:59: Just discovered that Amy Dillwyn was my third cousin once removed. https://t.co/ju4r26HQmg Sat, 09:30: Whoniversaries 8 August: George Cormack, John Baker, Terry Nation, Tom Georgeson, Pooja Shah https://t.co/xXwhrc8z0U Sat, 10:45: Scientists rename human genes to stop Microsoft Excel from misreading them as dates https://t.co/IMgefe9520 gulp Yugoslavia's Implosion: The Fatal Attraction of Serbian Nationalism, by Sonja Biserko Second and third paragraphs of third chapter: The Kosovo myth played a significant part in the creation of the modern Serbian state in the early twentieth century. St. Vitus' Day, which had been instituted in the nineteenth century in the belief that the Battle of Kosovo had been lost precisely on that day, was first celebrated as a national religious holiday in 1913, after the Turks had been decisively beaten. The holiday was said to honor the "chivalrous contest and the conquest of evil," and to symbolize a bloody, unsparing revenge against Turks and Muslims in general. The possibility of using St. Vitus' Day to abuse the Kosovo myth was pointed out in the 1970s by Miodrag Popović, who wrote: The cult of St. Vitus' Day, which confuses historical and mythical reality, a genuine struggle for freedom and enduring pagan propensities (revenge, throat-slitting, oblation, worship of a heroic ancestor), contains potentially all the characteristics of environments marked by unbridled mythical impulses. As a phase in the development of national thought, it was historically necessary. But as a permanent state of the spirit, the cult of St. Vitus' Day can prove detrimental for those who are unable to disentangle themselves from its pseudo-mythical and pseudo-historical entanglements. In them, modern thought and man's spirit may experience a new Kosovo, an intellectual and ethical defeat.310 310 Miodrag Popović, Vidovdan i časni krst: ogled iz književne arheologije (St. Vitus' Day and the Holy Cross, an essay on literary archaeology), Belgrade 1976, pp. 131-32. Detailed and carefully researched, by one of Serbia's most lucid human rights activists, this chronicles the sad history of how Serbian nationalism disintegrated Yugoslavia (more than once), and the ideological threads connecting the Yugoslav Army, the Orthodox church and Serbian nationalists both inside and outside the old Communist Party - three groups which were not automatically allies, but aligned themselves brutally to cause destruction. Some will say that it's all the fault of the Slovenes and Croats for breaking away, but the record clearly shows that the concentration of power in the hands of Serbian leaders happened first, destroying the grand bargain which had sustained the old federation. It's particularly enlightening to read this account from a Serbian analyst, rather as the pages of Ha-Aretz provide the most interesting commentary on Israel. I sort-of pop up between the lines on page 262, where Biserko writes: Having sought but failed to persuade Belgrade to enageg in talks about Kosovo's final status, the international community decided to discuss the subject without Belgrade. A message to this effect, delivered in 2005 via the International Crisis group's (ICG) report on Kosovo's final status, raised a great hue and cry on the Serbian political scene. Well, we weren't ever instructed by anyone to send a message to Belgrade; we were simply reporting the situation as we saw it, and also describing the only likely solution, which was to find a pathway to regularising Kosovo's situation (it was de facto already independent in 2005). Of course those of us working in the organisation all had our views, but what we were trying to do was to match the situation on the ground to the grand thrust of international diplomacy, and I think we did it rather well. The message we delivered to Belgrade was from reality, rather than from any particular capital city. The book ends on an outdated note of optimism - when it was published in 2012, it seemed possible that Serbia was heading in a more democratic direction. That's no longer a sustainable view, with President Vučić and the Progressive Party dominating the political scene and crushing voices of dissent. Sonja Biserko remains uncrushed, and long may she remain so. You can get the book here. This was the non-fiction book that had lingered longest unread on my shelves. Next up is (again) Felicitas Corrigan's biography of Helen Waddell. bookblog 2020, world: serbia Amy Dillwyn was my third cousin once removed I’ve been passing the time over the summer evenings by delving a bit more deeply into genealogy, and was delighted to discover that I am related to Amy Dillwyn, Welsh lesbian campaigner, novelist and industrialist, who was my third cousin once removed. Even though she was born in 1845 and my father in 1928, a combination of young parents on her side and older fathers on mine makes them the same generation of descendants from our common ancestors, John Whyte (1752-1814) and his wife Letitia (1755-?). To be specific: Amy Dillwyn was born in 1845 (the third child of four) when her mother, Louisa Dillwyn née de la Beche was 27 and her father, later MP for Swansea, 34; my own father was born 83 years later, in 1928, the first child of a later marriage, when my grandfather was 48; Louisa de la Beche was born in 1819 when her mother, Letitia de la Beche née Whyte, was only 18 (and starting an unhappy marriage to Sir Henry de la Beche, the geologist); 61 years later, my grandfather was born in 1880, the tenth child of thirteen from his father's second marriage; his father was 53 when he was born; Letitia Whyte was born in 1801 when her father, Charles John Whyte, was 24 (he had been disinherited for marrying a Protestant - things have changed, thank heavens - and died just a couple of years later leaving his younger wife pregnant with their third child); 25 years later, my great-grandfather was born in 1826 when his father was 42, again the first child of a later marriage; Charles John Whyte was seven years older than his brother, my great-great-grandfather, born in 1777 and 1784 respectively. John and Letitia Whyte had eight sons (and two daughters); six of the eight sons died during the Napoleonic wars, including Charles John. So I am the same generation as Amy Dillwyn's nephews and nieces, born in the 1860s and 1870s, a hundred years before me.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line602
__label__wiki	0.935794	0.935794	Person Page - 14 William Herbert Bartlett Father Thomas Bartlett b. 1844, d. 14 Nov 1923 Mother Sarah Walker b. 1853, d. 21 Jun 1939 William Herbert Bartlett was born in 1888 at Tower Hill, Victoria, Australia. He was the son of Thomas Bartlett and Sarah Walker. William Herbert Bartlett married Isabella Emily Johnson circa 1910 at Victoria, Australia. Isabella Emily Johnson William Herbert Bartlett married Isabella Emily Johnson circa 1910 at Victoria, Australia.� male Bartlett+ b. c 1920 Josiah Bartlett b. 16 February 1834, d. 31 January 1895 Father Charles Bartlett b. 15 Dec 1808, d. 18 Oct 1874 Mother Mary Anne Hooper b. 1 Jan 1808, d. 22 Jul 1851 Josiah Bartlett was born in 1834 at Pitney, Somerset, England. Josiah Bartlett was baptized on 16 February 1834 at Pitney, Somerset, England. He was the son of Charles Bartlett and Mary Anne Hooper. Josiah Bartlett married Jane McManus, daughter of James McManus and Mary McHugh, on 28 February 1856 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia.1 Josiah Bartlett witnessed the death of Charles Bartlett on 18 October 1874 at Koroit, Victoria, Australia; He died of valvular disease of the heart.2 Josiah and Mary Jane are said to have separated over religion, and their children were split also. Josiah's religion, as stated on his death certificate, was baptist. Mary Jane was a catholic. Josiah Bartlett left a will made on 6 November 1889 at Victoria, Australia.3 Josiah Bartlett was Josiah's occupation at time of death was stated as farmer, although his will says he is a labourer. It is likely he was a farmer for most of his life. in 1895. Josiah Bartlett died on 31 January 1895 at Northcote, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, at age 60. He died of cancer.4 Josiah Bartlett was buried on 2 February 1895 at Melbourne General Cemetery, Victoria, Australia, The grave was purchased by David Birtles. Jane McManus b. c 1839, d. 25 Aug 1914 Josiah Bartlett married Jane McManus, daughter of James McManus and Mary McHugh, on 28 February 1856 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia.1� Mary Ann Bartlett b. 26 Aug 1857, d. Feb 1924 Sarah Jane Bartlett+ b. 14 Mar 1859, d. 10 Jul 1945 Elizabeth Bartlett+ b. 23 Nov 1861, d. 26 Jan 1887 Margaret Bartlett+ b. 29 Jul 1863, d. 2 Jun 1928 James Bartlett b. 1864, d. 1940 Josiah Bartlett b. 15 Mar 1867, d. 26 May 1938 Thomas Bartlett b. 1 May 1869, d. Jun 1887 Robert Bartlett b. 12 Jun 1871, d. 1 Oct 1901 Agnes Bartlett b. 26 Jul 1872, d. 1945 Catherine Bartlett b. 26 Jul 1872, d. Sep 1872 Katherine Bartlett b. 1874 John Henry Bartlett+ b. 28 Dec 1875, d. 27 Nov 1949 Charles Bartlett b. Apr 1877, d. Sep 1877 [S244] Website "Ancestry" (http://www.ancestry.co.uk/) "Australia Marriage Index, 1788-1950 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. "Victoria 1856/66."" [S580] Death certificate of Charles Bartlett, died 18 Oct 1874, registered 19 Oct 1874 in the Registration District of Koroit, Victoria (Reference no: 12190). [S453] Will of Josiah Bartlett of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, made 6 Nov 1889, proved in the unknown court, 21 Feb 1895. (unknown document ref). [S244] Website "Ancestry" (http://www.ancestry.co.uk/) "Australia Death Index, 1787-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. "1895/2568, age 59 years"." Jane McManus b. circa 1839, d. 25 August 1914 Father James McManus b. c 1810 Mother Mary McHugh b. c 1810 Jane McManus was born circa 1839 at Tyrone, Ireland. She was the daughter of James McManus and Mary McHugh. Jane McManus married Josiah Bartlett, son of Charles Bartlett and Mary Anne Hooper, on 28 February 1856 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia.1 As of 28 February 1856, her married name was Bartlett. Family oral history has Jane as a 'mail order bride'. On the shipping records of her comming into Melbourne she is 18 , two years later her marriage certificate says age 17 years! Charles Bartlett had just lost his wife when Jane was sent for but it looks as if Jane lied about her age and was too young, and ends up marrying his eldest son Josiah. Eveline Clegg remembers going to stay with her Grandmother, Jane, in a very tiny house in Koroit. She was by all accounts a very strong character. In 1909 Jane McManus lived at Ann St, Koroit, Victoria, Australia.2 Jane McManus left a will made on 8 August 1909 at Victoria, Australia.2 Jane McManus died on 25 August 1914 at Warrnambool Hospital, Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia.3 The following Death Notice appeared in the Warrnambool Standard on Wednesday 26 August 1914: BARTLETT.- On 25th inst., at the Warrnambool Hospital, Jane, relist (sic) of the late Josiah Bartlett, of Koroit, aged 76 years. R.I.P. (The funeral will leave the Warrnambool Hospital To-morrow (Thursday) at Two o'clock for the Tower Hill Cemetery). JOSEPH FARRER, 'Phone 168. Undertaker.4 Jane McManus was buried on 27 August 1914 at Tower Hill Cemetery, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. Jane is buried in the same grave as her son Thomas who died aged 18 years in 1887, and her brother James McManus who died in 1905. Josiah Bartlett b. 16 Feb 1834, d. 31 Jan 1895 Jane McManus married Josiah Bartlett, son of Charles Bartlett and Mary Anne Hooper, on 28 February 1856 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia.1� [S454] Will of Mary Jane Bartlett of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, made 8 Aug 1909, proved in the unknown court, 16 Oct 1914. (unknown document ref). [S582] Death certificate of Jane Bartlett, died 25 Aug 1914, registered 26 Aug 1914 in the Registration District of Warrnambool, Victoria (Reference no: 1914/12064). [S325] Webpage The Warrnambool Standard (Victoria) (http://trove.nla.gov.au/) "1914 'Family Notices.', Warrnambool Standard (Vic. : 1914 - 1918), 26 August, p. 2 Edition: DAILY., viewed 2 August, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article73579695." Mary Ann Bartlett b. 26 August 1857, d. February 1924 Father Josiah Bartlett b. 16 Feb 1834, d. 31 Jan 1895 Mother Jane McManus b. c 1839, d. 25 Aug 1914 Mary Ann Bartlett was born on 26 August 1857 at Woodford, Victoria, Australia; Woodford is near Tower Hill. She was the daughter of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. Mary Ann Bartlett married John Picket on 28 June 1877 at Koroit, Victoria, Australia. As of 28 June 1877, her married name was Picket. They are said to have had no children. Mary Ann Bartlett died in February 1924 at Bushfield, Warrnambool, Victoria, Australia, at age 66. John Picket b. c 1857, d. 1918 Mary Ann Bartlett married John Picket on 28 June 1877 at Koroit, Victoria, Australia.� Sarah Jane Bartlett b. 14 March 1859, d. 10 July 1945 David Birtles with wife Sarah Bartlett c1910 and daughter Iris Valinda (born 1907). Sarah Jane Bartlett was born on 14 March 1859 at Burrells Flat Road, Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. She was the daughter of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. Sarah Jane Bartlett married David Edwin Birtles on 23 March 1876 at Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia, date needs to be checked (1880?) As of 23 March 1876, her married name was Birtles. Sarah Jane Bartlett died on 10 July 1945 at Balwyn, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, at age 86. David Edwin Birtles b. 1851, d. 14 Apr 1926 Sarah Jane Bartlett married David Edwin Birtles on 23 March 1876 at Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia, date needs to be checked (1880?)� Francis H Birtles b. 1877, d. 1881 Edith Jane Birtles b. 1879, d. 1971 Frances Edwin Birtles b. 7 Nov 1881, d. 1 Jul 1941 Florence A Birtles b. 1884, d. 1970 Elsie A Birtles b. 1886, d. 1968 Ida Victoria Birtles b. 1890, d. 1929 Clive Irwin Birtles+ b. 1894, d. 1973 Vernon B Birtles b. 1897 Ivy Valinda Birtles b. 1907 Elizabeth Bartlett Elizabeth Bartlett was born on 23 November 1861 at Burrells Flat Road, Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. She was the daughter of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. Elizabeth Bartlett married Thomas James Coonerty in 1882 at Victoria, Australia. As of 1882, her married name was Coonerty. Elizabeth Bartlett died on 26 January 1887 at Richmond, Victoria, Australia, at age 25. Thomas James Coonerty b. 1858, d. 7 Aug 1932 Elizabeth Bartlett married Thomas James Coonerty in 1882 at Victoria, Australia.� James Joseph Coonerty+ b. 1883, d. 5 Apr 1960 Joseph Coonerty b. 4 Feb 1885, d. 7 Mar 1970 Thomas Coonerty b. 1887, d. 1887 James Bartlett b. 1864, d. 1940 James Bartlett was born in 1864 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. He was the son of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. James Bartlett died in 1940 at Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia. b. 15 March 1867, d. 26 May 1938 Josiah Bartlett was born on 15 March 1867 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. He was the son of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. Josiah Bartlett died on 26 May 1938 at Canterbury, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, at age 71. b. 1 May 1869, d. June 1887 Thomas Bartlett was born on 1 May 1869 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. He was the son of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. Thomas Bartlett was buried in June 1887 at Tower Hill Cemetery, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. Thomas Bartlett died in June 1887 at Tower Hill, Victoria, Australia, at age 18. Age 18 years. Thomas is buried in the same grave as his mother and his uncle, James McManus. Robert Bartlett b. 12 June 1871, d. 1 October 1901 Robert Bartlett was born on 12 June 1871 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. He was the son of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. In 1901 Robert Bartlett lived at 1 Salvado Row, Hill St, East Perth, Western Australia, Australia.1 Robert Bartlett died on 1 October 1901 at Perth, Western Australia, Australia, at age 30. He was accidently killed through the collapse of a crane at the Supreme Court Buildings in Perth.2 Robert Bartlett was buried on 2 October 1901 at Karrakatta Cemetery, Perth, Western Australia, Australia, Roman Catholic section.1 The following Funeral Notice appeared in The West Australian newspaper on Wednesday 2 Oct 1901: BARTLETT.-The friends of the late Mr. Robert Bartlett are respectfully invited to follow his remains to the place of interment, the Roman Catholic Cemetery, Karrakatta. The funeral is appointed to leave his late residence, No. 1 Salvado Row, Hill-street, East Perth, at 2.30 o'clock, THIS (Wednesday) AFTERNOON, per road. The 2.30 p.m. train from Perth stops at Karrakatta. DONALD J. CHIPPER, Undertaker, Hay-street, Perth, and at Hannan-street, Kalgoorlie. Tel. 137.1 The following article appeared in The West Australian newspaper on Wednesday 9 Oct 1901: THE DEATH OF ROBERT BARTLETT. COLLAPSE OF A CRANE. The circumstances surrounding the death of the labourer Robert Bartlett, who was instantaneously killed on October 1 at the new Supreme Court buildings, through the collapse of portion of a crane, were further inquired into before the District Coroner, Dr. Black, yesterday morning. The inquiry had been, adjourned from the previous day for expert evidence. Mr. Phillips appeared to watch the proceedings on behalf of the contractors, Messrs. Vincent and Son, and Sergeant McCarthy conducted the inquiry. W. H. Grainger, Chief Government Architect, said that after the accident he made an examination of the crane. He thought the accident was caused by the lifting of the two legs bearing against the pin in the king-bolt, owing to the dtawing over slightly of the mast. It was very rarely that any strain of that kind occurred, and, in fact, if he had not actually seen the nature of it, he should have said the occurrence was utterly impossible. He did not attach any blame to the contractors. He had examined the crane a few days before the occurrence, and found everything in first-rate condition. By the Coroner : He did not think it would have made any difference if the key had been the full size of the slot in the king-bolt. The Coroner: Could the exercise of any reasonable amount of care and foresight have averted the occurrence of this accident? Witness: I certainly do no think, so. I think the crane was admirable in every way. It was well erected, and fit to do its work. Continuing, he said that the accident was most extraordinary. He had had thirty years of varied experience in many classes of work, and had never seen the same thing occur before, and had never known of a similar occurrence. He thought a long king-bolt was better than a short one to minimise any risk of stripping: the present one was of medium size. A crane like the one in question, which had a "jib" 61ft. in length, radius 48ft., height of mast 20ft., and distance from 'the end of the "jib" 'to the stone 38ft., could work up to a radius of 50ft., and carry four tons with a proper margin of safety. He had not examined the pin through the king-bolt. He had notified the contractors that four tons was the maximum weight to be lifted. The jury, after a short retirement, returned and stated, through their fore- man, that they would like further information regarding the construction of the crane. The Coroner accordingly further adjourned the inquest to half-past 9a.m. on Friday morning.2 On 11 October 1901 in The West Australian: THE SUPREME COURT FATALITY. MIGHT HAVE BEEN PREVENTED. THE JURY'S FINDING. The adjourned inquest concerning the death of the laborer, Robert Bartlett, who was crushed to death by a falling crane at the now Supreme Court building on October 1, was concluded this morning, at the Coroner's Court, before Dr. Black and a jury. Mr. Phlillips appeared on behalf of the contractors, Messrs. R. P. Vincent and Co. Further expert evidence was given by Arthur D. Bell, civil engineer, and W. D. Campbell (recalled), and the jury, after a lengthy retirement, brought in the follow ing verdict: — 'We find that Robert Bartlett met his death .... from fractures of the skull and other portions of the body. Whilst unable to speak definitely as to the immediate cause of the accident, we consider that, had the crane been properly tested in varying positions by an expert, the accident might not have happened.3 The following article appeared in the Western Mail on Saturday, 19 Oct 1901: THE DEATH OF ROBERT BARTLETT. The adjourned inquest regarding the death of Robert Bartlett, who was killed on October 1 at the new Supreme Court buildings, through the collapse of portion of a crane, was concluded before the District Coroner on the morning of October ll. Mr . Phillips appeared on behalf of the contracfors Messrs. Vincent and Son. Further expert evidence regarding the construction of the crane was called. Mr. Arthur Dillon Bell, civil engineer, gave an explanation as to how the accident might have occurred, and said that he had examined the crane, and considered it well constructed for the purposes for which it was used. It was of the proper type, and was reasonably set for that class of work. He did not think any ordinary foresight could have averted the accident. Mr. W. D. Campbell, recalled, said that the crane had been used to lift about ten different blocks of stone after the new "jib" was put up before the occurrence. The blocks would each weigh from three and a half to four tons. The jury found, that deceased had met his death from fracture of the skull and injuries to other portions of the body. To the verdict was added theFix this text following rider :- Whilst unable to speak definitely of the immediate cause of the accident, we consider that had the crane been properly tested in varying positions by an expert, the accident. might have been prevented." The jurymen, Messrs. S. Barbour foreman, William Broadhurst, and Thomas Henry Bradley generously gave £5, the whole of the fees they had received for their attendance on three occasions, to the widow of the deceased.4 [S305] Webpage The West Australian (http://trove.nla.gov.au/) "1901 'Family Notices.', The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), 2 October, p. 4, viewed 4 August, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article24760402." [S305] Webpage The West Australian (http://trove.nla.gov.au/) "1901 'THE SUPREME COURT FATALITY.', The Daily News (Perth, WA : 1882 - 1950), 11 October, p. 2, viewed 4 August, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article82492060." [S327] Webpage Western Mail (http://trove.nla.gov.au/) "1901 'THE DEATH OF ROBERT BARTLETT.', Western Mail (Perth, WA : 1885 - 1954), 19 October, p. 10, viewed 4 August, 2012, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article33211615." Agnes Bartlett Agnes Bartlett was born on 26 July 1872 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. She was the daughter of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. Agnes Bartlett married James Edwin Baker in 1900 at Victoria, Australia. As of 1900, her married name was Baker. Agnes Bartlett died in 1945 at Mount Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. James Edwin Baker b. 1873, d. 1964 Agnes Bartlett married James Edwin Baker in 1900 at Victoria, Australia.� Katherine Bartlett Katherine Bartlett was born in 1874 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. She was the daughter of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. John Henry Bartlett b. 28 December 1875, d. 27 November 1949 John Henry Bartlett was born on 28 December 1875 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. He was the son of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. John Henry Bartlett married Mavis Ravenall Douglas on 27 October 1909 at Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. John Henry Bartlett married Norah Julia Saunders on 28 August 1910 at St Francis Church, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. John Henry Bartlett married Ellen Piggot Bryant on 4 March 1917 at Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. John Henry Bartlett died on 27 November 1949 at Surrey Hills, Victoria, Australia, at age 73. Mavis Ravenall Douglas b. 1881 John Henry Bartlett married Mavis Ravenall Douglas on 27 October 1909 at Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.� Norah Julia Saunders b. 1876, d. 26 Nov 1915 John Henry Bartlett married Norah Julia Saunders on 28 August 1910 at St Francis Church, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.� Olive Kathleen Bartlett b. 29 May 1907, d. 14 May 1975 George Francis Bartlett b. 17 Nov 1909 Thomas Robert Bartlett+ b. 5 Oct 1911, d. 31 Oct 2000 Mary Jane Bartlett b. 15 Jul 1914, d. 24 Feb 2005 Ellen Piggot Bryant b. 1872, d. 29 May 1937 John Henry Bartlett married Ellen Piggot Bryant on 4 March 1917 at Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.� Charles Bartlett b. April 1877, d. September 1877 Charles Bartlett was born in April 1877 at Tower Hill, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. He was the son of Josiah Bartlett and Jane McManus. Charles Bartlett died in September 1877 at Koroit, Victoria, Australia. James McManus James McManus was born circa 1810 at Ireland. James McManus married Mary McHugh circa 1835 at Tyrone, Ireland. Mary McHugh b. c 1810 James McManus married Mary McHugh circa 1835 at Tyrone, Ireland.� James McManus b. b 1839, d. 13 Sep 1905 Jane McManus+ b. c 1839, d. 25 Aug 1914 Mary McHugh Mary McHugh was born circa 1810 at Ireland. Mary McHugh married James McManus circa 1835 at Tyrone, Ireland. As of circa 1835, her married name was McManus. James McManus b. c 1810 Mary McHugh married James McManus circa 1835 at Tyrone, Ireland.� b. before 1839, d. 13 September 1905 James McManus was born before 1839 at Tyrone, Ireland. He was the son of James McManus and Mary McHugh. James McManus died on 13 September 1905 at Victoria, Australia. James McManus was buried after 13 September 1905 at Tower Hill Cemetery, Koroit, Victoria, Australia. Buried with his sister so must have come to Australia some time after her. Jane Smart b. circa 1823, d. 12 April 1894 Father Charles Smart b. 16 Oct 1803, d. 9 Apr 1886 Mother Hannah Hudson b. 14 Oct 1798, d. 18 May 1864 Jane Smart was born circa 1823 at South Heighton, Sussex, England.1,2,3 She was the daughter of Charles Smart and Hannah Hudson. The South Heighton parish register was searched from 1812 and baptisms were found Hosea, Frances and Harriet. There was no baptism for Jane. On 22 February 1849 Jane Smart lived at Fairlight, Sussex, England. Jane Smart married Peter Terry, son of Peter Terry and Elizabeth Alce, on 22 February 1849 at Parish Church, Fairlight, Sussex, England.4 As of 22 February 1849, her married name was Terry. Jane Smart witnessed the birth of Harriet Terry on 15 September 1850 at Newhaven, Sussex, England.5 On 7 April 1861 Jane Smart and Peter Terry lived at High St, Newhaven, Sussex, England.1 Jane Smart witnessed the death of Hannah Hudson on 18 May 1864 at Handcombe, Westham, Sussex, England; "wife of Charles Smart, shepherd". She died of consumption.6 On 2 April 1871 Jane Smart and Peter Terry lived at 1 Court House Cottages, Newhaven, Sussex, England.2 On 5 April 1891 Jane Smart and Peter Terry lived at Magham Down, Hailsham, Sussex, England.7 Their grandson George Taylor (born 1877) is said to have recalled holidaying with his grandparents at Magham Down in Hailsham.8 Jane Smart died on 12 April 1894 at Gildredges Lane, Hailsham, Sussex, England. She died of pneumonia.9 Peter Terry b. 19 May 1822, d. 25 Mar 1895 Jane Smart married Peter Terry, son of Peter Terry and Elizabeth Alce, on 22 February 1849 at Parish Church, Fairlight, Sussex, England.4� Louisa Terry+ b. 27 May 1849, d. 25 Dec 1928 Harriet Terry+ b. 15 Sep 1850, d. 2 Mar 1918 Fanny Terry b. 16 Jun 1852 Charles Terry+ b. 4 Dec 1853 Alfred Terry b. 2 Dec 1855, d. 1857 Jane Terry+ b. 11 Jul 1858, d. 1891 Peter Terry b. 10 Jun 1860, d. 1862 Walter Henry Terry b. 13 May 1866, d. 1867 William Daniel Terry b. 13 May 1866, d. 1867 Thomas Hilton b. c 1872 [S68] 1861 Census for England, "Class: RG 9; Piece: 589; Folio: 27; Page: 5; GSU roll: 542667." [S69] 1871 Census for England, "Class: RG10; Piece: 1070; Folio: 43; Page: 28; GSU roll: 827493." [S70] 1881 Census for England, "Class: RG11; Piece: 1073; Folio: 71; Page: 59; GSU roll: 1341253." [S53] Marriage certificate of Peter Terry and Jane Smart, married 22 Feb 1849 in the Registration District of Hastings, Sussex, England (GRO Index Ref: Vol 7 Page 441). [S204] Birth certificate of Harriet Terry, born 15 Sep 1850, registered 26 Sep 1850 in the Registration District of Newhaven, Sussex, England (GRO Index Ref: Vol 7 Page 459). [S512] Death certificate of Hannah Smart, died 18 May 1864, registered 20 May 1864 in the Registration District of Eastbourne, Sussex, England (GRO Index Ref: Vol 2b Page 39). [S71] 1891 Census for England "Class: RG12; Piece: 776; Folio: 83; Page: 7; GSU roll: 6095886." [S11] Information supplied by Freda Amy Barber (Victoria Park, WA, Australia) to Geoffrey Barber (Subiaco, WA, Australia), Various dates. [S233] Death certificate of Jane Terry, died 12 Apr 1894, registered 14 Apr 1894 in the Registration District of Hailsham, Sussex, England (GRO Index Ref: Vol 2b Page 55). Fanny Terry b. 16 June 1852 Father Peter Terry b. 19 May 1822, d. 25 Mar 1895 Mother Jane Smart b. c 1823, d. 12 Apr 1894 Fanny Terry was born in 1852 at Hastings, Sussex, England. Fanny Terry was baptized on 16 June 1852 at All Saints, Hastings, Sussex, England.1 She was the daughter of Peter Terry and Jane Smart. On 2 April 1871 Fanny Terry lived at 1 Court House Cottages, Newhaven, Sussex, England. Fanny Terry was a domestic servant on 2 April 1871. Fanny Terry was a house and parlour maid on 3 April 1881. On 3 April 1881 Fanny Terry lived at Havant Rd, Cosham, Hampshire, England. Fanny Terry married William Hare in 1894 at Steyning, Sussex, England, to be checked.2 As of 1894, her married name was Hare. William Hare b. c 1848 Fanny Terry married William Hare in 1894 at Steyning, Sussex, England, to be checked.2� [S388] Website "FamilySearch" (http://www.familysearch.org/) ""England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N2MK-KLS : 11 February 2018, Fanny Terry, 16 Jun 1852); citing All Saints, Hastings, Sussex, England, index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 1,067,172." [S143] General Register Office: Indexes to Marriages, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Oct-Dec 1894, Steyning, Vol 2b Page 593." Charles Terry b. 4 December 1853 Charles Terry was born in 1853 at Newhaven, Sussex, England.1 Charles Terry was baptized on 4 December 1853 at Newhaven, Sussex, England. He was the son of Peter Terry and Jane Smart. On 2 April 1871 Charles Terry lived at 1 Court House Cottages, Newhaven, Sussex, England. Charles Terry was an agricultural labourer on 2 April 1871. Charles Terry witnessed the marriage of Moses Taylor and Harriet Terry on 23 October 1871 at St Nicholas Church, Brighton, Sussex, England; Witnesses: Charles Terry and Louisa Terry.2 On 3 April 1881 Charles Terry lived at 10 Paddock Rd, Lewes, Sussex, England, a lodger.3 Charles Terry was a painter on 3 April 1881.3 Charles Terry married Kate (?) in 1885 at Brighton, Sussex, England.4 Charles Terry was a house painter on 5 April 1891.5 On 5 April 1891 Charles Terry and Kate (?) lived at 34 Upper Lewes Rd, Brighton, Sussex, England.5 Charles Terry was a house painter on 31 March 1901. On 31 March 1901 Charles Terry and Kate (?) lived at 34 Upper Lewes Rd, Brighton, Sussex, England. Kate (?) b. c 1861 Charles Terry married Kate (?) in 1885 at Brighton, Sussex, England.4� Lizzie Terry b. 1886 Minnie Terry b. 1888 [S142] General Register Office: Indexes to Births, Sep 1837-2006, "Jul-Sep 1853, Lewes, Vol 2b Page 137." [S54] Marriage certificate of Moses Taylor and Harriet Terry, married 23 Oct 1871 in the Registration District of Brighton, Sussex, England (GRO Index Ref: Vol 2b Page 357). [S70] 1881 Census for England, "RG11 piece 1070 folio 32 page 4." [S143] General Register Office: Indexes to Marriages, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Jul-Sep 1885, Brighton, Vol 2b Page 350." [S71] 1891 Census for England "RG12 piece 808 folio 129 page 6." Jane Terry Jane Terry was born in 1858 at Newhaven, Sussex, England.1 Jane Terry was baptized on 11 July 1858 at Newhaven, Sussex, England. She was the daughter of Peter Terry and Jane Smart. Jane Terry married William Hare in 1881 at Bourne, Lincolnshire, England.2 On 5 April 1891 Jane Terry and William Hare lived at 41 Lenthorpe Rd, Greenwich, London, England. Jane Terry died in 1891 at Greenwich, London, England. Age 32 years.3 Jane Terry married William Hare in 1881 at Bourne, Lincolnshire, England.2� George W Hare b. c 1882 Ada L Hare b. c 1887 Dorothy E Hare b. 1890 [S143] General Register Office: Indexes to Marriages, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Oct-Dec 1881, Bourne, Vol 7a Page 683." [S13] General Register Office: Indexes to Birth, Marriages, Deaths, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Greenwich RD Apr-Jun 1891 Vol 1d Page 784." Peter Terry b. 10 June 1860, d. 1862 Peter Terry was born in 1860 at Newhaven, Sussex, England.1 Peter Terry was baptized on 10 June 1860 at Newhaven, Sussex, England. He was the son of Peter Terry and Jane Smart. Peter Terry died in 1862 at Newhaven, Sussex, England.2 Peter Terry was buried on 9 March 1862 at Newhaven, Sussex, England. [S142] General Register Office: Indexes to Births, Sep 1837-2006, "Apr-Jun 1860, Lewes, Vol 2b Page 145." [S141] General Register Office: Indexes to Deaths, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Jan-Mar 1862, Lewes, Vol 2b Page 102." Abraham Taylor b. 12 October 1783, d. 28 February 1861 Father Thomas Taylor b. 16 Oct 1757, d. 1823 Mother Anne Forde b. 5 Apr 1752, d. 1809 Abraham Taylor was born in 1783 at Ringmer, Sussex, England. Abraham Taylor was baptized on 12 October 1783 at Ringmer, Sussex, England, 1851 census gives Ringmer as place of birth.1 He was the son of Thomas Taylor and Anne Forde. Abraham is recorded in the Sussex Milita List for West Firle as aged 17-30 years and willing to serve (these lists were drawn up in case of invasion by Napoleon). Abraham Taylor married Sarah Kennard, daughter of Isaac Moore and Ann Kennard, on 4 September 1805 at Beddingham, Sussex, England. Abraham Taylor was a labourer painter on 3 May 1828.2 Abraham Taylor was an agricultural labourer in 1851.3 On 30 March 1851 Abraham Taylor and Sarah Kennard lived at Stamford Pound, West Firle, Sussex, England.3 Abraham Taylor died on 28 February 1861 at West Firle, Sussex, England, at age 77. Aged 77 year, died of old age.4 Abraham Taylor was buried on 5 March 1861 at West Firle, Sussex, England, age 77 years.5 Sarah Kennard b. 9 Nov 1788, d. a 7 Apr 1861 Abraham Taylor married Sarah Kennard, daughter of Isaac Moore and Ann Kennard, on 4 September 1805 at Beddingham, Sussex, England.� Sarah Taylor b. 26 Jun 1808 James Taylor b. 23 Sep 1810, d. 1889 Abraham Taylor+ b. 10 Aug 1812, d. 1890 Thomas Taylor+ b. 25 Sep 1814, d. 19 Jul 1900 Isaac Taylor+ b. 20 Oct 1816, d. 1889 Anne Taylor b. 13 Sep 1818, d. 1829 Esther Taylor b. 25 Jun 1820 Stephen Taylor b. 4 Aug 1822, d. 1899 Naomi Taylor+ b. 28 Feb 1826 Luke Taylor b. 3 May 1828 Ruth Taylor b. 18 Sep 1829 [S16] 1851 Census for England "West Firle, Sussex, England." [S23] Index to Baptisms, 1538 onwards, compiled by Sussex Family History Group, http://www.sfhg.org.uk/, ongoing project, "(baptism of son Luke Taylor)." [S16] 1851 Census for England "HO107 piece 1643 folio 631 page 6." [S26] Death certificate of Abraham Taylor, died 28 Feb 1861, registered 4 Mar 1861 in the Registration District of Lewes, Sussex, England (GRO Index Ref: Vol 2b Page 107). [S226] Baptisms, Marriages & Burials of West Firle, Sussex, England, (ESRO: PAR 328/1) "searched by Eve Oliver 1990." Sarah Kennard b. 9 November 1788, d. after 7 April 1861 Father Isaac Moore b. 9 Aug 1767, d. 28 Oct 1851 Mother Ann Kennard b. 20 May 1770, d. 1836 Sarah Kennard was born in 1788 at Alciston, Sussex, England. Sarah Kennard was baptized on 9 November 1788 at Alciston, Sussex, England, 1851 census gives Alciston as place of birth.1 She was the daughter of Isaac Moore and Ann Kennard. Sarah KENNARD was the base born (illegitimate) child of Ann KENNARD, and the father was not recorded in the baptism register. However, one month after Sarah was born, Ann KENNARD married Isaac MOOR, both of & at Alciston, on 9.12.1788 by banns. Isaac may have been the father. I have shown him in this tree as the father, but this is obviously speculative. Sarah Kennard married Abraham Taylor, son of Thomas Taylor and Anne Forde, on 4 September 1805 at Beddingham, Sussex, England. As of 4 September 1805, her married name was Taylor. On 30 March 1851 Sarah Kennard and Abraham Taylor lived at Stamford Pound, West Firle, Sussex, England.2 Sarah Kennard witnessed the death of Abraham Taylor on 28 February 1861 at West Firle, Sussex, England; aged 77 year, died of old age.3 On 7 April 1861 Sarah Kennard lived at Bushy Lodge, West Firle, Sussex, England.4 Sarah Kennard was a lodging house keeper on 7 April 1861.4 Sarah Kennard died after 7 April 1861. Abraham Taylor b. 12 Oct 1783, d. 28 Feb 1861 Sarah Kennard married Abraham Taylor, son of Thomas Taylor and Anne Forde, on 4 September 1805 at Beddingham, Sussex, England.� [S68] 1861 Census for England, "RG09 piece 588 folio 59 page 6." b. 23 September 1810, d. 1889 Father Abraham Taylor b. 12 Oct 1783, d. 28 Feb 1861 Mother Sarah Kennard b. 9 Nov 1788, d. a 7 Apr 1861 James Taylor was born in 1810 at West Firle, Sussex, England. James Taylor was baptized on 23 September 1810 at St Peter, West Firle, Sussex, England.1 He was the son of Abraham Taylor and Sarah Kennard. James is noted as being deaf in the 1851 and 1861 census. In 1881 he was 70 years old and living in the West Firle Union Workhouse. James Taylor died in 1889 at West Firle, Sussex, England. James Taylor was buried on 27 February 1889 at St Peter, West Firle, Sussex, England, Firle Union Workhouse.2 [S23] Index to Baptisms, 1538 onwards, compiled by Sussex Family History Group, http://www.sfhg.org.uk/, ongoing project,. b. 4 August 1822, d. 1899 Stephen Taylor was born in 1822 at West Firle, Sussex, England. Stephen Taylor was baptized on 4 August 1822 at St Peter, West Firle, Sussex, England.1 He was the son of Abraham Taylor and Sarah Kennard. On 3 April 1881 Stephen Taylor lived at Heighton Street, West Firle, Sussex, England, lodger, unmarried, agricultural labourer.2 On 5 April 1891 Stephen Taylor lived at 79 Heighton Street, West Firle, Sussex, England, a boarder, single.3 Stephen Taylor was an agricultural labourer on 5 April 1891.3 Stephen Taylor died in 1899 at Lewes, Sussex, England.4 [S70] 1881 Census for England, "RG11 piece 1072 folio 67 page 14." [S71] 1891 Census for England "RG12 piece 799 folio 62 page 17." [S141] General Register Office: Indexes to Deaths, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Jan-Mar 1899, Lewes, Vol 2b Page 125, age 78 years." Louisa Terry b. 27 May 1849, d. 25 December 1928 Louisa Terry was born in 1849 at Fairlight, Sussex, England. Louisa Terry was baptized on 27 May 1849 at Fairlight, Sussex, England. She was the daughter of Peter Terry and Jane Smart. On 7 April 1861 Louisa Terry lived at Mill Hill, Westham, Sussex, England, staying with her grandparents (name is recorded as Lucy Terry, grand daughter aged 11 years). Louisa Terry was a domestic servant at 57 Ship St, Brighton. on 2 April 1871. Louisa Terry witnessed the marriage of Moses Taylor and Harriet Terry on 23 October 1871 at St Nicholas Church, Brighton, Sussex, England; Witnesses: Charles Terry and Louisa Terry.1 Louisa Terry was a domestic cook at 20 Vernon Terrace in Brighton (Palace district) on 5 April 1881. Louisa Terry was a domestic cook at Carisbrooke Preston Rd, Brighton. on 5 April 1891. Louisa Terry witnessed the death of Peter Terry on 25 March 1895 at 29 St Martin's Place, Brighton, Sussex, England; He died of Bright's disease and cardiac disease.2 Louisa Terry was a domestic cook at 55 Market St, Brighton on 31 March 1901. On 2 April 1911 Louisa Terry lived at 55 Market St, Brighton, Sussex, England.3 Louisa Terry was a housekeeper at a drapery establishment on 2 April 1911.3 It appears that Louisa never married. Louisa Terry died on 25 December 1928 at 7 Barcombe Road, Brighton, Sussex, England, at age 79. "81 years, daughter of Peter Terry a small holder."4 unknown (?) Florence Edith Terry+ b. 6 Sep 1873, d. 22 Sep 1928 [S234] Death certificate of Peter Terry, died 25 Mar 1895, registered 26 Mar 1895 in the Registration District of Brighton, Sussex, England (GRO Index Ref: Vol 2b Page 231). [S73] 1911 Census for England "Class: RG14; Piece: 5150; Schedule Number: 158." [S927] Death certificate of Louisa Terry, died 25 Dec 1928, registered 27 Dec 1928 in the Registration District of Brighton, Sussex, England (GRO Index Ref: Vol 2b Page 257). Sophia Godden b. 1837, d. 20 December 1874 Father Michael Godden b. 10 Feb 1811, d. 11 May 1901 Mother Ruth Dunk b. 27 Jul 1807, d. 6 Nov 1873 Sophia Godden was born in 1837 at Eastbourne, Sussex, England.1 She was the daughter of Michael Godden and Ruth Dunk. On 7 April 1861 Sophia Godden lived at Mill Lane Cottage, Eastbourne, Sussex, England, with her parents and illegitimate children George (age 4 years) and John (age 1 year) - whose names on their birth certificates were Albert and Charles respectively.2 Sophia Godden was a needleworker on 7 April 1861.2 Sophia Godden married William Chapman in 1863 at Eastbourne, Sussex, England.3 As of 1863, her married name was Chapman. On 2 April 1871 Sophia Godden and William Chapman lived at Goffs, Eastbourne, Sussex, England.4 Sophia Godden died on 20 December 1874 at Union Workhouse, Eastbourne, Sussex, England. 36 years. She died of cancer uteri (2 years.)5 Albert Godden b. 28 Dec 1856 Charles Godden+ b. 10 Apr 1859, d. 25 Jan 1933 William Chapman b. c 1838, d. 1904 Sophia Godden married William Chapman in 1863 at Eastbourne, Sussex, England.3� Walter Chapman b. c 1864, d. 1904 Charles Chapman b. 12 May 1867, d. 22 Jul 1946 Harry Chapman b. c 1870 Alfred Chapman b. c 1874 [S13] General Register Office: Indexes to Birth, Marriages, Deaths, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Jul-Sep 1837, Eastbourne RD, Vol 7, Page 213." [S68] 1861 Census for England, "RG09 piece 567 folio 81 page 11." [S13] General Register Office: Indexes to Birth, Marriages, Deaths, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Oct-Dec 1863, Eastbourne RD, Vol 2b Page 106." [S141] General Register Office: Indexes to Deaths, Sep 1837 - 2006, "Oct-Dec 1874, Eastbourne, Vol 2b Page 46, 36 years." b. 10 August 1812, d. 1890 Abraham Taylor was born in 1812 at West Firle, Sussex, England. Abraham Taylor was baptized on 10 August 1812 at St Peter, West Firle, Sussex, England.1 He was the son of Abraham Taylor and Sarah Kennard. Abraham Taylor married Mary Ann Pettet on 13 December 1834 at South Malling, Sussex, England.2 In the 1851 census, Abraham Taylor and Mary Ann are living next to David and Mary Petit (ages 62 and 56) and 3 of their children - probably Mary Ann's parents. Abraham Taylor was an agricultural labourer on 30 March 1851. On 7 April 1861 Abraham Taylor and Mary Ann Pettet lived at 83 Paddock, West Firle, Sussex, England.3 A granddaughter, Mary Ann Taylor, 4 yrs, born West Firle, is living with them for the 1861 census.3 On 2 April 1871 Abraham Taylor and Mary Ann Pettet lived at Heighton Street, West Firle, Sussex, England.4 Abraham Taylor died in 1890 at West Firle, Sussex, England. Abraham Taylor was buried on 3 March 1890 at St Peter, West Firle, Sussex, England, age 77 years.6 Mary Ann Pettet b. 20 Sep 1814, d. 1893 Abraham Taylor married Mary Ann Pettet on 13 December 1834 at South Malling, Sussex, England.2� Sarah Taylor b. 15 Nov 1835 Emily Taylor b. 6 Aug 1837 Amos Taylor+ b. 1839, d. 1912 Dorcas Taylor b. 1841 Obed Taylor b. c 1843 Daniel Taylor b. c 1846 Catherine Taylor b. c 1848 Henry Taylor b. c 1850 Caleb Taylor b. 1851 Ruth M Taylor b. c 1854 Alice Taylor b. c 1857 Edward Taylor b. 1860 [S15] International Genealogical Index (IGI) compiled by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1999 Edition (1999) "unknown cd." Father Thomas Taylor b. 25 Sep 1814, d. 19 Jul 1900 Mother Elizabeth Burt b. c 1821, d. 5 Oct 1848 Sarah Taylor was born in 1841 at West Firle, Sussex, England; (to be checked.)1 She was the daughter of Thomas Taylor and Elizabeth Burt. On 7 June 1841 Sarah Taylor lived at Stone Street, West Firle, Sussex, England, age 2 months.2 On 30 March 1851 Sarah Taylor lived at Stamford Pound, West Firle, Sussex, England, living with grandparents Abraham & Sarah Taylor.3 [S142] General Register Office: Indexes to Births, Sep 1837-2006, "Apr-Jun 1841, Hailsham, Vol 7 Page 306." [S67] 1841 Census for England "Piece: 1118 Book/Folio: 11/16 Page: 25 Registration District: Lewes Chailey West Firle & Newhaven."	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line603
__label__wiki	0.710838	0.710838	Weekend Movie Update – June 14, 2013: Superman Begins Posted By Matt Artz on June 12, 2013 A new era of action movies begins this week, as Superman soars back into theaters in the highly anticipated Man of Steel, while an all-star comedy cast takes on The End with a smile, and The Pioneer goes Into Darkness. Here’s your Outer Banks Movie Update for the weekend of June 14, 2013! Superman returns in ‘Man of Steel’. The must-see movie event of the year is the return of the greatest of all superheroes in Man of Steel (rated PG13), directed by Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen) and executive produced by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight trilogy), premiering tomorrow night (Thursday) at 11:59pm at R/C KDH Movies 10 in Kill Devil Hills and opening everywhere on Friday. The epic film stars Henry Cavill (Immortals) as the new Superman, Russell Crowe (Gladiator, Robin Hood) as Jor-El, Kevin Costner (Field of Dreams, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) as Jonathan Kent, Diane Lane (Nights in Rodanthe) as Martha Kent, Amy Adams (Enchanted) as Lois Lane, Laurence Fishbourne (The Matrix) as Perry White, and Michael Shannon (The Runaways) as General Zod. Henry Cavill soars as Superman in ‘Man of Steel’. Kick starting a new cinematic universe based on that of the DC comics charcters that will eventually include The Justice League, you can watch the latest official theatrical trailer for Man of Steel in the player below, and be sure to look for our review next week! Superman will have to battle the apocalypse at the box office, as this week’s other big new release is the horror comedy This is the End (rated R), about the end of the world as seen through the eyes of various Hollywood stars playing not-so-flattering versions of themselves, opening today at R/C KDH Movies 10 in Kill Devil Hills. The film was co-written and co-directed by Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg (the team behind Superbad and Pineapple Express) and stars Rogan (Knocked Up, Pineapple Express), as well as James Franco (Oz The Great and Powerful), Jonah Hill (21 Jump Street), Danny McBride (Eastbound and Down), Craig Robinson (The Office), Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder), and Emma Watson (the Harry Potter films). ‘This Is The End’ for James Franco, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, Seth Rogan, Jay Baruchel, and Danny McBride. You can check out the latest trailer for This is the End using the player below! Before bringing the Skywalker saga back to the big screen in Star Wars Episode VII, director J.J. Abrams (Lost, Super 8) has some unfinished business in the Star Trek galaxy, taking the crew of the starship Enterprise Into Darkness, opening at the historic Pioneer Theatre in Manteo, starting this Friday for a one week run. Zachary Quinto and Chris Pine are reunited as Spock and Kirk in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’. The cast of the 2009 original are all back for the sequel, including Chris Pine (This Means War) as Capt. Kirk, Zachary Quinto (American Horror Story) as Spock, and Zoe Saldana (Avatar, Guardians of the Galaxy) as Uhura. Showtime at The Pioneer is 8pm nightly. Zoe Saldana is Lt. Uhura in ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’. You can check out the latest theatrical trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness (rated PG13) in the player below, and then click here to read our review! Disney’s The Muppets (rated PG; also starring Man of Steel‘s Amy Adams) is also playing this Friday night, June 14, at Movies on the Sound at the Outer Banks Event Site in Nags Head. Gates open at 7pm. Click on the link below for additional listings and showtimes. R/C KDH Movies 10 North Beach Movie Diner Matt Artz was a lead reporter and photographer for 'The Coastland Times' newspaper from 2000 to 2009, and has been published in the Outer Banks Sentinel, North Beach Sun, Outer Banks Milepost, among others, before launching OBX Entertainment, NC Film News, and Halloween Daily News in 2012. Matt and Sue Artz are also the founders of the annual Outer Banks Halloween Parade and the Halloween International Film Festival. KDH Movies 10 , Kill Devil Hills , Manteo , The Pioneer Theatre	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line606
__label__wiki	0.796165	0.796165	Call for EU state aid rules to flex for startups – TechCrunch by Our Source \| Aug 4, 2020 \| Startups \| 0 comments European startups are calling for more flexibility in EU state aid rules to allow national governments to provide liquidity for the region’s fledgling digital businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. In a joint letter addressed to Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager, more than a dozen startup associations from across the bloc have called for rules to be adapted to ensure digital businesses are not blocked from receiving any emergency state aid. In March the Commission applied an update to EU state aid rules clarifying how Member States can provide support to homegrown businesses during the coronavirus emergency. However the startup association representatives co-signing the latter — which include reps from Coadec in the UK, France Digitale, Germany’s Bundesverband Deutsche Startups, Startup Poland and several others — are concerned the framework is being too narrowly drawn where digital upstarts are concerned. They point out that startups may be intentionally operating at a loss as a calculated bet on gaining scale down the line, making the current rules a poor fit. “Startups across Europe report that the Temporary Framework for State Aid is not yet giving enough flexibility to Member States to support startup ecosystems,” they write. “The definition of an ‘undertaking in difficulty’ is intended to apply to loss-making businesses. Such a definition will often be enough to deny support being given to such a business. However many startups are loss-making by design in their first years, as they are taking a calculated bet on exponential growth and associated job growth that will emerge in the following years. “Only taking the current cash flow into account belittles the economic potential of these startups and prevents them from receiving much-needed support. In doing so it can undermine the post COVID-19 recovery, as it is today’s loss making startups which will be the driver for economic and job growth in the future.” The letter goes on to call for startups to “receive the support that other economic actors are also receiving”. “Startups provide a key opportunity for our economies and societies to recover as we come out of COVID,” they suggest, adding: “They will play a central part in re-growing our economy and crucially in doing so on a more carbon-neutral footing.” We reached out to the Commission for a request for comment but at the time of writing it had not responded. While it might a bit of a contradiction for VC-backed tech businesses which may choose to operate at a loss during ‘normal’ times to be calling for liquidity help now, Benedikt Blomeyer, EU policy director at Allied for Startups — one of a number of startup associations signing the letter — told us the argument is simply that Europe’s startups should be able to expect the same kind of support that is being extended to other types of businesses. A number of EU Member States have laid out major support programs for startups to date — such as France’s $4.3BN liquidity support plan, announced in March; and a match fund revealed last month in the UK (which remains an EU member until the end of this year). But the contention appears to be that liquidity isn’t flowing to all the European startups that need it, nor arriving in a timely enough way. “For startups, loss-making doesn’t mean that it is necessarily a failing business,” Blomeyer told TechCrunch. “The bigger picture is that we are looking at startup ecosystems as key providers of jobs and economic growth coming out of the crisis. Some startups will fail, just like other businesses. But the question is whether startups should be able to access the same kind of support that other companies can to help them survive this crisis. We believe they should.” Commenting on the issue in a statement, Paolo Palmigiano, head of competition, EU & trade for law firm Taylor Wessing, agreed the EU state aid rules may struggle to accommodate Internet businesses. “The criteria introduced by the Commission in the Framework that a company must be viable as of 31 Dec 2019 makes sense in the old brick and mortar world. A company which would have gone in any case bankrupt, even without the current crisis, should not receive aid. The criteria start to be more complex and causes difficulties for tech companies which might not be profitable at the time although they could be in the future,” he said. “The state aid rules were created in the 60s at a time when the single market did not exist and Europe had a lot of old-style industries (like steel). We need to see how the Commission react but I can see them struggling – how do you distinguish a loss making tech company which in any case would have gone bankrupt from a loss making company that will become profitable in the short term?” Asked how it believes the Commission should replace the current viability criteria and assess which startups merit help and which don’t, Allied for Startups’ Blomeyer called for a blanket exemption for startups founded over the last half decade or more. “There could be a clear exemption from the UID test for companies that have been set up in the last 5-7 years,” he suggested. “We need to underline that this is an unprecedented crisis that requires extraordinary measures. So while in normal times a regular process of assessing whether/how to assess startups might have worked, now the ecosystems that built them are melting away before our eyes because of the barriers. The basic conundrum is that it is unclear whether a loss-making startup is indeed not a viable business. This needs resolving.” In what now feels like an earlier age late last year — as European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was taking up her five-year mandate — tech-driven change was identified as one of her key policy priorities, with digitization and a green deal taking center stage, alongside a push for European tech sovereignty and support for homegrown startups to scale up. So if Europe’s startups are feeling overlooked now, in the middle of an unprecedented economic shock, that hardly reflects well on the Commission’s claimed high tech policy goals.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line609
__label__wiki	0.857605	0.857605	myInterview raises $5 million for its video-based job recruitment platform – TechCrunch by Our Source \| Jan 3, 2021 \| Startups \| 0 comments Creating a resume is one of the most frustrating parts of job hunting. Though ubiquitous on social media, videos are still rare on job platforms, even though it’s difficult to capture your personality in a resume. Sydney, Australia-based myInterview wants to turn videos into an integral part of recruitment, with a platform that allows candidates to upload video responses to questions. Recruiters also have the option of using myInterview Intelligence, or machine learning-based tools that create shortlists for competitive openings. The startup announced today that it has raised a $5 million seed round led by Israeli early-stage venture firm Aleph, with participation from returning investors Entrée Capital and SeedIL Ventures. MyInterview previously raised $1.6 million in pre-seed funding, including from Cliff Rosenberg, the former managing director of LinkedIn’s Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand operations. MyInterview has been used by more than 2,000 companies, mostly in the United States and United Kingdom. Some of its best-known clients include online supermarket Ocado, retailer B&M and P&O Ferries. It has also worked with Facebook Career Connections and has a strategic partnership with reed.co.uk, the largest job search site in the U.K. So far, more than two million candidates have used myInterview, and the company’s goal is to reach tens of millions of job seekers. The new funding will be used to expand its sales, product and research and development teams. MyInterview was founded in 2016 by Guy Abelsohn and Ben Gillman, after they became frustrated by how difficult it was to make their resumes stand out while job hunting. MyInterview started out by offering products for companies to integrate into their existing recruitment systems, but launched a standalone platform at the beginning of 2019, well before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “We already had very nice traction over 2019 and into the beginning of 2020,” Gillman told TechCrunch. “I like to say that the success we’ve been seeing is independent of COVID, but there’s definitely been an impact in people who are still hiring needing to adopt technology such as myInterview in order to do that more effectively and efficiently with social distancing and the number of applicants coming through because of the market, and the more general adoption of video across the space.” Gillman said myInterview’s platform can be used to fill almost any kind of job, but it’s generally used for roles, like entry-level positions, that can get hundreds to thousands of applications. To use myInterview, companies set up a portal with a list of questions and prompts for applicants to answer on video. Applicants have the option of playing back and re-recording their responses several times before they hit submit. Once submitted, myInterview generates a transcript with tags for recruiters to sort through. Other startups that have recently raised funding to integrate video into the recruitment process include VCV.AI, JobUFO and Willo. One of the main ways myInterview competes with its rival is myInterview Intelligence. If a recruiter uses myInterview Intelligence, the platform analyzes responses for key words, phrases and tone. myInterview Intelligence screenshot MyInterview’s AI tools are based on the Big Five Personality Model, one of the main frameworks used by personality researchers. Personality tests, especially ones based on the “Big 5,” have been used by recruiters for years; what myInterview does is automate the process based on video transcripts instead of making candidates to fill out traditional assessments. By automatically creating candidate shortlists focused on workplace culture compatibility, myInterview’s founders say its machine learning-based tools can help recruiters surface applicants who might otherwise be overlooked. Gillman said the platform also tries to mitigate bias in the hiring process by using a diverse set of data to train its algorithms and working with behavioral psychologists to audit videos. (Other startups using AI to help overcome bias in hiring include RippleMatch, which also recently received funding). Of course, what makes a group of coworkers click can be hard to define, as with any other kind of relationship. Gillman said myInterview’s team includes behavioral psychologists, machine learning engineers and general engineers, working together to crack the code of building a good team. For example, some candidates might flourish in a large corporation, where there is a lot of hierarchy and structure, while others might work better in small companies with a family-like environment, he said. “These things are quite tangible, and these are the elements we help to identify, both to the candidate and the employer.”	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line610
__label__cc	0.57337	0.42663	Energy Storage Program Opens Doors to Cleaner Air and More Energy storage can dramatically improve the efficiency of the nation’s existing fleet of fossil fuel-fired power plants, reduce emissions of greenhouse gas and help ensure a secure grid as more intermittent renewables (solar and wind power) are added to it, according to NETL Technology Manager Briggs White, Ph.D. During a recent webinar held as part of ELECTRIC POWER Expo 2020, White outlined those and other benefits that the Advanced Energy Storage Program, established by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy (FE), is expected the generate. White also highlighted NETL’s development of data analytics, technologies for low-load operations and other advancements that have improved the efficiency of fossil assets. White noted that NETL, which is managing the program for FE, has requested research organizations, universities and industry to provide proposals for funding in four main areas of energy storage technology (thermal, mechanical, chemical and hybrid). This supports the broader DOE-wide Energy Storage Grand Challenge, which was announced by U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette in January to position the United States as a world leader in energy storage by the end of the decade. Visit electricpowerexpo.com to watch the recorded webinar featuring NETL’s Briggs White. The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory develops and commercializes advanced technologies that provide reliable and affordable solutions to America’s energy challenges. NETL’s work supports DOE’s mission to advance the national, economic and energy security of the United States. NETL Drilling, Subsurface Research Featured in New Book NCCC Achieves First Firing of Natural Gas Testing System, Demonstrating NETL Support for Carbon Capture Technology Research NETL Researchers Publish Novel Geospatial Data Science Method in the Journal of Structural Geology for Predicting Faults and Fractures NETL Leads ULTIMATE Project to Develop Ultrahigh-Temperature Alloys Latest Edition of RWFI E-Note Monthly Released Advancements in Rare Earth Elements Extraction Processes DOE Invests Nearly $7.6 Million to Develop Energy Storage Projects DOE Announces $4 Million for Projects to Optimize Safe, Secure, and Verifiable Carbon Storage DOE Issues Request for Information to Attain Uninterruptable Supply of Critical Minerals Myriad Successes for NETL’s System Engineering and Analysis in 2020	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line615
__label__wiki	0.927686	0.927686	National Survey: Americans’ Approval of Governors’ Ability to Handle COVID-19 Continues to Decline Report shows drops in their approval despite the decrease in cases across states September 11, 2020 \| By Stephanie Kulke Florida Governor Ron DeSantis saw his approval rating drop significantly in the latest survey results by IPR political scientist James Druckman looking at Americans' attitudes about the coronavirus. Governors saw their approval ratings slip to 48% on average in August—a 3% drop from last month, even as President Donald Trump’s approval rating edged up slightly — according to the latest survey results looking at Americans’ attitudes and behaviors around COVID-19. In April, Americans’ approval of governors’ management of COVID-19 stood at an average of 63%. The same survey shows the president’s national approval rating improved slightly from 32% in July to 34% in August, though it stood at 42% in April. COVID-19 cases in the United States sharply increased in mid-July. While they have decreased across the country since then, they still have not returned to their lowest levels during the summer. The August 7–26 national survey of more than 21,000 individuals was the ninth conducted by Northwestern University political scientist James Druckman and his colleagues as part of a university consortium between Northwestern, Harvard, Northeastern and Rutgers. In previous survey results, governors’ approval ratings had dropped 10 points on average between April and June. “The initial favorability that some governors enjoyed seems to have definitely eroded,” said Druckman, the Payson S. Wild Professor of political science in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern and associate director of the University’s Institute for Policy Research. “In some sense, this is not a surprise given the challenges that fall introduces with the school year starting and sports not being in full swing.” Gavin Newsom (D) of California, Ralph Northram (D) of Virginia and Ron DeSantis (R) of Florida saw particularly large drops in their approval ratings compared to those of other states, even though COVID-19 cases have decreased in their states. Governors received lower ratings from both Democrats and Republicans, but the drop was larger among their constituents in the opposing political party. Notably, five Republican governors who have managed the pandemic more aggressively—from Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio and Vermont—received high marks from both their Democratic and Republican constituents. Democrats, surprisingly, had a 1% higher average approval rating of their Republican governors at 72% compared to 71% among Republicans. More survey results include: The 12 governors who have the lowest approval ratings (below 40%) are: Arizona’s Doug Ducey (R) Florida’s Ron DeSantis (R) Georgia’s Brian Kemp (R) Iowa’s Kim Reynolds (R) Hawaii’s David Ige (D) Idaho’s Brad Little (R) Mississippi’s Tate Reeves (R) Oregon’s Kate Brown (D) Oklahoma’s Kevin Stitt (R) Missouri’s Mike Parson (R) South Carolina’s Henry McMaster (R) Texas’s Greg Abbott (R) The three governors with the highest approval ratings of 65% or above are: Maryland’s Larry Hogan (R) Massachusetts’s Charlie Baker (R) Connecticut’s Ned Lamont (D) In Florida, a key battleground state in the 2020 presidential election, President Trump’s approval rating fell from 39% to 29% over the same period. Read the current report here as well as previous reports by the COVID-19 Consortium. Topics: Institute for Policy Research, Politics, Research	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line619
__label__wiki	0.740005	0.740005	Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative Announces Buy ‘Til You Die (BTYD) Models Package Release These advanced methods for predicting customer lifetime value can now be accessed through an open-source platform PHILADELPHIA –The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative (WCAI), a research center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, today announced the release of the Buy ꞌTil You Die Models (BTYD) Package (http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/BTYD/) through the R Project for Statistical Computing, a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. The package provides open access for organizations, students and scholars to conduct advanced, customer-base analysis. Using the package, users can predict the future behavior of their customers based on their past transaction behavior. The Buy ꞌTil You Die Models (BTYD) package contains functions for data preparation, parameter estimation, scoring, and plotting for the BG/BB and Pareto/NBD models popularized by Pete Fader, Co-Academic Director of the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative and a Professor of Marketing at the Wharton School, and Bruce Hardie, Professor of Marketing at the London Business School. These models are used in assessing the customer lifetime value of an individual in non-contractual settings. “I strongly believe that any analyst or researcher working in the area of customer analytics should have these models as part of their toolkit,” said Hardie. “Existing MATLAB- and Excel-based implementations of the Pareto/NBD and BG/BB models have been used by many analysts and researchers to demonstrate the power and value of these models in a wide variety of business settings. I hope that this R package will make these models accessible to a wider audience of analysts and researchers and make it easier for currently adopters to use the models on a ‘production’ basis.” Dr. Elea McDonnell Feit, Executive Director of the WCAI, described the package’s development, “One of the key goals of WCAI is to put the innovations that have been developed by academics into the hands of the broader analytics community. With the BTYD package, we’ve made a set of sophisticated methods for predicting customer lifetime value accessible to a broad range of practitioners and students.” Feit continued, “WCAI hopes to expand this program, developing a series of software packages that would make advanced methods for other problems like advertising attribution or product recommendations easier to use in practice.” The release of this package marks the start of WCAI forging the path to not only empower analytics practitioners with advanced analytics tools through public platforms such as the R Project, but also enable researchers to see their models implemented in an accessible way. “As a researcher, there’s no better feeling than getting requests from colleagues who want to use and extend your models. Sometimes it’s hard to comply with these requests because your code was written for a very specific purpose and isn’t well documented,” said Fader. “So, developing this R Library was a true labor of love, and I’m so glad we’ve made it available for the world to use. I sincerely hope that other researchers will find it to be helpful to their ongoing projects, but also stimulating to drive new ideas.” The BTYD package was developed by research assistants Edward Wadsworth, an undergraduate student at the Wharton School and the School of Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania, and Luke Dziurzynski, a University of Pennsylvania alumnus, with oversight by Feit, Fader, and Hardie, and contributions from a team of practitioners and students. About the Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative (WCAI, http://wcai.wharton.upenn.edu) is the preeminent academic research center focusing on the development and application of customer analytic methods. Acting as “matchmaker” between academia and industry, WCAI has had a broad impact on the practice of data-driven business decision-making, and the dissemination of relevant insights to managers, students, and policy makers. Based in the Wharton School’s Marketing Department and designed to capitalize on Wharton’s longstanding strength in conducting empirical research, WCAI is an interdisciplinary effort that brings a passionate data-driven perspective unmatched by any other business school. About the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania— founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school — is recognized globally for intellectual leadership and ongoing innovation across every major discipline of business education. The most comprehensive source of business knowledge in the world, Wharton bridges research and practice through its broad engagement with the global business community. The School has more than 4,900 undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, and doctoral students; more than 9,000 annual participants in executive education programs; and an alumni network of 91,000 graduates. August 27, 2012 \| Press Releases	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line620
__label__wiki	0.648933	0.648933	‘Refuse to answer anything’: Durbin criticizes Barrett for avoiding questions at confirmation hearings During the last day of confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., criticized her and the overall process in which nominees don’t answer questions. “What was the purpose of this hearing if we’ve reached the point now when we don’t know what she thinks about any issues ... any major issues?” the senator asked. RICHARD DURBIN: One of the things that we have witnessed here and I have witnessed in the time that I've served on this committee is a-- a denigration of the process to the point where it's almost useless. We've reached a point now where gifted, experienced jurist legal scholars take that seat behind the table and then deny everything, refuse to answer anything. Consider that. Here we are in a situation where we ask-- Senator Feinstein asks the nominee, can a president unilaterally delay a presidential election? She couldn't answer it. Too political. Too political? Three express provisions in the Constitution that spell out that that is the standard for the United States of America. She could certainly have alluded to that. I asked her as a follow-up, can a president unilaterally deny a woman the right to vote? 19th Amendment. Sorry, can't answer it. Could be a case come before me someday. It even reached the point where Senator Kennedy asked this learned attorney, professor, and jurist if she had any opinion on the issue of climate change. And basically, she said, never thought about it, don't have any views. What are we dealing with here? We're not dealing with the reality of who this person is and what she believes, but some kind of artifice that we have constructed between the nominee and-- and our questions. I-- I would be afraid to ask her about the presence of gravity on Earth. She may decline to answer because it may come up in a case, you know? It could come before the court someday. And then I look back in history at other nominees, both conservative and liberal, who have answered questions along these lines. What was the purpose of this hearing if we have reached the point now where we really don't know what she thinks about any issues, any major issues? She hides behind Originalism-- she's not the only one; many do-- but won't even go to the original words the Constitution when it comes to the transition of power. It--It just defies logic that we are putting ourselves through this on the notion that we are measuring a person who will spend the rest of my natural life and many on the committee serving on the court if she ends up being nominated and approved and confirmed. India’s homegrown coronavirus vaccine developer Bharat Biotech on Tuesday warned people with weak immunity and other medical conditions including allergies, fever or a bleeding disorder to consult a doctor before getting the shot — and if possible avoid the vaccine. The company said those receiving vaccinations should disclose their medical condition, medicines they are taking and any history of allergies. It said severe allergic reactions among vaccine recipients may include difficulty breathing, swelling of the face and throat, rapid heartbeat, body rashes, dizziness and weakness. Los Angeles Times Opinion Letters to the Editor: Due process for rioters doesn't mean job protection for them It's one thing for rioters to receive due process; it's another thing for a law school not to want to be associated with someone who incited them. Colombia's rapidly breeding 'cocaine hippos' must be stopped, scientists say Scientists say Colombia must cull its so-called “cocaine hippos” that roam the Magdalena river basin as they are breeding voraciously and are an increasing menace. The marshlands of Colombia have been home to these giant mammals since they were illegally imported in the late 1980s by the notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar. When he was shot dead in 1993, the Colombian government took control of his extravagant estate, including his personal zoo. Most of the animals were shipped away, but four hippos were left to fend for themselves in a pond, and now there are dozens of them living in the wild. Although nobody knows exactly how many there are, estimates put the total number between 80 and 100, making them the largest invasive species on the planet. Scientists forecast that the number of hippos will swell to almost 1,500 by 2040. They conclude, that at that point, environmental impacts will be irreversible and numbers impossible to control. “Nobody likes the idea of shooting a hippo, but we have to accept that no other strategy is going to work,” ecologist Nataly Castelblanco-Martínez told The Telegraph. Samsung stocks rebound but Lee's detention raises doubts on pledges for change Analysts said the short-lived impact of Lee's detention on share prices is similar to what happened the first time Lee was imprisoned in 2017, despite what may be more reactivity to news and rumours because of increased retail investor participation in the stock market. But corporate governance experts fear Lee's pledge to make compliance a top priority may lose steam, especially because it is no longer a part of his case for leniency. Lee entered a detention centre on Monday after the Seoul High Court sentenced him to prison for bribing an associate of former President Park Geun-hye and other charges.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line621
__label__cc	0.577862	0.422138	Home/Sports/Wheeler launches a good start, wins his first victory in 2019 Wheeler launches a good start, wins his first victory in 2019 Zack Wheeler He was hoping to start his season on Friday night with a good start to the season and help the Mets defeat the Atlanta Braves by a score of 6-2. Wheeler, 28, threw six innings while allowing two runs on six hits, three runs and eight outs. His performance was a good rebound after a disappointing seven-march performance against the Washington Nationals on April 7th. The first run seemed to be the real turning point for Wheeler, who retreated to limit the damage he suffered at the beginning. Zack would charge the bases with one withdrawal in the inning before retiring Nick Markakis on a sacrifice flying and landing Dansby Swanson on strikes to end the threat. Zack reflected on what could have been the difference between his first couple mechanics starting this season compared to last year. "In fact, I was watching the video yesterday from last year, I was looking at myself and I was much slower, so we timed and my past times were a lot faster.Yahoo Sports) Wheeler earned his first victory in 2019 on Friday night, out of a total of 111 lands played tonight, including 69 scored for catch. Zack gave a glimpse of the pitcher who dominated Major League Baseball in the second half of the 2018 season. The right-handed Mets ended his strong match, reaching 98 km / h in his last round of throws in the sixth inning and finished 101 km / h at night. Let's hope this start is just the beginning of good things to come for Wheeler in 2019. The spikes and misfires of the Packers 32-18 win over the Rams in the divisional round MLB Free Agency: Nationals and Jon Lester agree to one-year contract New York Yankees News: Who Can the Yankees Trade For Now? 3 things as Dallas Mavericks fall to Toronto Raptors, 116-93 Mark Ingram thanks the crows in his farewell message Aggressive Deandre Ayton Isn’t Enough For The Suns To Beat The Grizzlies	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line622
__label__cc	0.677576	0.322424	by Dean Colomban \| Jun 8, 2020 \| Values Nalu Services believes there is an injustice in the world and unfortunately, many people have not been exposed to the statistics and facts that plague the criminal justice system. The senseless and tragic death of George Floyd has shined a light on it, however, the roots go much deeper. In 2018 I wrote the following position piece on institutional discrimination within the criminal justice system and I wish to share it with you today. Please take a moment to read it below. I truly believe that there are individuals out there that do not want to accept the fact that there is a divide in this nation. My Hope Is that sharing this data helps to open their eyes to the truth. Hashtags like #blacklivesmatter and #nojusticenopeace and sharing on social media are so powerful, as it helps to spread the word and has the power to change the world. Social Activism and Data Analysis No matter how much mankind evolves, there are many things we still struggle with. Inequality and discrimination continues to haunt us throughout many aspects of society, including within the criminal justice system. There seems to be a large disparity between the arrest and imprisonment of African Americans as compared to their Caucasian counterpart. Persistent racial and ethnic profiling continues in the United States. This leads to, and contributes to, institutional discrimination within the justice system. Even with racial profiling unfairly victimizing people of color, I’ve often heard arguments saying it can’t be true because “more Caucasians’ get arrested than African Americans or any other minority”. This might be because 76.9% of the US population is white, according to the US Census (2017). In a briefing by Leah Sakala, Sakala stated “Nationally, according to the U.S. Census, Blacks are incarcerated five times more than Whites are, and Hispanics are nearly twice as likely to be incarcerated as Whites” (2014). How can this be when Caucasians make up three-quarters of the population. In this position piece, I will attempt to make you understand our position on why we must investigate ways to end this discrepancy. I will be using data from issues related to minority incarceration for drug use. “Just the facts ma’am.” Sociological Inferences. Just hours before I began to write about institutional discrimination, I saw a TV advertisement about drug addiction. It has become apparent that we have a major drug problem in the United States and incarcerating people is not the answer, well not if they’re white. “African Americans and whites use drugs at similar rates, but the imprisonment rate of African Americans for drug charges is almost 6 times that of whites” (NAACP, 2018). Below is a chart created by The Hamilton Project based on statistical data From the US Census and FBI. Factors contributing to racial and ethnic disparities. The “War on Drugs?” or the “War on the Poor?”. It’s hard to decipher what’s really happening here. Since the criminalization of drug possession, “today police arrest more people for drug possession every year than for all violent offenses combined” and it keeps rising (Root B., 2017). In the Documentary “Race on Trial”, I witnessed an unfortunate truth. A white drug offender was sentenced to treatment to help with his addiction problem and an African American was not offered the same deal, he was imprisoned. Whether this was because the white American had better attorneys is irrelevant, one would assume these types of cases happened on a daily basis and both individuals should be treated equally. It’s nonsensical to assume just because one has money, they’re entitled to a lesser penalty. However, this appears to be how our judicial system works. Public policies are linked to racial and ethnic disparities. Although many police departments claim there’s no quota for ticketing and arrest, police officers often work hard to reach quota for ticketing and arrest in the Police Department’s across the US to obtain more funding. In an article by Radley Balko, Balko points out that “arresting people for assaults, beatings and robberies doesn’t bring money back to police departments, but drug cases do in a couple of ways” (2017). He says the police have “misplaced priorities” because these police departments compete for a “pool of federal anti-drug grants”. The more arrests and drug seizures each department claim, the higher their chances are of receiving a grant. From the DEA to the privatization of our prison systems, there seems to be increasing incentive to arrest and incarcerate the poor. The legal system has allowed it to become easy to incarcerate a poor person with limited funds for legal counsel. Using conflict theory as an example, it would appear the white man, rich and powerful, is trying to keep down minorities to maintain their level of power as they control the system. The situation is extremely sad and now more than ever, we see police officers less willing to help and assist people in need. They’re more focused on locking people up than helping the people they promise to protect. I believe the majority of people want to do the right thing, however, the people in power have their own agenda. It’s up to us to fix this and make things right. The Impact of Institutional Discrimination The impact of institutional discrimination within the justice system is immense. It affects entire families and in some cases entire communities. The unjust and unfair treatment creates a vicious circle when a member of a family or community is incarcerated. Lack of support and money that individuals brought into the family and or community puts a strain on other members. Children may feel the need to help out and in turn commit crimes just in order to get by as an effort to help out the family and the community they live in. Single parents now have to work constantly just to keep up with the lack of income. But what about emotional distress when a loved one is placed in prison for a far longer period of time than someone that committed manslaughter? The punishment doesn’t fit the crime. There’s an imbalance in the system that must be rectified. For far too long these victims and their peers have been suppressed and put through unspeakable turmoil and unjust tragedy. Policies and Strategies for Reducing Institutional Discrimination It all boils down to data and statistics. We’re very lucky we have access and the ability to capture this information. It will assist us in making corrections to this devastating situation we are currently in and ensuring everyone is treated equally. First and foremost, the elimination of any grants and or funding based on drug arrests must be put to a stop immediately and this money should go to funding departments with the highest victims of manslaughter and other horrific crimes. Although there are number of policies already in place, there can be additional ones to reduce institutional discrimination, however, the world will never change unless people’s views of one another change. Perhaps a program should be started where everybody in the criminal Justice field has to go through a “walk a mile in a minorities shoes program”. It appears some of us do not have empathy for individuals that do not share the same skin color, speak the same language or worship the same God as they do. Perhaps a psychological exam policy can be put in place to test for this sort of ignorance. It starts at the arrest, policies should be put in place where we look at police officers arrest records and use statistical data to ensure that there is no patterns of discrimination. If there is a detection of discrimination, the arresting officer must be charged with a crime and tried. We then need to look at judges and prosecutors to see if there’s a detected pattern. We already have statistics of data that shows blacks and whites consume and sell about the same amount of drugs, however, blacks are arrested at six times the higher rate. Using this data, we should be able to start with the areas (States, counties and towns) that have the highest rate of discrepancy between population and incarceration of minorities. Investigate and charge judges and prosecutors where data shows fit. New Criminal Justice employees will take their place and we’ll go through vigorous cultural diversity training and be evaluated to ensure they treat everyone equally. I hope this information and data saddens you as much as it saddens me. No matter what we look like or who we pray to and love, we’re all human. It is appalling to know that people are being mistreated because they’re not white. What’s the point of a justice system when it is unjust. We need to not only make a drastic change, we need to ensure that change is successful. United States Census Bureau (2017). QuickFacts. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/RHI225216#viewtop Sakala, L. (May 28, 2014). State-by-State incarceration rates by Race/Ethnicity. Retrieved from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/rates.html Race on trial [Video file]. (2002). Retrieved April 19, 2018, from https://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=-1&xtid=30087 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). (2018). Criminal justice fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice- fact-sheet/ Brian, R. (2017). A Return to the Failed ‘War on Drugs’ in the US? Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/03/16/return-failed-war-drugs-us Balko, R. (Dec 06, 2017). Driven By Drug War Incentives, Cops Target Pot Smokers, Brush Off Victims Of Violent Crime. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/drug-war-incentives-police-violent-crime_n_1105701.html	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line623
__label__wiki	0.745965	0.745965	Let’s talk about the Israelite presence in East Africa. Many people are becoming more aware of the presence of Israelites in West African regions and their connection to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade (Deuteronomy 28:15-68), but what about East Africa? We will find that the history of Israelites in East Africa is just as rich as that of their West African relatives. As we review the history of the presence of Israelites in East Africa, we will discover that many Israelites entered into East African regions long before the Roman Conquest of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Multiple waves of Israelite migrations into foreign lands and their vast populations have caused many to misidentify these Israelites as Hamitic. In this particular article we will attempt to provide some history on a few different Israelite migrations into East Africa as well as some information on both how and when they arrived. We will also brief cover some of the more distant countries that the Israelites travelled to after reaching East Africa. All of this information will be provided in attempt to demonstrate the historical validity of the Biblical fact that the Israelite bloodline has been scattered into EVERY kingdom on Earth. “And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.” – Jeremiah 15:4 How and when could the Israelites have arrived in East Africa? The answer to these questions is, various ways and at various different times. However, generally speaking, the Israelites entered into East Africa, mostly, by way of Egypt, following the Nile River south as it parallels the Rift Valley. Following this route down the eastern coasts of Africa has left various branches Israelite communities scattered throughout the region. These various Israelite communities (some remaining separate while others intermarried with local peoples) that settled in East Africa subsequently travelled to the Far East. A few examples of how the Israelites entered into East Africa can be found in the Bible. The history of the Hebrew Israelites’ records various accounts of Israelite journeys between Egypt and the land of Canaan. There are many Biblical examples of Israelites migrating into Africa by way of Egypt. Abraham travelled to Egypt long before the Israelites entered into that country. Joseph, one of the 12 sons of Jacob, was sold into slavery and eventually arrived in Egypt from Canaan. Many years, later, Christ also travelled to Egypt where he hid for a time until returning to the land of the Israelites. These and many other examples of Israelite migrations into Africa can be found in the Bible. Map of Abraham’s migration from Babylon to Syria, through Canaan and into Egypt before returning to Canaan Map of Joseph’s (Jacob’s youngest son, before the birth of Benjamin) journey into Egypt after being sold to Ishmaelites Map of Joseph, Mary and Christ’s journey into Egypt After entering Africa by way of Egypt, many of the East African branch of Israelites followed the Nile River and Rift Valley southward. It is interesting to note that the biblically recorded migrations of the Hebrew Israelites closely resembles what historians have labeled as the ‘Bantu Expansion.’ Following the Nile River and Great Rift Valley southward, the Israelites passed through and settled in many areas in the land of Kush. The Israelites also settled the areas beyond the land of Kush, which we will discuss shortly. Let’s first discuss an early Israelite presence in Ethiopia. The modern country of Ethiopia and peoples of Ethiopia are often identified with the biblical land of Kush. The ancient kingdom of Kush encompassed areas of modern southeast Sudan and northwest Ethiopia. A few years prior to the Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, some of the Israelites foresaw the coming desolation and decided to leave Israel before being taken captive. Eldad Ha Dani (the Danite) appeared in a thriving Egyptian Jewish community during the 9th century AD and told a history of when and how a group of Israelites arrived in the land of Kush. “According to the story related by Eldad the Danite, who had it told to him by his ancestors, who in turn were told about it by their ancestors from generation to generation, back to those fateful days, the Ten Tribes were not lost at all. Eldad the Danite related that his own tribe, the Danites, did not wait to be exiled. When the Assyrian empire grew strong and mighty, they saw that there was no hope for them to remain free. Moreover, the Kingdom of the Ten Tribes was at war with the Kingdom of Judah, and the Danites did not want to fight against their own brethren. So they decided to leave the Land of Israel and find a safe place for themselves. It was in the eighth year of the reign of Ahaz of Judah, that is, in the year 3191 (fourteen years before the fall of Samaria) that the Danites took their wives and children, their sheep and cattle, and left the Land of Israel. They went by way of Egypt further down the upper Nile River and settled in Ethiopia, in the land of the negroes of East Africa. The Danites were great warriors, and after fighting many battles against native black tribes, they established themselves securely, with a kingdom of their own.” – Nissan Mindel, Chabad.org Isaiah was a prophet during the time of King Ahaz of Judah when, according to Eldad the Danite, a portion of the tribe of Dan left Israel to resettle in Egypt and further south in the land of Cush. “Eldad was a Jewish man of dark skin who suddenly turned up in Egypt and created a great stir in the Egyptian Jewish community (and elsewhere in the Mediterranean Jewish communities he travelled to) with claims that he had come from a Jewish kingdom of pastoralists far to the south. The only language he spoke was a hitherto unknown dialect of Hebrew… He said that the Jews of his own kingdom derived from the tribe of Dan (which included the Biblical war-hero Samson) which had fled the civil war in the Kingdom of Israel between Solomon’s son Rehoboam and Jeroboam the son of Nebat, by resettling in Egypt. From there they moved southwards up the Nile into Ethiopia, and the Beta Israel say this confirms that they are descended from these Danites. Some Beta Israel, however, assert even nowadays that their Danite origins go back to the time of Moses himself, when some Danites parted from other Jews right after the Exodus and moved south to Ethiopia. Eldad the Danite does indeed speak of at least three waves of Jewish immigration into his region, creating other Jewish tribes and kingdoms, including the earliest wave that settled in a remote kingdom of the “tribe of Moses”: this was the strongest and most secure Jewish kingdom of all, with farming villages, cities and great wealth. The Mosaic claims of the Beta Israel, in any case, like those of the Zagwe dynasty itself, are clearly very ancient.” – Beta Israel, Wikipedia It is very interesting to note that according to Eldad the Danite and the Beta Israel themselves (the Ethiopian “Jews”), Israelite tribes (primarily from the tribe of Dan) had arrived in East African territories even during the Exodus. This is interesting because Greek history states that the Danites (and other Israelite tribes) had also arrived and settled in Greece and other Mediterranean countries, both prior too and during the Exodus. Obviously, at the same time Mediterranean colonization were occuring, there were Israelites migrating south of Egypt. Clearly, Israelites had migrated to many lands outside of Canaan even prior to the Exodus under Moses. However, let us focus on Eldad’s story of the Israelite presence in East Africa during the beginnings of the Kingdom of Kush. Incidentally, the Kingdom of Kush was founded around the same time that the Assyrians were conquering the Northern Kingdom of Israel (c. 720 BC). Shortly before the conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, the tribe of Dan and some branches of other Israelite tribes decided to leave their homeland to avoid trouble. According to Eldad the Danite, they eventually settled in Egypt later moved further south into parts of modern Sudan and Ethiopia—the land of Kush. Some Israelite tribes, according to Eldad, left the land of Assyria, even after their captivity, and they also settled in Ethiopia. Jewish Travellers, edited by Elkan Nathan Adler, PG 10-11 The presence of Israelite tribes arriving in Hamitic lands after the Assyrian captivity can be attested to by other histories outside of Eldad’s. The kingdom of Kush ruled from the 8th century BC until they were conquered by the Assyrians. According to Yoruba tradition, there was a great migration of Assyrian refugees (Israelites) that arrived in Kush around the same time as the Assyrians were conquered by the Medes/Persians. The previous conquest of the Kingdom of Kush certainly made the Israelites during the Assyrian captivity aware of the existence of Israelite communities in the land of Kush, which is where they fled to during the collapse of the Assyrian empire before establishing themselves in West African by way of the Sahel. The great migration of Israelite refugees from the collapsing Assyrian Empire c. 605 B.C. according to Yoruba tradition. Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: Origins, Experiences, and Culture, Volume 1, By Mark Avrum Ehrlich, PG 454 The modern country of Yemen is located within the Kingdom of Sheva on the map above where ‘Marib’ is located. A large Israelite community existed there. “A popular misconception among scholars today is that a Jewish migration from the Mediterranean through Northern Sudan would have been “nebulous” (Quirin, 2010, p. 10). Thus, a majority of scholars suggest South Arabia as the likeliest source of Aksum’s Jewish influence. Yet, the wide range of historical, archeological, and linguistic evidence—including the institutionalization of Greek during the fourth century CE—signify that contacts between Aksum and the Mediterranean were strong and direct. In fact, Aksum’s economic prosperity is inseparable from its reputation as a “master of the Indian Ocean-Mediterranean trade routes” (Adler & Pouwels, 2014, p. 229) Thus, in context of the historical, archeological, and geographical indications, it is reasonable to suggest that the first Jewish elements within Aksum trace to Kush. A number of accounts, including those provided in Beta Israel traditions suggest that the ancestors of the group arrived through the Nile Valley (Quirin, 2010, p. 23). As mentioned, Biblical passages, in addition to a number of extra-Biblical traditions, suggest an Israelite presence in Kush, particularly in Zephaniah 3:10… In addition to Eldad Ha-Dani, Obadiah of Bertinoro during the fifteenth century suggests that the spices sold by the Kushites “come from” (Abrahams & Montefiore, 1889) the Beta Israel, and Chief Rabbi David ibn Zimra of Egypt in the sixteenth century identifies the Beta Israel as the Jews from “the Land of Cush” (as cited in Bleich, 1977, p. 302).” – Early Jews of Aksum, by Ibrahim Omer, Genetic Literacy Project Further support for the fact that the Yoruba of Nigeria and other Israelites had arrived in African territories by way of Syria or Yemen can be found in the etymology of the name Abyssinia (another name for Ethiopia). Many branches of different Israelite tribes that migrated into Yemen and Ethiopia named the towns that they lived in ‘Gaza,’ which meant ‘emigrants’. The Israelite ‘emigrants’ or Gaza used this term to refer to themselves as well as the lands that that emigrated to and inhabited in Kushite territory. Asiatic Journal, Volume 28, PG 695-696 The historical records of the Greeks have also made us aware of the fact that a wave Israelites from Syria also immigrated to the land of Abyssinia during the time of Alexander “the Great”. The many waves of Israelites arriving in Africa from Syria, and the historical documentation of such events by people other than the Yoruba themselves, provides further credence that the Yoruba and other Israelites did indeed come from the Syria/Palestine area before settling in African lands. Selections from the Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies, Volume 2, PG 1007 These different waves of Israelite migrations into East African lands, that can be dated back to times even before the Israelite Exodus from Egypt, provide us with the historical background to associate many different East African peoples with the descendants of the ‘Lost Tribes’ of Israel. One such group of Israelites (also known as Syro-Jews) in East Africa, in the land of Abyssinia/Ethiopia, are also known as Falasha. The term Falasha (a derogatory term meaning foreigners/exhiles/refugees) is a term that refers to Beta Israel—The Israelites of Ethiopia. “Beta Israel traditions claim that the Ethiopian Jews are descended from the lineage of Moses himself, some of whose children and relatives are said to have separated from the other Children of Israel after the Exodus and gone southwards, or, alternatively or together with this, that they are descended from the tribe of Dan, which fled southwards down the Arabian coastal lands from Judaea at the time of the breakup of the Kingdom of Israel into two kingdoms in the 10th century BCE. (precipitated by the oppressive demands of Rehoboam, King Solomon’s heir), or at the time of the destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel in the 8th century BCE. Certainly there was trade as early as the time of King Solomon down along the Red Sea to the Yemen and even as far as India, according to the Bible, and there would therefore have been Jewish settlements at various points along the trade routes. There is definite archaeological evidence of Jewish settlements and of their cultural influence on both sides of the Red Sea well at least 2,500 years ago, both along the Arabian coast and in the Yemen, on the eastern side, and along the southern Egyptian and Sudanese coastal regions.” – Habesha people, Wikipedia The Sahel region: a belt up to 1,000 km (620 miles) wide that spans the 5,400 km in Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea Different branches of the Israelites entered into Africa by trade routes through Egypt, Arabia and Yemen. Some established themselves in the West African Negro-land, such as the Yoruba people of Nigeria, by way of the Sahel, while others continued traveling southward down the Nile and Great Rift Valley to establish themselves in the East African Negroland that we will discuss later. Returning to the history of Eldad the Danite, we understand that’s branches of several of the tribes of Israel migrated from Northern Israel, through Egypt and into the land of Kush. According to Eldad, the time of this migration occurred during the 8th year of the reign of King Ahaz of Judah. Some scholars date the reign of Ahaz from 732 BC to 716 BC, while others believe it to be from 744-728 BC. With these time frames we can derive an estimate that the migration of Israelites from Israel to Kush, according to the history of Eldad, began sometime between 736 and 724 BC but definitely before the Assyrian Captivity of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, c 721 BC. At the time of the Israelite arrival, the Kingdom of Kush was ruling of the land of Kush as well as the land of Mitzraim (Egypt). THE STORY OF NUBIA The capital of the Kingdom of Kush at the time of the Israelites arrival, both before and after the Assyrian captivity of Israel, was Meroe. Meroe was a very important city-state of the Kingdom of Kush that was strongly influenced by the Egyptians. Over 200 pyramids can be found in Meroe, which is evidence of the Egyptian influence on the Kingdom of Kush. This same Egyptian culture that strongly influenced the Kingdom of Kush was later found across the Indian Ocean. “In addition to Eldad Ha-Dani, Obadiah of Bertinoro during the fifteenth century suggests that the spices sold by the Kushites “come from” (Abrahams & Montefiore, 1889) the Beta Israel, and Chief Rabbi David ibn Zimra of Egypt in the sixteenth century identifies the Beta Israel as the Jews from “the Land of Cush” (as cited in Bleich, 1977, p. 302). After tedious research, Kessler (2012, p. 60) analyzes: Scholars agree that the Jewish religion had a considerable following in the Axumite state before the time of King Ezana and as it is probable that there was a Jewish presence in the neighboring kingdom of Meroë with which Axum was in communication Jewish influences could have followed the well-worn routes across the border by way of the Blue Nile and Atbara rivers, while similar, though somewhat different, influences could also have penetrated from south Arabia and subsequently disappeared.” – Early Jews of Aksum, by Ibrahim Omer, Genetic Literacy Project It is very interesting to note that the presence of Israelites in land of Kush as well as in India is documented in the Holy Bible. During the time of Mordecai and the Persian Empire (stretching from the land of Kush on the West unto India on the East) a letter was written that addressed, among many peoples, all the Jews of the 127 Persian provinces. These provinces included Kush and India, which provides Biblical support for the fact that Israelites lived in the lands of Kush and also in India, at least as far back as 5th century BC. We also know that some of these Israelites were the products of the 7th century BC Assyrian captivity that placed some Israelites in the cities of the Persians and Medes. This gives us an estimate of, at least, three centuries of Israelite presence in Assyrian and Persian territories, which included both Kush and India. “Then were the king’s scribes called at that time in the third month, that is, the month Sivan, on the three and twentieth day thereof; and it was written according to all that Mordecai commanded unto the Jews, and to the lieutenants, and the deputies and rulers of the provinces which are from India H1912 unto Ethiopia, an hundred twenty and seven provinces, unto every province according to the writing thereof, and unto every people after their language, and to the Jews according to their writing, and according to their language.” – Esther 8:9 A fact of further interest comes to light when we examine the Hebrew word translated as India in the King James Version biblical text. The word of for India, in regards to one of the 127 Persian provinces, is: Strong’s H1912 – הֹדוּ Hôdûw, ho’-doo; of foreign origin; Hodu (i.e. Hindustan):—India. India = “flee away” or ” give ye thanks” the country surrounding the Indus, mentioned as the eastern border of the empire of Ahasuerus This same region of India, known to the ancient Hebrew Israelites as Hodu, is identified with Hindostan. Hindostan is a word of Persian origin and it’s meaning provides more support for the fact that Israelites lived in India/Hindostan. The Illustrated Universal Gazetteer, edited by William Ainsworth, PG 667 A System of Geography, Popular and Scientific, Volume 4, By James Bell, PG 412 The Persian meaning of the name Hindostan can be translated as ‘Black land’ or ‘Black country’. This was in reference to the people of the land who were classified as ‘Blacks’. This is very significant, as we have already briefly noted the influence of Egypt and Nubia Kush that arrived in India by way of the India Ocean trade routes. History also bares witness to the presence of Israelite-Phoenician ships, during the time of King Solomon that also arrived in India, establishing trade colonies. Among these Black people that arrived in India from various lands ruled by blacks, were heavy populations of Israelites who are also classified as Blacks/Negroes. In fact, the West African land of the blacks, known as Negroland, supplied the Negro populations that later spread down the western coasts of Africa and across the Atlantic Ocean, the same process of the dispersion of Negro Israelites occurred down the East African coast and across the India Ocean. The East African Negroland was established on the eastern coast of Africa, south of the territories of Kush and the Horn of Africa. Continually following the Nile River and Great Rift Valley southward would lead the migrating Israelites into the East African Negroland. The East African Negroland is known by many names but we will focus on the name Zanj. Zanj comes from the Persian word for ‘negro’ and was borrowed by the Arabs to refer to Bilad al-Zanj or ‘The land of the Blacks”. Bilad al-Zanj was a territory in reference to he Bantu Africans of East Africa. The Bantu peoples on the eastern coasts are related to the Bantus in the Western African territories, Bilad al-Sudan, which also means ‘land of the Blacks’ in Arabic. Muhammad and the Course of Islam, By H. M. Balyuzi, PG 269 The World of the Swahili: An African Mercantile Civilization, By John Middleton, PG 12 Zanzibar: Its History and Its People, By W.H. Ingrams, PG 24 Uncovering the History of Africans in Asia, edited by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, Jean-Pierre Angenot, PG 9 “The words Azania and Zingis are probably connected with the Arabic name for the Coast Zanj or Zinj, which is no doubt the same as the Persian Zang; a negro. Bar in Swahili means Coast and from those two words we have the Arabic Zangibar, or Zanjibar…” – The Directory of East African, Uganda & Zanzibar, By ‪Standard Printing & Pub. Works, 1909, PG 17 The eastern Negroland, Bilad al-Zanj, Bahr al-Zanj or Azania (as known to the Greco-Romans), is also synonymous with the region of east Africa known as the Swahili Coast. “The meaning of the name Zanzibar is also known. The Swahili coast — that area of land from southern Somalia to northern Mozambique, was known as Zingion from about the six century AD. It came to be known by the same name by Arab travellers from the 9th to the 15th centuries.” – Zanzibar and the Swahili coast from c. 30,000 years ago, By Felix Chami, PG 16 The Swahili Coast or the Land of Zanj was well known for its trade across the Indian Ocean and it is by way of this trade that many Israelites arrived in the Far East. Despite the fact that many Israelites (Bantu Africans) were taking into eastern countries by Arabs as slaves, many more Israelites actually travelled into eastern lands, both prior to the Arab slave trade and afterwards, as sailors, merchants, mercenaries, musicians, etc. It was not uncommon for these Zanji to be promoted to high-ranking position or to even gain rulership. Not only were the Zanji East Africans great warriors and rulers but they were also exceptional seafarers. In fact, as mariners, the East African Negro Zanji were some of the very best sailors as well was ferocious warriors. So valiant were the Zanj Negroes, who were called Sheedi in India/Balouchistan region, that it was said that only one Sheedi man was needed on board a ship to deter pirates at sea. “The Siddis were a tightly knit group, highly aggressive, and even ferocious in battle. They were employed largely as security forces for Muslim fleets in the Indian Ocean, a position they maintained for centuries. The Siddi commanders were titled Admirals of the Mughal Empire, and received an annual salary of 300,000 rupees. According to Ibn Battuta (1304-1377), the noted Muslim writer who journeyed through both Africa and Asia, the Siddis “are the guarantors of safety on the Indian Ocean; let there be but one of them on a ship and it will avoided by the Indian pirates and idolaters.” An African Indian Community in Hyderabad: Siddi Identity, Its Maintenance and Change, By Ababu Minda Yimene, PG 82 16th and 17th century islamic minitature paintings showing two formerly enslaved Zanj East Africans that would become powerful leaders of the Deccan sultanate in India, (LFT) Sultan Ikhlas Khan and (RT) Malik Ambar. The old man who upbraided the Negro and the girl for flirting (Mughal India 1629) The East African Bantus of the land of Zanj (Negroland of East African) were indeed Israelites and we have found that many of them have travelled to distant lands and operated on all levels of society—from slave to ruler. The land of Zanj was not only desirable as a location to live for various branches of Israelite Bantu people but also a land filled with valuable resources. As a result, many different nations across the Indian Ocean came to the land of Zanj to trade. The comments of a 12th century muslim scholar of the pre-colombian era demonstrate the long history of exchange between the Zanj and South East Asia. Al-Idrisi, a Muslim geographer, cartographer and Egyptologist, in his description of the Negro-land (Bilad al-Zanj) in the the Ninth Section of the First Clime, he says: “And the people of Q.m.r [i.e. the Khmer] and the merchants of the territories of Maharaj [i.e. Malaysia] come to them, associate with them and trade with them [the Zanj].” – Islamic Studies, Volume 3, By Islamic Research Institute, 1964, PG 207 Zanj Negroes of Java “Ancient Chinese texts also mention ambassadors from Java presenting the Chinese emperor with two Seng Chi (Zanji) slaves as gifts, and Seng Chi slaves reaching China from the Hindu kingdom of Sri Vijaya in Java” – Africa in the Iron Age: c.500 BC-1400 AD (Cambridge University Press: 1975), By Roland Oliver, PG 192 “Since the days of our fathers have we been in a great trespass unto this day; and for our iniquities have we, our kings, and our priests, been delivered into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, and to a spoil, and to confusion of face, as it is this day.” – Ezra 9:7 Not only did the Zanji trade with and travel to Southeast Asia but the also reached as far as China and Japan. The Swahili Coast and the land of Zanj was the spring-board catapulting East African Bantu’s into the far East. In fact, according to Al Jahiz, the people of China were considered to be blacks, or at least, large populations Blacks (Zanji/Negroes) could be found in China and South East Asia. Al-Jahiz “The blacks are more numerous than the whites. The whites at most consist of the people of Persia, Jibal, and Khurasan, the Greeks, Slavs, Franks, and Avars, and some few others, not very numerous; the blacks include the Zanj, Ethiopians, the people of Fazzan, the Berbers, the Copts, and Nubians, the people of Zaghawa, Marw, Sind and India, Qamar and Dabila, China, and Masin… the islands in the seas between China and Africa are full of blacks, such as Ceylon, Kalah, Amal, Zabij, and their islands, as far as India, China, Kabul, and those shores.” – Islam, from the Prophet Muhammad to the Capture of Constantinople: Religion and society, By Bernard Lewis, PG 214 Other research has also supported the fact that Zanji traded with, and travelled to the Far East. “Kenyan and Chinese archaeologists have unearthed evidence that clearly demonstrates the history of the Old Malindi kingdom. The experts announced they had come across a large ancient building built with a mixture of small stones and plastered with red earth that could date back in the 14th century before the coming of the Portuguese. The archeologists said the style of the building was Swahili… The excavation work ongoing is part of the second phase of the Sh200 million (more than USD 2.3 millions) research projects meant to trace the ancient trade links of the Chinese along the Kenyan Coast… … Later in November, another group of experts will be in the country to do underwater archeology in search of a shipwreck believed to have been used for trade during the ninth century. The underwater excavation will be screened live by the Chinese state television CCTV. National Museums of Kenya’s Coast region assistant director Athman Hussein and head of Coastal archeology Jambo Haro said the project, dubbed Sino-Kenya project, is funded by the Chinese government to the tune of Sh200 million (more than USD 2.3 millions). “What we want to do work is to look for ancient Malindi Kingdom. You know the kingdom is a famous in China because in ancient literature material, the Chinese began to record it from the ninth century and they keep writing,” said Qin… In 2008, a shipwreck, estimated to be between 400-600 years old, was discovered in Ngomeni by Kenyan underwater archeologist Caesar Bita, who said the East African coast has been very active in terms intercontinental trade. “We have got evidence of the connections between the Swahili Coast and the Persian Gulf and West Coast of India and China… We have done some investigations and found evidence in terms of pottery that tells us that really there has been commerce between Kenya and China,” said Bita…” – Kenya: Ruins of Old Malindi Kingdom Discovered “Ming porcelain was found in many African countries. Celadon and blue and white porcelain were excavated in Al- Fustat Site in Egypt, Somali, Ethiopian ancient city sites, and an ancient site near Kenya. Blue and white porcelain of Jingdezhen were found in Tanganyika site and Dehua kiln of Jingdezhen.” – gotheborg.com The Chinese traded with East Africans/Zanjis (with heavy populations of Israelite descendants among them) along the Swahili Coasts of East Africa’s Negroland Although the Chinese envoys traded on the East Coast, they received goods from deep in the interior of Africa. Many goods (exotic plants & animals, ivory, gold, iron ore, weapons, etc..) from Southwest Africa and Bantu African in general, found their way to east African shipping ports. A Giraffe (zurafa) and its driver, from Jahiz’s Kitab al-Hayawan (book on animals) The East African trade routes connected with the West African trade routes, supplying a variety of goods and culture to be exchanged at the East African coastal ports. However, despite the diversity found amongst the peoples from East to West Africa, history provides evidence of a deep underlying cultural and herititary connection between the two—the Hebrew language. In our attempts to find further evidence in support of the Hebrew Israelites’ migration in to East Africa, and African in general, we find very strong support in the writings of a certain Greek navigator. In his description of the peoples of both East and West, Eudoxus of Cnidus makes some surprising observations. While circumnavigating Africa, from East to West, Eudoxus noted that the East African Zanji’s and the West African Negroes not only share similar customs, style of dress and physical appearance, but that they also spoke the same language! Could they have been the same people? The reported observations of the Greek Eudoxus would seem to answer with a resounding, YES! It appears as if the Bantu Expansion can be completely credited to the Israelite migration into Africa and subsequent conquest of its indigenous Hamitic peoples. The Bantus populated sub-Saharan Africa by stretching across its Eastern and West coasts, as well as establishing communities deep within the interior of the continent. “… The Bantu and the Hebrew drew upon the same prehistoric sources of culture and religious practices,” and again: “There are many indications that there was at least a common source from which arose the Hebrew culture and that this also descended from that. There are many place names in Palestine and more especially in the eastern end of the Arabian peninsula that resemble Bantu names.” – Anthropological Series of the Boston College Graduate School, Volume 3, Boston College Press, PG 360 The Bantu Expansion parallels the biblical records and tribal traditional migration routes of the ancient Hebrew Israelites. Let us continue to follow the journey of the East African descendants of the Hebrew Israelites, following down the Nile and Great Rift Valley. As we continue following the trail of the Israelites down the Nile River and Great Rift Valley we arrive in the territory of modern Kenya. Within Kenya, we encounter a few different tribes of East Africans who claim descent from the ancient Israelites. One of the tribes is the Kikuyu. “Kikuyu, also called Giguyu, Gekoyo, or Agekoyo, are a Bantu-speaking people who live in the highland area of south-central Kenya, near Mount Kenya” – Encyclopedia Britannica “As regards Kenya, Father Ciatti states: “Comparing this belief with the laws and customs of the Hebrews, it can easily be concluded that the Agekoyo [Kikuyu] have had some contact with the Hebrews after their departure from Egypt, or we might perhaps say, from a Hebrew branch that had separated itself from the Hebrew people before the entrance into the Promised Land.”” – Anthropological Series of the Boston College Graduate School, Volume 3, Boston College Press, PG 361 Leviticus: The Priestly Laws and Prohibitions from the Perspective of Ancient Near East and Africa, By Johnson M. Kimuhu, PG 362-363 The Masai people of Kenya and Tanzania are the neighbors of the Kikuyu people. Although the Masai are not considered to be Bantu they seem to share many common features and cultural customs of the Hebrew Israelites, just as the Kikuyu do. In fact, some of these Hebrew Israelite customs were taught by the Kikuyu to the Masai people. The London Quarterly Review, Volume 6; Volume 108, edited by William Lonsdale Watkinson, William Theophilus Davison, PG 10 Marcel Mauss: A Centenary Tribute, By Wendy James, Marcel Mauss, N. J. Allen, PG 52 Black Jews in Africa and the Americas, By Tudor Parfitt, PG 56 The Masai carry staffs which was customary of the ancient Israelites. “And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the LORD’S passover.” – Exodus 12:11 The Masai of Kenya/Tanzania identify with the ancient Israelites and use the Kudu Ram Horn as the Israelite Shofar. Not only did the Masai adhere to strict dietary rules similar to those of the Hebrew Israelites but they also burned their meat with fire in order to remove blood from the food. The Israelites practiced the same custom. Purity and Monotheism: Clean and Unclean Animals in Biblical Law, By Walter Houston, PG 204 Nomadic Israelites Herdsman followed the Nile River and the Great Rift Valley southward on the East Africa coast, establishing various communities and tribal branches along their southern route. Kenya and Tanzania are both part of the African Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes region of East African is surrounded by other Bantu and East African peoples who also claim to be descendants of the Hebrew Israelites as well, such as the a Hutu and Tutsi people of Rwanda, Burundi, and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania, By Liisa H. Malkki, PG 100 Interestingly enough, and in parallel comparison to the relationship between the Nigerian Yoruba and the Igbo, the Tutsi rivals of the Hutu peoples also claim Israelite ancestry. Many wars have been fought between the two groups but ancient history proves their common ancestral connections. Talking Or Fighting?: Political Evolution in Rwanda and Burundi, 1998-1999, By Filip Reyntjens, PG 20 Uganda Review, Volumes 16-18, By Selum Publications, PG 19 Just south of Kenya we find the modern country of Tanzania. Tanzania is home to many different Bantu African tribes that are descended from the Hebrew Israelites. The peoples of Tanzania played an integral role in East African trade with the Arab world and the Far East. They also had many cultural and religious affinities with the ancient Israelites of whom they were descended from. The Haya or Bahaya are a Tanzanian branch of Banyankole-Banyoro-Batoro of Uganda. “The Haya people of Tanzania have been linked to one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time: the invention of steel. Archaeologist Peter Schmidt discovered through a literalist combination of archaeology and oral tradition that the Haya had been forging steel for around 2000 years.” – Haya people, Wikipedia Anthropological Series of the Boston College Graduate School, Volume 3, Boston College Press, PG 354 The Bahaya people were not only Israelites, but they were also early pioneers in the production of Steel! Jet Magazine Dec 21, 1978, PG 56 The Bahaya people’s advanced knowledge of metallurgy and the ability to produce Steel from iron blast furnaces allowed them to produce superior quality tools and weapons. This in turned allowed them to be more successful in agricultural endeavors and warfare. Knowledge of the production of steel tools and weapons contributed greatly to the Bantu/Israelite Exanpsion in Africa and into foreign lands. The Bahaya traded these superior goods, from the East coast of Africa, to Arabs, Persians, Chinese, and other foreign merchants. The Bantu migrations and the origin and spread of African Iron working closely resembles the Israelite migrations, from Syria/Palestine, into Africa. “The Haya were centuries ahead of European metallurgists. When Anthropologist Peter Schmidt first visited the Haya people of Tanzania on the western shore of Lake Victoria, nine years ago, his goal was to study their complex heritage, which is passed orally from one generation to the next. On that and subsequent trips, he not only accomplished what he had set out to do but made a serendipitous discovery that alters the history of technology. Writing in the current issue of Science, Schmidt and Metallurgy Professor Donald Avery, both of Brown University, report that as long as 2,000 years ago, the Haya people were producing medium-carbon steel in preheated, forced-draft furnaces. A technology this sophisticated was not developed again until nearly 19 centuries later, when German-born Metallurgist Karl Wilhelm Siemens, who is generally credited with using an open-hearth furnace, produced the first high-grade carbon steel.” – TIME Magazine Moving even further south along the East Africa Coast we finally end up in the Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South African region. Although there are many Bantu peoples in the area, one of the Bantu peoples that have some of th strongest and most recognized claims to ancient Israelite heritage are the Lemba people. The Lemba, wa-Remba, or Mwenye are a southern African ethnic group found in present-day Zimbabwe and South Africa, with smaller, little-known branches in Mozambique and Malawi… The name “Lemba” may originate in chilemba, a Swahili word for turbans worn by some Bantu peoples, or lembi, a Bantu word meaning “non-African” or “respected foreigner”. “In the late 20th century the British scholar Tudor Parfitt, an expert in marginal Jewish groups, became involved in researching the Lemba’s claims. He helped trace ancestors to Senna, what they believe is an ancestral city on the Arabian peninsula, in present-day Yemen. In an interview featured on NOVA in 2000, Parfitt said he was struck by the Lemba’s maintenance of rituals that seemed Jewish and/or Semitic: “The other thing was the extraordinary importance they placed upon ritual slaughter of animals, which is not an African thing at all. Of course, it’s Islamic as well as Judaic, but it’s certainly from the Middle East, it’s not African. And the fact that every lad was given a knife with which he did his ritual throughout his life and took to his grave. That seemed to me to be remarkably, tangibly Semitic Middle Eastern.” – PBS NOVA Hamlet Zhou, a Lemba musician The Lemba claim to have travelled an alternate route of travel to South East Africa, than the one we have previously discussed. They are believed to have traveled southward, from Israel, through Arabia before settling in Yemen. From Yemen they then travel by sea and/or by land into their current location in the Southeast African territories. The Lemba are not the only people in the area to have been considered to be connect with the ancient Hebrew Israelites. Many of the other groups surrounding the Lemba as have Israelite ancestry that arrived by the routes we have discussed previous to the Lemba. Some of the different African tribal groups perhaps have Israelite ancestry that arrived and settled in the South East African regions as early as the times of King Solomon, King David or further back in ancient history. Evidence of the Israelite presence in the region can be found in the magnificent architecture found in the ruins of the stone city of Great Zimbabwe. “The first thing that draws the visitor’s eye is the high level of craftmanship that went into the construction of the site. Skillful stonemasons built massive dry-stone walls, incorporating large natural boulders into some of the structures. Walls extend between rocky outcrops and massive rocks, forming a maze of narrow passageways and the enclosures.” Orientalism and the Jews, By Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Jonathan Penslar, PG 65 Shona witch-doctor (Zimbabwe) with Zebu Horn identical to the Israelite Shofar Carl Peters Shona people Ndebele people The influence and migration of the Ndebele people across the Indian Ocean is very evident. LFT: Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan/India, RT: Eastern Java Orissa woman of India of the LFT and the Padaung of Burma on the RT LFT to RT, from top to bottom: Turkana of Kenya, Ndebele of South Africa, Gadaba of India, Bonda of India, Kayan of Tibet-Burma-Thailand Kayan woman on LFT compared to a man from Papua New Guinea The map above highlights (in red) the territories of the tribes that wear the neck rings. These highlighted areas also correspond with the territories of the Austronesian language family. The neck rings of indigenous peoples, who were once consider savages, are now considered to be high fashion The influence has even spread to other nations. CLICK THE IMAGE above to view a video clip Apparently, the fashion is now trending but few know its East African Origins Both the Ndebele people of South Africa (a bantu people) and the Turkana people of Kenya/Ethiopia (related to the Maasai), who wear the Neck Rings and reside in East Africa, have strong Israelite associations and lineage. Their clear influence in the Indian Ocean region is a result of their travel, trade and colonization of these lands where their descendants would also bring the Israelite bloodline. The Zulu people have also been identified by many historians and scholars as being the descendants of Israelites as well. Judaising Movements: Studies in the Margins of Judaism in Modern Times, edited by Tudor Parfitt, Emanuela Semi The territory of the Zulu people borders the modern country of Mozambique, which is where one of Japan’s early Negro Samurai was taken from. It should be understood that the grand majority of Southeastern Africa was populated by Bantu peoples, all of whom have strong Israelite connections. Japan’s samurai Yasuke from Mozambique was descended from this same stock of people. “Yasuke, (variously rendered as 弥助 or 弥介) (c. 1555/6-?) was a black (African, or of African origin) retainer who was in the service of the Japanese hegemon and warlord Oda Nobunaga between 1581 and 1582… According to Histoire Ecclesiastique Des Isles Et Royaumes Du Japon, written by François Solier of the Society of Jesus in 1627, Yasuke was a Muslim from Mozambique… although there is no evidence, it is also possible that he also came from Portugal, Angola or Ethiopia, and he could conceivably originally have been an African mercenary in the employ of an Indian sovereign, of which there were many at this time…” – Yasuke, Wikipedia Who’s who in Philadelphia, By Charles Frederick White, PG 197-198 Intermarriage between Israelites and Japhetic peoples produced a mixed Japanese population Black and yellow intermingled produced brown Samurai Yasuke’s journey on Portuguese ships from East Africa to Japan Nanban trade with Portuguese westerners landing in Japan Portuguese Nanban trade ships brought a strong wave of Africans (Bantu Israelites) as well as Black Sephardic Jews to the Far East. With the information that we have covered concerning the Bantu Expansion, its relations to ancient Israelite migrations, and their movement down the East coast of Africa, it is not difficult to conclude that Yasuke was a Bantu descendant of the ancient Israelites. He is one of many Israelites that we will discover that traveled to Japan According to Histoire Ecclesiastique Des Isles Et Royaumes Du Japon, written by François Solier of the Society of Jesus in 1627, Yasuke was a Muslim from Mozambique “Yasuke probably arrived in Japan in 1579 as the servant, slave, bodyguard, or indentured servant of the Italian Jesuit Alessandro Valignano, who had been appointed the Visitor (inspector) of the Jesuit missions in the Indies, meaning East Africa, South and East Asia. He accompanied Valignano when the latter came to the capital area in March 1581 and caused something of a sensation. In one event, several people were crushed to death while clamouring to get a look at him, the Jesuits feared their church would be flattened but they managed to avert disaster. Nobunaga heard the noise from the temple where he was staying and expressed a desire to see him. Suspecting the black color of his skin to be black ink, Nobunaga had him strip from the waist up and made him scrub his skin. These events are recorded in a 1581 letter of the Jesuit Luis Frois to Lorenço Mexia and in the 1582 Annual Report of the Jesuit Mission in Japan, also by Frois.” “The “Lord Nobunaga Chronicle” (信長公記 Shinchōkōki) corroborates Frois’ account, and describes their meeting thus: “On the 23rd of the 2nd month [March 23, 1581], a black page (黒坊主 “kuro-bōzu”) came from the Christian countries. He looked about 26 [24 or 25 by Western count] or 27 years old; his entire body was black like that of an ox. The man was healthy and good-looking with a good demeanour. Moreover, Nobunaga praised Yasuke’s strength, describing it as that of ten normal men. Nobunaga’s nephew, probably Tsuda Nobusumi, gave him a sum of money at this first meeting.” – Yasuke, Wikipedia In conclusion to our East African Israelite article we will make our last stop on the Island of Madagascar. This island is said to have many different tribes that are descended from the ancient Israelites. The majorities of the peoples who populated the Island migrated from branches of different East African Israelite tribes looking for new lands as a result of the Bantu Expansion/Israelite migrations. Orientalism and the Jews, By Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Jonathan Penslar, PG 65-66 Extensive travel and trade relations existed between Madagascar and Southeast Asia/Polynesia We have finally reached the end of this particular article on East Africa and its Israelites descendants. We discovered how the majority of the Israelites migrated into East Africa by following the Nile River and Great Rift Valley southward, from Egypt to Kush and further. For those who still find it hard to believe that such a migration is implausible, the same route was travelled by a modern scholar, that walked the Nile from top to bottom (CLICK HERE). His success provides further evidence that it was indeed possible for the Israelites to have arrived in their modern East African territories by traveling down this ancient route. We now know for certain that the Bantu are Hebrew Israelites and that from West Africa’s Negroland to East Africa’s Land of Zanj, Israelites can be found. These are the same people who were target for slavery and fulfill the Biblical prophesy of Deuteronomy 28:15-68, being scattered all over the world into all kingdoms. Question comments concerns? OTHER RELATED TOPICS The Bantu Branch of Africans are Hebrew Israelites pt 1 Black Buddha Israelite & The Israelite Buddhist Shennong the Chinese-Israelite Flame Emperor The Israelite Fire Nation: Chiyou and the Battle of Zhoulu Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and Caribbean are Israelites Click Here to return to the Homepage October 22, 2015 by Aria Nasi Research 11 thoughts on “The East African Israelites of Zanjiland” Great read. Thanks for clarifying where most of our African Bantu traditions stem from. Glad to know I’m a part of Hebrew, Almighty God’s chosen people. I am Hmong, great great decedents of Chiyou’s people, now living in Georgia. It’s interesting to read upon stuff like this that just blows you away with correlation of the past, our history. Never in a million year would I suspect being out of Africa or the middle east by way of origin but this has definitely open my eyes “the possibilities are endless.” kubasucleo says: I have come to realize .Wherever the children of Jacob settled .The white man came and claim that they are savages and they need civilization .They did this as they took minerals and farming on their lands or massacre murder like for the native Americans .Its clear they wanted us never to know who we realy are and how powerful we are if we all turn to the God of our fore fathers.These people are wicked they erode our people’s culture and to erase the knowledge of their origin by forcing us into christianity.Is it just me that see it that way ? Sifiso Michael Mavuso says: 12 tribes 10 lost=ppl of African descent in the Americas and elsewhere Other 2 never lost= dogon/dagara & Bantu . You hit it right in the head Fantastic website. A lot of useful info here. I’m sending it to several buddies ans additionally sharing in delicious. And obviously, thank you on your sweat! Awsome info and straight to the point. I am not sure if this is actually the best place to ask but do you people have any ideea where to get some professional writers? Thx 🙂 Tayna says: As a Newbie, I am permanently searching online for articles that can aid me. Thank you blackhistory938 says: Reblogged this on Black History & Culture. Tarig Anter says: Reblogged this on Tarig Anter on Protect & Reinvent Democracy and commented: Great Article and must be read along with my article “The History of Israel and Judaism Debunked” Erik Jaradat says: Very efficiently written post. It will be helpful to everyone who usess it, as well as myself. Keep doing what you are doing – can’r wait to read more posts. leather says: I actually like what you’ve acquired here, really like what you are stating and the way in which you say it. keep it smart. I cant wait to read far more from you. 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__label__wiki	0.902731	0.902731	Some of the Worst Criminals in History: Why the Nazis' SS Forces Were So Hated June 21, 2020 Topic: History Region: Europe Blog Brand: The Reboot Tags: Nazi GermanyWorld War IIWaffen-SSAdolf HitlerWar Crimes They have a tremendous amount of blood on their hands. by Warfare History Network Key point: Hitler's secret police murdered a lot of people and did his dirty work. Here is how they served to supress dessent and carry out genocide. More From The National Interest: Yes, America Has a ‘Ninja’ Missile How China Could Sink a U.S. Navy Aircraft Carrier How the F-35 Stealth Fighter Almost Never Happened Russia Has Missing Nuclear Weapons Sitting on the Ocean Floor In 1933 a portion of the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel (SS) was armed and trained along military lines and served as an armed force. These troops were originally known as the SS-Verfügungstruppen, the name indicating that they served at the Führer’s pleasure. By 1939, four regiments (Standarten) had been organized. The Verfügungstruppen took part in the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia side by side with the Army (Heer). During the months preceding the outbreak of the war, they were given intensive military training and were formed into units that took part in the Polish campaign. In addition, elements of Death’s Head formations (Totenkopfverbände), which served as concentration camp guards, also took to the field as combat units. During the following winter and spring, regiments that had fought in Poland were expanded into brigades and later divisions. This purely military branch of the SS was known at first as the Bewaffnete SS (Armed SS) and later as the Waffen-SS. The regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler eventually became a division of the same name; the Standarte Deutschland together with the Austrian Standarte Der Führer formed the Verfügungs Division, to which a third regiment, Langemarck, was later added, creating the division Das Reich; and the Totenkopf units were formed into the Totenkopf Division. These three divisions were to be the nucleus of the Waffen-SS in its subsequent rapid expansion. The Evolving Waffen-SS The Waffen-SS was based on a policy of strict racial selection and emphasis on political indoctrination. The reasons for its formation were as much political as they were an opportunity to acquire the officer material that was to prove valuable to the SS later. As the war intensified, the Waffen-SS began recruiting “Nordic” peoples. In 1940, the Standarten Nordland and Westland were created to incorporate such “Germanic” volunteers into the organization. They were combined with the existing Standarte Germania to form the Wiking Division. Subsequently, the Waffen-SS formed native “Legions” in many of the occupied territories. These were eventually converted into brigades and divisions. A relaxation of the principles of racial selection occurred as the war turned against Germany. During 1943-1944 the SS turned more and more to recruiting all available manpower in occupied areas. While its main efforts were directed toward the incorporation of the “racial” Germans (Volksdeutsche), a scheme was devised that permitted the recruiting of foreigners of all nationalities while retaining at least some semblance of the original principles of “Nordic” superiority. Spreading foreigners thinly throughout trustworthy units soon proved insufficient to digest the mass of recruits. Consequently, divisions of foreigners were formed that received a sprinkling of regular Waffen-SS cadres. Finally, it became necessary to complement the Waffen-SS officer corps with foreigners. Concerned with the racial aspects of their units, Waffen-SS leaders developed a naming system that dubbed a unit as foreign with an addition to its designation. Units with a high percentage of racial Germans and “Germanic” volunteers—Scandinavians, Dutch, Flemings, Walloons, and Frenchmen—such as the 11th SS-Freiwilligen Panzergrenadier Division Nordland, carried the designation “Freiwilligen.” Units containing a preponderance of non-Germanic personnel, especially Slavic and Baltic peoples, such as the 15th Waffen-Grenadier Division-SS, carried the designation “Waffen-” as part of the unit name. This organizational expansion modified the character of the Waffen-SS as an elite political formation. Nevertheless, these divisions were expected to fight to the bitter end, especially since the individual soldiers had been made to feel personally involved in war crimes, and propaganda convinced most that their treatment, either in captivity or after Germany’s defeat, would compare unfavorably with that accorded other members of the armed forces. SS Panzer Divisions Over time, the Waffen-SS created some 42 divisions and three brigades as well as a number of small, independent units. Of the divisions, seven were panzer divisions. The balance included 12 panzergrenadier divisions, six mountain divisions, 11 grenadier divisions, four cavalry divisions, and a police division. Many of the divisions, organized late in the war, were divisions in name only and never exceeded regimental strength. The SS panzer divisions were the purest in terms of German members, as well as being the best equipped and supported of all German combat units. They formed the strongest and politically most reliable portion of the Waffen-SS. The creation of an SS panzer division was sometimes evolutionary. Formed from Hitler’s bodyguard unit, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler became a full infantry regiment with three battalions, an artillery battalion, and antitank, reconnaissance, and engineer attachments in 1939. After it was involved in the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia, it was redesignated the Infanterie-Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (motorized). In mid-1939 Hitler ordered it organized as an SS division, but the Polish crisis put these plans on hold. The regiment proved itself an effective fighting unit during the campaign, though several Army generals had reservations about the high casualties it had sustained in combat. In early 1940, the regiment was expanded to an independent motorized infantry regiment, and an assault gun battery was added. After the Western campaign, it was expanded to brigade size. Despite this, it retained the designation as a regiment. Following an outstanding performance in Greece, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler ordered it upgraded to division status. However, there was no time to refit the unit before launching Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, and so it remained the size of a reinforced brigade. In late July 1942, severely understrength and completely exhausted from operations in Russia, the unit was pulled out of the line and sent to France to rebuild and join the newly formed SS Panzer Corps, where it was reformed as a panzergrenadier division. Thanks to Himmler and Obergruppenführer (General) Paul Hausser, the SS Panzer Corps commander, the four SS panzergrenadier divisions—Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Wiking, Das Reich, and Totenkopf—were organized to include a full panzer regiment rather than only a battalion as found in Army units. This meant that the SS panzergrenadier divisions were full-strength panzer divisions in terms of their complement of tanks. Following the capitulation of Italy, the Leibstandarte engaged in several major counterinsurgency operations against Italian partisans. During its time in Italy, the Leibstandarte was reformed as a full panzer division and designated the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. SS Panzergrenadiers From Abroad Waffen-SS grenadier or infantry divisions were mainly recruited outside Germany. One was formed from French recruits, two in Latvia, one in Estonia, one with Ukrainians, another from Soviet prisoners, and one of Italian Fascists. The latter two each held the designation as the 29th SS Grenadier Division at different times, the former Soviet prisoners in 1944 and the Italian Fascists in 1945. All of these divisions were created from 1943 to 1945. Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians, and Russian turncoats who joined the SS were executed if taken prisoner by the Soviets. Those found in the hands of the Western Allies after the war were returned to the Soviets to suffer the same fate. Waffen-SS prisoners taken by the Red Army seldom survived their initial capture or lengthy imprisonment in the Soviet Union. Six SS mountain divisions were formed from Volksdeutsche. Three were short-lived units made up of Balkan Muslims, and one, which never exceeded regimental strength, was formed from Italian Fascists. Eleven of the 12 SS panzergrenadier divisions were created or their designations were assigned from 1943 to 1945. Nine of the divisions were formed from Volksdeutsche and non-Germans, which included Dutch, Walloons, Belgians, and Hungarians, but many were never stronger than regimental strength. Two SS Armies Command formations during the war included two SS armies, the Sixth SS Panzer Army and the Eleventh SS Army. Of the 13 SS corps, four were panzer corps, two were mountain corps, and seven were infantry corps. Seven of these corps were not created until 1944. The Sixth SS Panzer Army was created in the autumn of 1944 in northwestern Germany as the Sixth Panzer Army to oversee the refit of panzer divisions shattered during operations in France. It played a key role in the 1944 Ardennes offensive, then in Hungary in 1945, and finally in the fight for the Austrian capital of Vienna. The Eleventh SS Army was formed in February 1945. It operated in northern Germany until the end of the war. One Waffen-SS division was designated the SS-Panzer Grenadier-Polizei Division. This was the only unit made up of members of the police that had been incorporated into the Waffen-SS. In addition, the 35th SS Police Grenadier Division was organized from German policemen in early 1945, although it only reached regimental strength. Raising the Waffen-SS In principle, the SS was to accept no new members after 1933, except from selected graduates of the Hitler Youth. However, the creation of the Waffen-SS and its rapid growth caused the partial suspension of this rule. However, service in the Waffen-SS did not necessarily include membership in the SS proper.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line629
__label__cc	0.522197	0.477803	Gentics & Evolution Climatology & Meteorology Prions in the Body and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) Linda Crampton Linda Crampton is a writer and teacher with a first-class honors degree in biology. She often writes about the scientific basis of disease. BSE, a prion disease, affects many different breeds of cattle. It can also trigger disease in humans. werner22brigitte, via pixabay, CC0 public domain license What Are Prions? Prions are misfolded proteins that can cause some very serious diseases. Unfortunately, their formation and behaviour isn't completely understood. Researchers are trying to unlock the mysteries of these small but potentially deadly particles. The normal proteins in our body are essential molecules with complex, folded shapes. The shape of a protein enables it to do its job. If a protein is folded incorrectly or becomes unfolded it can no longer function. A prion (often pronounced as "preeon") is a misfolded protein with a special ability. It can change other protein molecules into prions. These can then alter the shape of even more proteins in a chain reaction. Prions are the causal agents of a group of very unpleasant illnesses known as prion diseases. These often progress rapidly once symptoms appear and (at the time when this article was last updated) are always fatal. The most common prion disease is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD. A variant of this disease has appeared in people who have eaten contaminated meat from a cow suffering from bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. BSE is a prion disease in cattle. It's also known as mad cow disease. An illustration showing myoglobin (a muscle protein) and the complex, folded structure of a functional protein; the folds are held in place by chemical bonds Aza Toth, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain image Pathogens: Infectious Agents That Cause Disease Most infections are caused by viruses, bacteria, and fungi, including yeasts. Infectious agents that cause disease are known as pathogens. Like human cells, pathogens contain DNA (or, in the case of some viruses, a similar chemical called RNA). DNA and RNA belong to the nucleic acid family. Nucleic acids contain genes. The genes contain a code that controls a pathogen's structure and behaviour and enables it to cause an infection. A prion consists of protein and has no nucleic acid or genetic code. The discovery that prions could reproduce in our body and cause disease was at first very hard for scientists to accept. Although they now know that this happens, they still have many questions about how and why prions form and about how they function. Scrapie in sheep was the first prion disease to be discovered. PublicDomainPictures, via pixabay.com, CC0 public domain license Difference Between Normal Prion Proteins and Prions Prion proteins are common in our body and occur in two varieties. One is a normal and necessary part of our cells while the other (the prion) is dangerous. Prions not only transform useful proteins into harmful ones but also form protein clumps. Cellular or Normal Prion Proteins A cellular prion protein (PrPc) is a normal constituent of cells and is folded correctly. Cellular or normal prion proteins are located throughout the body but are especially abundant in the brain. They seem to be very important in the life of cells, although their exact function isn't known. They may play a role in preventing cells from being damaged. Abnormal Prion Proteins or Prions An abnormal prion protein that is folded incorrectly and has the ability to cause other proteins to become misfolded is often known as simply a "prion". It's symbolized by PrPsc. The "sc" stands for scrapie, the first prion disease to be discovered. Scrapie damages the nervous system of sheep. Prions are self-replicating. Interestingly, researchers have discovered that not all of the prions produced when a pre-existing one replicates are pathogenic, or able to cause disease. There is much to learn about the particles. Hopefully, researchers will discover new and helpful information soon. What Causes Prion Diseases? Prion diseases may develop in three situations. The disease may appear spontaneously due to the formation of prions without a known cause. Prions may enter the body from another organism, causing illness. Prions may be made in our bodies due to altered genes. Genes contain instructions for making proteins. Some inherited genes may contain a mutation (a change in a gene) that alters the structure of the gene and causes it to code for a misfolded prion protein, or prion. Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Prion diseases are quite rare in humans (as far as we know), but they are very unpleasant for the sufferers. They affect the brain more than any other body part and cause neurodegeneration. Prion diseases are also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSEs. They are known as spongiform diseases because they cause nerve tissue to break down and make the brain look as though it has spaces resembling the pores of a sponge. The "holes" that are visible in the brain of a cow with BSE; similar holes develop in a person with a TSE, or Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Dr. Al Jenny and the CDC, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain image Classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD About 1 in a million people develop Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD every year. In the United States, the incidence of CJD is about 200 to 300 cases per year. Symptoms of CJD may include a personality change, depression, vision problems, loss of muscle coordination, balance problems, jerky movements, slurred speech, memory loss, and impaired thinking and judgment. Eventually patients may be unable to walk or feed themselves and lose awareness of their surroundings. Death is usually due to pneumonia, respiratory failure, or heart failure. Since there is currently no cure for CJD, the goal of treatment is to relieve pain and make the patient feel as comfortable as possible. Research into finding an effective treatment or cure is continuing. Types of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Three main types of classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease exist. Sporadic CJD is the most common type. It develops when normal prion proteins in the patient's body spontaneously change into abnormal ones. The cause of this change is unknown. The prions that are made can transform other normal prion proteins. Sporadic CJD generally develops in people aged 45 or older. The disease usually lasts for six or seven months after the first symptom appearance, but some people have died after only a few weeks while others have lived for a year or more. Familial CJD develops due to inherited genes. The genes produce abnormal prion proteins in people aged about 50 or older. This form of CJD is much rarer than the sporadic form. A very rare disease called iatrogenic CJD is spread by a transplant of contaminated tissue from an infected person or by the use of contaminated surgical equipment. Some people have become sick from vCJD after eating contaminated meat. Photo by Pixabay from Pexels Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease or vCJD Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are both prion diseases. Although the diseases have similar names, there are major differences between them. vCJD was discovered in the United Kingdom in 1996. It's a relatively new disease compared to CJD, which was discovered in 1920. All of the people who have developed variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have lived in a country inhabited by cows with BSE. CJD hasn't been linked to BSE. Researchers believe that with the exception of three people, everyone to date who has become ill with vCJD became infected by eating contaminated beef. The three exceptions are thought to have become infected by receiving contaminated blood during a transfusion. Cow meat is the muscle of a cow. It can become contaminated with BSE prions when material from the brain or nervous system enters the meat. This could happen when processing equipment cuts through the spinal cord and then touches the meat, for example. Median age of death from CJD in the United States is 68 while median age of death from vCJD in the United Kingdom is 28. Each disease causes specific differences in the appearance of brain tissue. The first symptoms of vCJD are generally psychiatric or sensory problems. The patient develops the dementia that is typical of CJD later. People with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease tend to live for longer after diagnosis than patients with classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (about ten to fourteen months for people diagnosed with vCJD and around six months for people with classic CJD). Stained clumps of prions in tonsil tissue from a vCJD patient Sbrandner, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 License Incubation Period for vCJD In 2013, an interesting report was published in the British Medical Journal. The researchers collected data which suggests that 1 in 2000 people in the UK could have the vCJD prions in their body, even though they aren't sick. The data was obtained by examining appendixes removed from people around the country. The number of vCJD cases in the UK peaked in 2000 and has fallen since then. Prion diseases seem to have an incubation period, which sometimes lasts for many years. During the incubation period no symptoms are present. Once the symptoms appear, the disease progresses rapidly. Some researchers suggest that vCJD might have an incubation period of about ten years, given that UK cases peaked about ten years after a recent BSE outbreak. Others suggest that the incubation period may be much longer. The data described in the British Medical Journal is interesting, but scientists are cautious about their interpretation of the data. They say that infected people could remain asymptomatic for the rest of their lives. On the other hand, the prions could be in their incubation period and the infected people could eventually develop a prion disease. Not enough is known about prion biology to predict the outcome of the infection. Harmful prions seem to affect the brain most strongly. Erald Mecani, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 License Prion Research A few experimental drugs have been created that slow prion replication in the lab. In 2019, researchers announced that they had slowed the progression of scrapie in mice. Scrapie is very similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Results in mice don't always apply to humans, but they sometimes do. The researchers plan to extend their study to human prion diseases. A 2013 report described the apparent development of drug resistance in prions. Drug resistance normally develops in cells with nucleic acid, such as bacterial cells. The puzzle of how it could develop in proteins is one of the many aspects of prions that needs to be explained. The Importance of Further Studies Prion biology is fascinating and important. Even though the diseases caused by prions are quite rare, they may be devastating for patients and their families. A cure would be wonderful. Some other serious human disorders involve misfolded and misbehaving proteins and seem to operate in a somewhat similar way to prion diseases. These disorders include Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Understanding prion diseases could help us to understand these health problems and to treat them more effectively. The effects of prions in our bodies may be more widespread and common than we realize. We certainly don't understand the biology of the particles very well yet. There is still a great deal to learn about these mysterious entities and their role in health and disease. Information about prion diseases from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Fact Sheet from the NIH (National Institutes of Health) Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease information from the NIH One in 2,000 UK people might carry vCJD proteins from Nature Prions May Develop Drug Resistance: The Implications for Mad Cow, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's from Scientific American Prion self-replicating states (abstract) from ScienceDirect Self-propagating prions and disease from PLOS Prion disease slowed in mice from the NIH Latest results of prion research from Nature (This web page provides a list of scientific articles about prions and is updated as new articles are published.) © 2013 Linda Crampton Linda Crampton (author) from British Columbia, Canada on August 19, 2014: Thank you very much, Arachnea. I appreciate your visit. The existence of prions certainly is scary. I hope scientists learn more about them soon. Tanya Jones from Texas USA on August 19, 2014: I recall this topic from my Biology class. I swore off fast food for a very long time as a result. This is a very informative hub. Great job. Linda Crampton (author) from British Columbia, Canada on March 13, 2014: Thanks for the kind comment and for sharing the interesting information, Jamie. It can't be easy or pleasant to work with tissue that may be infected with prions! Jamie Lee Hamann from Reno NV on March 13, 2014: Well researched and well written hub. I work in Pathology and I remember back about ten years ago if we got suspected brain tissue we would spend half the day decontaminating. Jamie Thank you very much for the visit and the comment, Audrey. The existence of prions is certainly worrying. Hopefully researchers will soon discover better ways of dealing with the problem. Audrey Howitt from California on March 13, 2014: This is such an informative hub on the subject--I have been a vegetarian for many years, and so do not worry so much about this disease--but I worry for others Linda Crampton (author) from British Columbia, Canada on November 12, 2013: Bill, that is so sad. I am very sorry that you lost your friend, and I'm sorry for his or her family, too. I hope that an effective treatment or cure for prion diseases is discovered very soon. Bill De Giulio from Massachusetts on November 12, 2013: Hi Linda, Sadly we know all too well about prion disease and CJD. A very good friend of ours died from this a few years ago. To say that this is scary is an understatement. What happened to our friend in just 3 to 4 months was so sad and heart-wrenching, and as you know, there is nothing that can be done. Great job explaining this. Thank you very much for the comment, Minnetonka Twin. I'm sorry for the woman in the video, too. It must be frightening for her to know that she could get such a horrible disease. Linda Rogers from Minnesota on November 08, 2013: Wow Alicia~This is a very scary disease and I had never heard the term 'prions.' I have heard of mad cow disease and how dangerous it is to humans. I sure hope they learn more about this disease. I feel so sad for the woman in the video, not knowing if and when she will get the disease. At least she has the right attitude about how to live her life. Great article! Linda Crampton (author) from British Columbia, Canada on October 26, 2013: Thanks for the visit and the comment, Deb. It's sad that mad cow disease still occurs, both for the cows and for us. Deb Hirt from Stillwater, OK on October 26, 2013: Now I finally know what happens regarding meat ingestion of animals afflicted with mad cow disease. Thanks for bringing this up. Thanks for the comment, Cynthia. I hope that a cure will be found for prion diseases soon, too. They are horrible disorders. CMHypno from Other Side of the Sun on October 26, 2013: Informative hub as always Alicia. There is still so much more to learn about the human body and what causes disease. Hopefully research will continue and some kind of treatment/cure will be found for sufferers. Thank you very much, Nell. I appreciate your comment as well as the vote and the share! Nell Rose from England on October 25, 2013: Hi Alicia, that was really interesting, I never knew what a prion was, but of course had heard of 'mad cow disease' which is the illness with the cows, great information, voted up and shared! nell Thank you very much for the votes and the pin, FlourishAnyway. I appreciate your visit and comment! FlourishAnyway from USA on October 25, 2013: What a fascinating but also scary hub. With all of this Mad Cow Disease I am so glad I don't eat red meat any longer. Voted up and more, plus pinned. Thank you very much, drbj. Prions are scary to think about, especially since they can be so dangerous. It would be so good if we knew how to prevent their formation or how to stop them from becoming active! drbj and sherry from south Florida on October 21, 2013: Absolutely, positively fascinating discourse about prions, Alicia. Thank you for your research and expertise. Though I think I felt better when I was less prion-educated! Thank you for the visit and the comment, DDE. Devika Primić from Dubrovnik, Croatia on October 21, 2013: Prions in the Body and Human Disease very important information, a useful and well researched hub. Thank you very much, Crafty! I think we may be hearing a lot more about prions in the future. They are fascinating - but very worrying - particles. I hope researchers learn how to treat prion diseases and other protein folding disorders very soon. CraftytotheCore on October 20, 2013: What an amazing article! You obviously spent a lot of time and effort in to this and I find it so educational. I've heard of this but never read so much about it before. Thank you very much for the visit and the lovely comment, Bill! Bill Holland from Olympia, WA on October 19, 2013: You do know your stuff, Alicia! If I had been taught this in high school I would have zoned out halfway through the lecture. This was interesting enough to keep me going all the way. Well done! Thank you so much for the kind comment and the support, Faith. I always appreciate your visits and blessings! Faith Reaper from southern USA on October 19, 2013: Alicia, you always come up with fascinating topics for hubs indeed! As Sue stated above, you have written it so that all are able to understand the information. We do not eat much red meat at all any longer, and may not at all after reading all of this information! Pretty scary stuff to say the least. Thank you for always writing such excellent hubs! Up and more and sharing Blessings, Faith Reaper Thank you very much for the comment, Sue. I appreciate your vote and shares as well! Susan Bailey from South Yorkshire, UK on October 19, 2013: Thanks Alicia that was so interesting and although a complicated subject, the way you presented the information was easy to understand. Voted up, pinned and shared. Japanese History – A Timeline of Periods and Events By Scribbling Geek 50 Legendary Artifacts From Chinese Legends, Mythology, and Fantasy Sagas 5 Legendary Chinese Female Warriors and Heroines. How Many Existed in History? Alexander Hamilton—American Statesman and Founding Father By Doug West "Tom's Midnight Garden": A Children's Book and Philippa Pearce By Linda Crampton Coexisting with Wildlife on a Farm By Bellwether Farming How to Describe Yourself: 180 Words for Your Positive Qualities By Susana Smith Vampire - An Analysis of Sylvia Plath's Poem "Daddy" By Lisa Chronister The Accomplished Life of English Poetess Christina Rossetti The Questionable Life of Pre-Raphaelite Art Model Fanny Cornforth Aaron Burr Biography: Third Vice President of the United States 2021 Free International Writing Entry Contests By Alianess Benny Njuguna Paramahansa Yogananda's "My India" By Linda Sue Grimes Rainbow Eucalyptus: An Unusual Tree With a Multicoloured Trunk 9 East Asian Vampires That Will Horrify You	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line630
__label__cc	0.585432	0.414568	The Pembroke Legion Community Band rehearses at the Pembroke Legion (Branch 72) Hall every Monday night at 7:30. On the third Monday of each month the band rehearses at an alternate location, usually Wesley United Church. If you are interested in the band, please contact Gordon Tapp. The Pembroke Legion Band has been in existence since 1950. From it’s inception in 1950 until 1977 it was under the direction of Mr. Doug Lowe and from then until 2001 it was directed by Ms. Linda Casselman. The current director of music is Mr. Gordon Tapp. The band has participated in Legion parades and ceremonies, such as Remembrance Day and Legion Day, without fail since 1951. Every year, without exception, a Legion trumpeter has performed the Last Post at veterans events as required. The Pembroke Legion Band has also performed ceremonies on Nov 11th for many surrounding communities in Renfrew County and in West Quebec. The band has represented the Legion at annual community events such as the Santa Claus Parade, the Strawberry Social, the Canada Day Concert in the Park, Christmas, Spring, and Summer Concerts, the Stations of the Cross event at Easter time, Jeanne Lajoie School Graduation and Algonquin College Graduation. The band has provided musical and ceremonial services to these events for the past twenty years. Every year the Pembroke Legion Band has worked in partnership with the local military forces, providing music for the annual inspection for 2677 Army Cadet Corps. The Pembroke Legion Band community involvement has included concerts in Seniors’ Homes in Pembroke and the area. Highlights in the Band’s History On Legion Day in May 1978 The Pembroke Legion Band was proud to represent Branch #72 at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, where legion bands from far and wide were to congregate. Pembroke’s Legion Band was the only band to show up. In spite of the awesome task of playing for more than 20,000 people the Pembroke Legion Band did itself and its home branch proud. A Legion band reunion was held in 1990. Sixty-five past and present Pembroke Legion Band members attended the event. Many fond memories were recalled as stories wre shared. In 1994 the Band paid tribute to it’s longest serving member, Mr. Dave Trimble. Dave was not only a tremendous asset to the band with his trombone playing but he held the record for long service with the Pembroke Legion Band. It was the initiative of Mr. Trimble that actually launchd the the Pembroke Legion Band back in 1951. Dave passed away in the fall of 1997. Doug Lowe Linda Casselman Gordon Tapp	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line636
__label__wiki	0.514742	0.514742	Home Entertainment Wendy Williams comments on the scandalous divorce of Mary Kate Olsen and... Wendy Williams comments on the scandalous divorce of Mary Kate Olsen and Olivier Sarkozy And it seems to add even more pain to Mary-Kate Olsen’s already broken heart. Wendy Williams comments on the scandalous divorce of Mary Kate Olsen and Olivier Sarkozy. And it seems to add even more pain to Mary-Kate Olsen’s already broken heart. “Good news for Mary-Kate Olsen – she’s getting a divorce.” Usually, we don’t root with our hearts for something like this, I’m talking about a divorce, ”Williams snapped. “She dated this old man. He is 50 … they have been married for five years. He is so tall, and she is so small. He always looked like he was meeting his daughter. ” “They both like to smoke cigarettes, and at their wedding, they had bowls of cigarettes around so people could just smoke,” she said. Then she returned to the topic that Olivier Sarkozy did not allow her to go into their shared, expensive and rented apartment in New York. “If you live in a building, then you know that the freight elevator does not work on weekends, even if you are the Olsen Twin and cost more than $ 250 million, they are not going to open it for you,” Wendy hints that Olsen cannot pick up her things, not because her husband doesn’t let her do this, but because the freight elevator in a more than 20 story building does not work in a pandemic. It turns out that Vedi is surprised at the stupidity of Olsen, who wants to pick up her things in isolation days. “Well, she says that she has an iron marriage contract, and she wants it to be respected,” Wendy said, sipping her light orange drink. “He is cruel, although this is strange, he just wants and allows her to just terminate the lease. I wonder what went wrong with their relationship, ”after Wendy changed the subject. The television actress, who became a fashion designer, tried to file for a divorce from a French banker in April, but the court said they were not going to continue the divorce case because of a coronavirus pandemic, TMZ said on Wednesday. Olsen again sent a request to a New York court and was refused. Williams makes fun of Mary-Kate, saying that she can be “homeless.” “Olivier wants her things removed from the apartment by Monday. She claims that she was just informed about this, that he had just extended the lease term. So, essentially, I think Mary Kate will be homeless? But with her millions of bank accounts, she can find a room in a luxury hotel and still have real estate in New York. She has a place to go, ”continued Wendy Williams. Olsen “signed the divorce petition as early as April 17,” TMZ said this week. But she was told that New York courts “did not accept divorce applications” because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the state of New York, there are more than 21 thousand deaths from coronavirus. So Mary-Kate, who began dating Olivier in the spring of 2012, asked for an emergency order to allow her to file for divorce and examine it. On Thursday, a Manhattan judge rejected Mary-Kate Olsen’s plea, deciding that this was not a significant issue. “We only accept substantive [and] emergency matters to apply for,” Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the New York State Court, told us. The situation is complicated between Mary Kate and Olivier. According to the site, Olivier forced his wife to move from the New York apartment, which they shared, terminating their rental without warning her. His lawyers told her to leave before May 18, but this was not enough to collect her property, so she asked them to extend the deadline until May 30. Lawyers have reportedly not responded. In a statement and complaint to the New York Supreme Court on April 17, Mary-Kate wrote: “It was clear that my marriage was over … this relationship was irrevocably broken. ‘ She wrote: “My husband terminated the lease at our New York residence … without my consent. “This statement is extraordinary because my husband expects me to move out of our home on Monday, May 18, 2020, in downtown New York, being isolated because of COVID-19. “I was numb that my husband was trying to deprive me of the house we lived in, and if he succeeds, I will not only lose my home but also risk losing my personal property,” said Mary-Kate Olsen. Because of the pandemic, Mary-Kate insists that she cannot “look for another apartment right now, not to mention getting my separate property and is seriously worried that my husband will disperse, dispose of and/or hide my things “. TMZ added that Mary-Kate felt “stuck”, so she filed for divorce so that her property was protected. A divorce statement automatically prevents her from getting her property, the site explained, and she is said to have “petrified” that she will not have a roof over her head. “The relationship between [the two] has irretrievably collapsed for at least six months,” the documents said, dated May 13 and signed in East Hampton, state. Mary-Kate asked to keep using their Hampton House in Bridgehampton, their main apartment in Gramercy, as well as another apartment on E. 49th Street. The multimillionaire also requested that their prenuptial agreement be enforced, according to the site, and that Sarkozy maintains medical and dental insurance for her. It was he who paid Olsen’s medical insurance in the amount of $ 23,000 a year. According to Page Six, the evidence attached to the application includes an email dated May 3 from Sarkozy, where he allegedly declares his decision to stop renting their apartment in New York in the Gramercy area. Olivier wrote: “I am not able to extend it and/or pay additional rent.” Plus, an email was added from Sarkozy’s lawyer Adam Turbowitz to Olsen’s lawyers, indicating further tension. Sarkozy’s lawyer wrote: “Olivier reports that he went to a New York apartment yesterday and noticed that a number of personal items were removed from the apartment. Although Olivier has no problems with Mary Kate taking what she wants / needs, he would like to receive a list of what has been deleted so that he can keep track of who has what for the general section of personal property. ” In 2007, Forbes put Mary-Kate and her twin sister Ashley in 11th place among the richest women in the entertainment industry, with an estimated net worth of $ 100 million. Mary-Kate began dating Olivier, whose half-brother is Nicolas Sarkozy, former president of France, in 2012, and in 2015 they got married. Mary-Kate and Olivier did not have common children. Olivier already has two teenage children, Julien and Margot, whom he brings up with his ex-wife Charlotte Bernard. Kate Olsen Previous articleThe trick to activate dark mode on WhatsApp Web Next articleJeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez love story Haley and Justin Bieber threaten the court with a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon for a TikTok video suggesting the model was performing operations Sofia Richie and Scott Disick broke up after he spent his birthday with ex – Courtney Kardashian and their children Filming Avatar 2 will continue next week Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 will be only $ 50 more expensive... The unusual design will remain, but the platform will get worse....	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line637
__label__wiki	0.675207	0.675207	Missouri Files Personal Injury Lawsuit Against China Over COVID-19 Pandemic Katie Gonzalez May 8, 2020 Missouri Attorney General, Eric Schmitt, announced last month that the state is suing the Chinese government and a number of its major institutions, alleging negligence in the country’s role in the coronavirus pandemic. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. It contends that the virus triggered a pandemic as a direct result of actions taken by Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime. According to numbers provided by Johns Hopkins University, at least 6,105 people have been confirmed to have the virus in Missouri, and at least 229 have died. The Attorney General’s Office issued a statement declaring that there have been multiple class action suits filed against China related to the pandemic, but Missouri represents the first state to bring legal action. According to the complaint, “During the critical weeks of the initial outbreak, Chinese authorities deceived the public, suppressed crucial information, arrested whistleblowers, denied human-to-human transmission in the face of mounting evidence, destroyed critical medical research, permitted millions of people to be exposed to the virus, and even hoarded personal protective equipment—thus causing a global pandemic that was unnecessary and preventable,” The suit seeks unspecified compensation related to “the enormous loss of life, human suffering, and economic turmoil experienced by all Missourians from the COVID-19 pandemic that has disrupted the entire world.” The unique personal injury suit faces a challenging battle given that China is protected by sovereign immunity. However, the attorney general’s complaint cites two exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which he argues should allow the case to proceed. The exceptions pertain to commercial activity in the U.S. and “for personal injury or death, or damage to or loss of property, occurring in the United States and caused by the tortious act or omission of that foreign state.” Furthermore, the complaint alleges that, “While the Chinese medical community had indications of human-to-human transmission of the virus, they did not inform the World Health Organization when they first reported the outbreak.” Additionally, the complaint claims that, “Chinese leaders did little to curb spread of the virus, still allowing thousands of people to travel to and out of Wuhan.” “In mid-January, on or around January 16, despite knowing the risks of doing so, Wuhan leaders hosted a potluck dinner for 40,000 residents, increasing the potential spread of the virus,” the complaint states. “Defendants allowed these massive public gatherings and massive exodus from Wuhan despite knowing the risks of COVID-19, including the risk of human-to-human transmission.” The suit also claims that, “Before the pandemic, Missouri had one of its lowest unemployment rates of the past decade, but on information and belief, Missouri’s unemployment rate is now the highest it has been since the Great Depression. Responding to the pandemic has required shutting down businesses, disrupting ordinary production and trade, and dislocating workers.” The Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., has yet to respond to Missouri’s lawsuit. Pennsylvania Meatpacker Hit With Coronavirus-Related Wrongful Death Lawsuit Ohio State to Pay $41 Million to Settle 12 Sexual Abuse Lawsuits Fox News Host and Former Superior Court Judge Refutes Sexual Assault Lawsuit as Extortion Attempt Philadelphia Personal Injury Lawyer Gets Five Year Sentence for Stealing Firm’s Clients Eliot Griffith March 5, 2020 $100,000 Settlement Reached After Seizure-Inducing Tweet Sent to Journalist Houston Litigation Funder Sues Personal Injury Lawyer for $5.7 Million Over Failure to Repay Loan David Charles May 11, 2020	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line639
__label__wiki	0.955657	0.955657	Carmelo Anthony’s Olympic bronze medal up for auction By Nick ZaccardiMay 24, 2014, 6:12 PM EDT Only once has the U.S. men’s basketball team not won a gold medal since professionals entered the Olympics. Here’s your chance to own a piece of that history. An auction company is listing a 2004 Olympic bronze medal won by Carmelo Anthony. The auction, which began at $4,500, is scheduled to run to June 9. Anthony, coming off his rookie NBA season, was one of the youngest members of the 2004 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team that lost to Puerto Rico (by 19 points) and Lithuania in the group stage and then eventual gold medalist Argentina in the semifinals. Though the U.S. recovered for bronze, beating Lithuania 104-96, the 2004 team is largely seen as the impetus for the “Redeem Team” of 2008, where the NBA’s best players made it a mission to win the gold back for the U.S. Anthony won gold on the 2008 and 2012 U.S. teams after receiving little playing time in 2004. He averaged 2.4 points per game in Athens, according to sports-reference.com. Anthony was disappointed with the bronze medal and gave it to a family member as a gift, according to Julien’s Auctions, which says it has documentation from the family member that it will give to the winning bidder. Miracle on Ice gold medal sells for $262,900	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line641
__label__wiki	0.901957	0.901957	Home Atlus Series Studio Zero Catherine: Full Body Announced for the PS4 and PS Vita Catherine: Full Body Announced for the PS4 and PS Vita Atlus has announced that a remake of Catherine will be released for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita, called Catherine: Full Body, the official website of which has been launched. The game will be developed by Atlus’ new internal development team, Studio Zero, which had previously announced the fantasy RPG Project Re Fantasy: A Fool’s Journey Begins. A Niconico live stream for the game will take place on December 22, 2017 at 7:30 PM JST (2:30 AM PST / 5:30 AM EST). Famitsu Report Famitsu has reported that the January 4, 2018 issue of the weekly magazine (releasing on December 21, 2017), will feature information on the game. Katsrua Hashino will be working on the game, who served as a directer of the action puzzle adventure game Catherine, originally released in 2011 and starring a 32-year-old man with relationship issues, suffering nightmares as a result. The cover for the issue will feature new art by Shigenori Soejima. A third person called “Catherine,” but with a different personality and atmosphere than the other two who appeared in the original version. New scenes and developments will occur in this game. Additionally, according to the official Atlus press release, the original game achieved 1 million copies shipped worldwide. December 22 Live Stream Atlus held a live stream last year, in 2016, for the establishment of their new internal studio, Studio Zero, as well as the new fantasy RPG developed by it called Project Re Fantasy. This year, alongside the announcement of Catherine: Full Body, Atlus will be holding a new live stream with a world premiere trailer and discussion on development. Name: Atlus Official “Heated Discussion! From Fantasy RPG to Full Body!? Studio Zero Special Program 2017” Date & Time: December 22 at 7:30 PM JST [Other Time Zones] 7:30 PM JST: Footage of the Atlus Artwork Team’s Shigenori Soejima creating an illustration. 8:00 PM JST: Start of the main program. Koji Watanabe (Writer) Chiaki Matsuzawa (Announcer) Mafia Kajita (Freelance Writer) Tomokazu Sugita (Voice Actor) Other Guests: Katsuhiko Hayashi (Weekly Famitsu Editor-in-chief) Taira Shinichi (Editor of DenFamiNicoGamer) More special guest appearances through video footage scheduled Niconico Link To celebrate the announcement of Catherine: Full Body, the staff members are looking for anecdotes from the audience about nightmarish events through Twitter., with the hashtag “#悪夢のような出来事”. Previous Teases Previously, a rumor was reported that a “PS3 Era” Atlus title would be announced soon. The title was speculated to be Catherine—a block puzzle platformer originally released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2011—substantiated by the “Studio Zero Golden Recruitment Special Program” held in August, which featured a character from the game teasing such a project. This game is probably the game director Katsura Hashino previously teased Studio Zero was working on, besides their fantasy RPG game. The domain name “FULLBODY.JP” had originally been registered on October 31, 2017. It was subsequently updated on December 11, 2017, in preparation for this announcement. Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem Re-unveiled, Trailer [Update] Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster Announced for Nintendo Switch and PS4, October 29, 2020 in Japan, Spring 2021 in West Persona 4 Golden Officially Released for PC via Steam Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore Announced for January 17, 2020 on Nintendo Switch Game Announcement Previous articleDx2 Shin Megami Tensei: Liberation Delayed to Mid-January 2018 Next articleCatherine: Full Body First Details, Online Multiplayer, New Endings, Minor Project Re Fantasy Information	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line642
__label__cc	0.732097	0.267903	"Lately Ethan Hawke can do no wrong. He, Noomi Rapace and Mark Strong make this quirky, but true, bank robbery movie come alive." - Film Inquiry Stockholm, based on a real-life event that took place in Sweden in 1973, shows how the phrase "Stockholm syndrome," in which victims eventually side with their kidnappers, came into existence. In 1973, Lars Nystrom (Ethan Hawke) walks into Stockholm's largest bank with a machine gun in a bag. He fires a couple of rounds into the ceiling, sending the customers and employees diving for cover. When he approaches a teller named Bianca (Noomi Rapace) and demands if she's set off the alarm, she admits that she did. Rather than being angry, Lars seems content about what Bianca has done. As it turns out, Lars isn't trying to terrorize anyone, or even rob the bank. What he wants is the release of his old bank-robbing buddy Gunnar Sorensson (Mark Strong) from a Swedish prison. Local police chief Mattsson (Christopher Heyerdahl) agrees and delivers Gunnar to the bank. However, now Lars and Gunnar, who are holding three hostages, have to figure out how to get away with their lives intact. As the event plays out, Bianca learns about how Lars once saved the life of an elderly man and she notices how much care he takes with her, making the ordeal as easy as possible for her and the other hostages. She slowly begins to identify with Lars. Canadian Connection: Partly filmed in Hamilton, Ontario. The screenwriter/director, Robert Budreau, and several cast members are Canadian. Robert Budreau Ethan Hawke, Noomi Rapace, Mark Strong, Christopher Heyerdahl, Bea Santos, Mark Rendall, Ian Matthews	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line646
__label__cc	0.712138	0.287862	From QueerBio.com 1 Country 2 Birth - Death 3 Occupation 4 Notable Achievements 7 Further Research/Reading Birth - Death Notable Achievements Mayor, New Zealand Order of Merit World's first openly transgender mayor (Carterton, 1995-2000), as well as the world's first openly transgender Member of Parliament (2000-2005) for the Labour Party. Born George Bertrand. Former radio host and cabaret singer. LGBTQ activist. Inducted as a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (2020) for her services to the LGBTQ community. Transgender Politicians Transgender Activists Popular LGBTQ Radio Hosts New Zealand Order of Merit Further Research/Reading http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/mpp/mps/former/48PlibMPsFormerGeorginaBeyer1/beyer-georgina http://www.lgbthistorymonth.com/georgina-beyer?tab=biography https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/06/01/trans-mp-queen-birthday-honour-georgina-beyer-new-zealand-carterton-wairarapa/ Retrieved from "http://queerbio.com/wiki/index.php?title=Georgina_Beyer&oldid=37764"	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line650
__label__cc	0.733695	0.266305	The Top-Rated Workplaces for Veterans in 2019 November 11, 2019 by Steve Williams With Veterans Day just around the corner, Indeed wanted to better understand the landscape for veterans returning to work. Veterans have much to offer the civilian workforce, having faced unique challenges in active duty. Not only do they bring transferable skills from the time they spent in service, but they also have strong soft skills, including problem-solving, critical thinking, integrity and collaboration — all of which are crucial to high-functioning teams. However, despite this valuable experience, it can be a challenge for many veterans to find civilian jobs after leaving the military. They may not know where to start their search or how to connect their skills to an employer’s needs. Employers, in turn, may not understand that military service work often involves skills that are transferable to the corporate office or may overlook candidates who describe their background in military terminology. We wanted to know which companies provide the best jobs and benefits for current and former U.S. military service members, so our data analytics team dove into over 200 million ratings and reviews listed on Indeed Company Pages. Based on those results, here are our Top-Rated Workplaces for Veterans in 2019: Keller Williams leads the list once again This year’s top 10 top employers for veterans span a variety of industries: from government and defense to real estate, banking, retail, tech and health care. The government and defense sectors provide a smooth transition for many veterans. These jobs allow for continued national service and involve skills and tasks similar to those utilized in the military — making companies within these sectors some of the top employers for veterans. In fact, veterans make up 31% of the federal workforce, despite being less than 10% of the U.S. adult population. An initiative called veteran’s preference also gives special consideration to qualified veterans seeking federal employment. However, the top-ranking company on this year’s list is Texas-based real estate franchise Keller Williams, leading the pack again after coming in first last year. Keller Williams is known for having a remarkable culture, which seems to score big points with employees. The company ranked first on two other Indeed lists — Top-Rated Workplaces for Culture and Top-Rated Workplaces for Work-Life Balance — within the past year. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) follows Keller Williams, coming in at number two. Through its dedicated job page for veterans, the FBI clearly demonstrates how veterans can apply transferable skills and continue serving their country through employment at the organization. Other government agencies that rank highly as top employers for veterans include the Internal Revenue Service (#9) and NASA (#13). As defense contractors, Northrop Grumman (#3), Raytheon (#6) and Lockheed Martin (#7) are also natural fits for our list; these organizations provide products and services, such as defense and transport, to the U.S. military and intelligence departments. Rounding out the top five workplaces for veterans is grocery and retail chain H-E-B (#4), followed by banking and financial services company Capital One (#5). The rest of the top 10 run the gamut of industries, including health care giant Kaiser Permanente (#8) and multinational tech firm Microsoft (#10). What are the Top-Rated Workplaces for Veterans doing right? HQ: Austin, Texas Operating in 700 offices across the globe, Keller Williams is lauded in reviews for offering extensive training and resources to every new hire, empowering agents to do their best work. The company actively encourages veterans to join, too, with a jobs page detailing why service members make great hires. It helps veterans identify transferable skills, noting that qualities such as flexible thinking, collaboration, decision-making and being comfortable in dynamic environments are all necessary to becoming a high-performing real estate agent. “Education is the fundamental benefit of working here, as Keller Williams does a better job at education and motivation than any other agency,” says one employee, adding that “they teach veterans how to run companies and teams, to the benefit of all participants.” Another employee praises the company culture and teamwork, stating that “you are surrounded by like-minded, goal-oriented individuals.” They add that colleagues work together, brainstorming and sharing ideas and experiences with the goal of bettering one another and the company. 2. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) HQ: Washington, D.C. Is working at the FBI really how it appears on TV? While employees can’t give specifics around what they do, many praise the organization’s mission and purpose and enjoy knowing that they have made an impact on the world. For the coveted Special Agent position, the FBI offers waivers to preference-eligible veterans, although it requires all applicants to have a bachelor’s degree. This position involves many transferable skills for service members, beginning at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, where new hires are trained intensively in physical fitness, defensive tactics, practical application exercises and the use of firearms. What’s more, the FBI established its Wounded Warriors Internship Program in 2012, which enables the organization to provide career development opportunities for active-duty service members recovering from a medical procedure. One employee describes working at the FBI as rewarding, saying that “the most enjoyable part of the job is knowing that what you do is important and it does make a difference.” The employee adds that agents know to expect the unexpected in a typical day and must be flexible, good team players and effective leaders — all familiar aspects to service members. 3. Northrop Grumman HQ: Falls Church, Virginia Global defense contractor Northrop Grumman values hiring veterans — in fact, around 20% of their employees are veterans, and they are dedicated to recruiting even more through programs such as Hiring Our Heroes. Defense contractors seek workers with skills such as self-discipline, initiative and leadership, making service members a perfect fit. Many veterans also have security clearances, which are extremely valuable to these types of employers. One employee praises the benefits and job security that come with a job at Northrop Grumman: “They promote from within when the required skills are available. They also have continuing education benefits, which allow you to grow and compete for higher jobs.” Another employee says the company strives to make the workplace experience enjoyable and supports work-life balance by being flexible with family events and emergencies. 4. H-E-B HQ: San Antonio, Texas This San Antonio-based supermarket has a strong showing on our Top-Rated Workplaces lists, recently leading the Top-Rated Workplaces for Retail. H-E-B also shows support for veterans through H-E-B Operation Appreciation, a company-wide campaign that has worked with charitable partners to build nearly 30 homes for wounded veterans and their families. One veteran says H-E-B is “by far the best place I have worked at since retiring from the military,” citing the “great benefits … and atmosphere” in addition to a solid management team. The employee also praises their coworkers, the competitive hourly pay and the flexibility of the job, allowing employees to set their own schedules. “Every day is a new learning experience for me, whether I am stocking new materials or … talking with new customers,” another employee says. “The people I work alongside are reliable and nice people to work with. I’ve learned useful skills like precision and consistency through my time working with H-E-B, and am anxious to learn more with this great company.” 5. Capital One HQ: McLean, Virginia Bank holding company Capital One is number five on our list, offering resources and benefits specifically for veterans and service members. Their website even provides a “Military Skills Translator Tool.” The tool allows potential applicants to enter military-earned skills, including specialties and subspecialties, which it then translates into civilian professional qualifications that match with open positions at Capital One. The company also provides a range of benefits to support continuing service members and military spouses. These include time off for training and active duty, as well as uninterrupted benefits during leave. This support for work-life balance is further evidenced in employees’ feedback: “Everyone feels strongly about the 40-hour work week, and trust[s] employees to get their work done in that time frame,” one worker says. “If you ever work more than that, everyone wants to help you cut that down.” The employee adds that “the salary is competitive, they give you a lot of trust and ownership over projects and analytics and they value everyone’s voice in the room — regardless of your level in the company.” Here at Indeed, we’ll continue to keep watching the Top-Rated Workplaces for Veterans. If you’re an employer seeking more information to guide your hiring strategy for this highly qualified talent pool, visit the Indeed for Veterans employer resource hub. (http://blog.indeed.com/2019/11/06/top-rated-workplaces-veterans-2019/?fbclid=IwAR13Qas4R8u6je6OUXrjDuH5bUYlMTKTytLI42OFSsvnktVhNBDedJmeRAY)	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line654
__label__wiki	0.849363	0.849363	Geoffrey R. Stone served as the ninth Provost of the University of Chicago. Stone attended the University of Chicago Law School where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. He graduated in 1971 and went on to clerk first for the Honorable J. Skelly Wright and then for the Honorable William J. Brennan Jr. of the United States Supreme Court. Stone returned to the University in 1973 as a Professor of Law and was eventually appointed Dean of the Law School in 1987. He served in this position until 1994, when he was appointed Provost of the University of Chicago. Stone is a noted First Amendment scholar and is currently the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor. He frequently writes op-eds for various newspapers including the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He also writes regularly for The Huffington Post and is an editor for The Supreme Court Review. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the America Law Institute, the National Advisory Council of the American Civil Liberties Union, and a member of the American Philosophical Society. Most recently, Stone served as Chair of the Committee on Freedom of Expression charged with preparing a statement that articulated the University’s commitment to “to free, robust, and uninhibited debate and deliberation among all members of the University's community.” The resulting policy statement was widely endorsed by universities and organizations in support of free speech. From July through October 2015, Stone served as the interim Dean of the Law School until Thomas J. Miles was named Dean. 1/1/1994 – 12/31/2001	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line656
__label__wiki	0.577901	0.577901	David Jeffrey Goodman Director of Undergraduate Studies in Architecture David Goodman is the Director of the Bachelor in Architecture. He received his Masters Degree in Architecture from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and completed degrees with honors in Government and in History of Architecture and Urbanism from Cornell University. He is co-author of the book An Introduction to Architecture Theory: 1968 to the Present, and his work has also appeared in the journal Log, in the anthology Chicago Architecture: Histories, Revisions, Alternatives, and in the book Walter Netsch: A Critical Appreciation and Sourecebook. Before founding his firm R+D Studio, he worked in the studio of Rafael Moneo in Madrid and for David Woodhouse Architects and Nagle Hartray Architects in Chicago. He has taught architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago, Harvard University Graduate School of Design, and at the Boston Architectural College. The work of R+D Studio has been featured in the Burnham 2.0 Exhibition at the Chicago History Museum, and the office was recently awarded second prize in the national competition for the Reconquista Civic Center in Argentina. Making Architecture	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line657
__label__wiki	0.698065	0.698065	One year before election, Christian leaders cross divides to call for respect Christian leaders across theological and political divides are kicking off an initiative called 'Golden Rule 2020: A Call for Dignity and Respect in Politics,' hoping the next 365 days won’t be a repeat of 2016’s divisive election season. President Donald Trump shakes hands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as he arrives in the House chamber before giving his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress, on Feb. 5, 2019, at the Capitol in Washington. (Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP) Emily McFarlan Miller (RNS) — This Sunday (Nov. 3) marks exactly one year until the 2020 U.S. presidential election. And Christian leaders across theological and political divides are kicking off an initiative called “Golden Rule 2020: A Call for Dignity and Respect in Politics,” hoping the next 365 days won’t be a repeat of 2016’s divisive election season. RELATED: Christian leaders call for Day of Prayer in support of impeachment inquiry Representatives from conservative evangelical institutions like the National Association of Evangelicals and progressive mainline denominations like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have signed on to a statement urging their members to pray for the healing of divisions in the U.S. this weekend and promote the “golden rule” in their political discussions and election activities over the next year. The initiative takes its name from what’s commonly referred to as the golden rule, expressed by Jesus in the Gospels and often paraphrased as: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” “We believe that we can find guidance through this national dilemma in the teachings of Jesus,” the statement reads. From left, Democratic presidential candidates are introduced for the Democratic presidential primary debate hosted by ABC on the campus of Texas Southern University on Sept. 12, 2019, in Houston. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) Golden Rule 2020 grew out of a May meeting of faith leaders hosted by the National Institute for Civil Discourse, whose founding co-chairs were former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, according to the initiative. “In its simplest expression, civility brings Jesus’ Golden Rule into politics and we hope that evangelicals will take advantage of this opportunity and reflect on how we can do that more effectively,” said Galen Carey, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, in a written statement. The initiative will continue throughout the 2020 election season, both in an online pledge all people of faith are invited to take and in a number of activities planned by participating institutions and denominations. For example, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is asking its pastors to write and teach about applying the golden rule to politics in the presidential election season. And the Episcopal Church is creating a curriculum for “reflection, consideration, and discussion” on civil discourse, according to the initiative. The Rev. Elizabeth Eaton, presiding bishop of the ELCA, said some regional synods within the denomination already have begun to act on the Golden Rule 2020 initiative. The Rev. Jeffrey Tengesdahl of First English Lutheran Church in Appleton, Wisconsin, discussed Golden Rule 2020’s call for dignity and respect in his sermon last week, according to an ELCA spokesperson. And pastors and other leaders in the New Jersey Synod are planning to gather in several weeks to discuss the church’s role in a divided society. It doesn’t take more than turning on the news or gathering with family to recognize why that is so important, Eaton said. “I think it’s gotten to a critical point where it’s disruptive to congregational life when people are not able to have differences and still be together at church,” she said. Jesus was clear in the golden rule how Christians should treat those with whom they disagree, according to the presiding bishop. So was Martin Luther in his explanation of the commandment “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor”: “We should fear and love God so that we do not tell lies about our neighbor, betray him, slander him, or hurt his reputation, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain everything in the kindest way.” Christians should pray, Eaton said. Prayer is powerful not only because praying for those with whom one disagrees can change the other person, but also because it can change the person praying. And civility isn’t mutually exclusive to speaking out against injustice, she said. “When our tone is automatically uncivil and it’s automatically accusatory, how can we ever hope that we’re actually going to communicate with somebody else if we’ve already belittled and accused them?” she said. Other participants in Golden Rule 2020 include representatives of the American Baptist Churches USA, Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, National Latino Evangelical Coalition, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Red Letter Christians, the United Church of Christ and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Department of Justice, Peace and Human Development. (This story has been updated with new information from the ELCA.) At the Capitol, evangelicals’ ‘Thou art the man’ moment	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line658
__label__cc	0.509591	0.490409	DE-71-induced apoptosis involving intracellular calcium and the bax-mitochondria-caspase protease pathway in human neuroblastoma cells in vitro Ke YU, Yuhe HE, Leo W. Y. YEUNG, Paul K. S. LAM, Shiu Sun Rudolf WU, Bingsheng ZHOU Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) are used extensively as flame-retardants and are ubiquitous in the environment and in wildlife and human tissue. Recent studies have shown that PBDEs induce neurotoxic effects in vivo and apoptosis in vitro. However, the signaling mechanisms responsible for these events are still unclear. In this study, we investigated the action of a commercial mixture of PBDEs (pentabrominated diphenyl ether, DE-71) on a human neuroblastoma cell line, SK-N-SH. A cell viability test showed a dose-dependent increase in lactate dehydrogenase leakage and 3-(4,5-dimethylthia-zol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyl-tetrazolium bromide reduction. Cell apoptosis was observed through morphological examination, and DNA degradation in the cell cycle and cell apoptosis were demonstrated using flow cytometry and DNA laddering. The formation of reactive oxygen species was not observed, but DE-71 was found to significantly induce caspase-3, -8, and -9 activity, which suggests that apoptosis is not induced by oxidative stress but via a caspase-dependent pathway. We further investigated the intracellular calcium ([Ca²⁺]i) levels using flow cytometry and observed an increase in the intracellular Ca²⁺ concentration with a time-dependent trend. We also found that the N-methyl d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist MK801 (3μM) significantly reduced DE-71-induced cell apoptosis. The results of a Western blotting test demonstrated that DE-71 treatment increases the level of Bax translocation to the mitochondria in a dose-dependent fashion and stimulates the release of cytochrome c (Cyt c) from the mitochondria into the cytoplasm. Overall, our results indicate that DE-71 induces the apoptosis of [Ca²⁺]ᵢ in SK-N-SH cells via Bax insertion, Cyt c release in the mitochondria, and the caspase activation pathway. Copyright © 2008 The Author. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Toxicology. All rights reserved. Toxicological Sciences https://doi.org/10.1093/toxsci/kfn088 Yu, K., He, Y., Yeung, L. W. Y., Lam, P. K. S., Wu, R. S. S., & Zhou, B. (2008). DE-71-induced apoptosis involving intracellular calcium and the bax-mitochondria-caspase protease pathway in human neuroblastoma cells in vitro. Toxicological Sciences, 104(2), 341-351. doi: 10.1093/toxsci/kfn088 Pentabrominated diphenyl ether (DE-71) Cytochrome c SK-N-SH 10.1093/toxsci/kfn088 Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'DE-71-induced apoptosis involving intracellular calcium and the bax-mitochondria-caspase protease pathway in human neuroblastoma cells in vitro'. Together they form a unique fingerprint. pentabromodiphenyl ether Medicine & Life Sciences Mitochondria Chemical Compounds Caspases Medicine & Life Sciences Neuroblastoma Medicine & Life Sciences Peptide Hydrolases Medicine & Life Sciences Halogenated Diphenyl Ethers Medicine & Life Sciences Apoptosis Medicine & Life Sciences	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line661
__label__wiki	0.512939	0.512939	Research Expertise Database Threat Response An approach focused on cyber forensics coupled with graduates better prepared to tackle cybersecurity challenges is the best hope for getting ahead of hackers. Pioneering cybersecurity education Fueled by rapid growth in cybersecurity professions, academia and the public and private sectors are working to develop agile programs to meet industry needs. USFSM Associate Professor of Information Technology and Cybersecurity Giti Javidi, PhD, cites data from the Clearwater-based nonprofit Center for Cyber Safety and Education that projects the cybersecurity workforce gap will reach 1.8 million by 2022. Meanwhile, worldwide cybercrime will cost individuals, corporations, institutions and governments $6 trillion each year. “The workforce shortage in cybersecurity is a serious issue which will have profound implications for national, economic and personal security,” Javidi said. “As the idea of cybersecurity expands, universities will try to expand the pool of cybersecurity talent to narrow the workforce gap, and companies will look for professionals with technical and multidisciplinary skills.” Giti Javidi, PhD, believes that digital training must begin early. However, she believes cybersecurity programs at the K-12 level and in higher education are not mature enough to produce industry-ready professionals as rapidly as cybersecurity needs them. To bridge the gap, Javidi believes both short- and long-term solutions are required. In the short term, she advocates temporarily training existing IT professionals to help fill high-risk cybersecurity positions. Longer term, she suggests creating strategies to inspire and train the next generation of professionals with technical expertise and cybersecurity skills. To meet ever-increasing workforce demands, cybersecurity awareness, education and training must begin early, Javidi added. She agrees with many cybersecurity experts who believe that the people responsible for managing systems designed to prevent hacks and data breaches often are, in fact, the weakest link in the security chain. If they are not adequately trained, they can make mistakes capable of undermining even the most sophisticated systems. Consequently, enhanced awareness and behavior modifications are essential to creating the “human firewall” that will effectively turn “weak” human links into strong security partners, she said. Javidi added that the first and most important step will be to increase behavior-focused cybersecurity education programs built around the three core concepts of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology: “Awareness” - as cognizance of security threats and knowledge of response mechanisms “Training” - as the teaching of skills needed to tackle security issues “Education” - as a combination of all of these skills, along with holistic understanding of concepts, risks and remediation of cyber threats Hence, Javidi has focused on devising a holistic approach (see graphic this page) to create evidence-based cybersecurity awareness and training programs for K-12 parents, teachers and students. The objective is to develop scalable and adaptive resources, curricula and activities that enable schools to teach cybersecurity using well-researched methods. With the support of grants she has received, Javidi is collaborating with colleagues and industry partners to develop an effective “Cybersecurity Community of Practice” that will provide a safe platform to exchange resources and ideas about cybersecurity. Her innovative and holistic approach to meeting cybersecurity challenges and efforts to inspire women to join Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics fields earned her 2017 Women of Influence Award and USF’s 2018 Women in Leadership and Philanthropy Award. - Su Senapati, PhD Research: USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus Subscribe to our digital Research Magazine and full access to online content and e-Alerts Would you like to have a print version of the magazine mailed to you? Yes. Sign me up! USFSM researchers are studying how to attack cyber crime. The demand for cyber forensics professionals trained to combat hackers continues to grow. The International Information System Security Certification Consortium reports that the global cybersecurity workforce gap has reached 13,000 unfilled openings in Florida as of December 2018. Likewise, emerging cyber forensics technology is helping government agencies and private firms identify and assist in responding to cyber-based threats. USF Sarasota-Manatee has responded to this demand through the creation of a Cybersecurity and Information Technology program offered 100 percent online and by encouraging faculty research into related issues. Two USFSM professors, Ehsan Sheybani, PhD, and Giti Javidi, PhD, are conducting research on cyber forensics and cybersecurity workforce demand, respectively. Their work underscores the ongoing need for more highly-qualified graduates prepared to seek cutting-edge solutions to challenges that threaten to compromise personal data, financial systems and other highly-sensitive information. Identifying potential hacks before they happen Recent cyber-attacks on the Marriott hotel chain and credit-reporting agency Equifax exposed the personal data of a combined nearly 600 million people, heightening awareness of what has become a serious issue for individuals, businesses, institutions and government entities. A research project by USFSM Associate Professor of Information Systems and Decision Science Ehsan Sheybani, PhD, “Cyber Forensics and Crime,” is tackling what the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently designated a government-wide, immediate high-risk area due to increasing cyber-based threats and the persistent nature of security vulnerabilities. ROBOTICS AS A TEACHING TOOL Ehsan Sheybani, PhD, uses robots in research, as classroom teaching tools and in funded projects to train and educate elementary- and high-school-aged students about STEM fields. Cyber forensics is the key to this approach, according to Sheybani. The technology encompasses recovery and investigation of e-data and information found on websites and in databases, mobile phones and other sources. Armed with that data, it utilizes highly specialized tools and techniques to trace the origin of cyber-attacks and to identify breaches of information security, industrial espionage and identity and financial fraud. A University of Maryland study released in 2017 found that computers experienced attempted cyber-attacks every 39 seconds. According to the Mountain View, California-based internet security firm Symantec, cyber criminals execute 130 large-scale, targeted breaches per year, while 24,000 malicious mobile apps are blocked each day. “The cyber forensics science landscape is evolving rapidly as digital and cyber-attacks become more frequent,” Sheybani said. “The past few years of my employment at USF have coincided with one of the most important periods in U.S. history during which our nation and government have been the target of many cybersecurity attacks and threats. These attacks have affected the lives, finances and well-being of so many of us. I came to the realization that I can combine some of my skills with those of my colleagues to come up with solutions that can help our nation.” Phase one of the research, scheduled to launch this year, encompasses designing and building a database and mobile forensic lab system with forensics tools, experiments, tutorials, videos and case studies. The second phase includes development of virtualized cyber forensic resource management accessible by institutional departments, other State University System of Florida institutions, as well as the Florida Center for Cybersecurity (Cyber Florida) based at USF, partners and affiliates to allow collaborative training and workforce development in immersive, real-world and closed exercise environments. Because cybercrime differs from traditional crime, creating strategies to reduce or eliminate it presents unique challenges, such as: The variety and vast amount of data stored in databases and mobile devices The number of mobile transactions on a daily basis The absence of standard practices and guidelines for analyzing data The absence of a qualified workforce in sufficient numbers to perform investigations The lack of capacity and resources to provide ongoing training Those challenges inform and guide the research conducted by Sheybani, who collaborates with other faculty and graduate students on projects that will help prepare students to enter the workforce equipped to identify and eliminate cyber threats. “Now it’s a role of a cyber forensic expert to bring cybercriminals to justice,” Sheybani said. “Researching and establishing effective cyber forensics tools to detect and prevent malware attacks are important aspects of cybersecurity. So, our effort has been to train the future workforce with hands-on experiences that make us stronger against cyber-attacks of this kind.” Last year, USF’s College of Engineering in Tampa announced a new major in cybersecurity. This offering joined existing certificate programs and master’s degree programs in cybersecurity and cybercrime. USF, thanks to Cyber Florida, is uniquely positioning the university as a statewide and national leader in the field. Sheybani and his fellow researchers view that as another opportunity. “We are proposing an online, hands-on lab for malware detection and prevention,” Sheybani said. “This will allow USF and other universities to take advantage of our project.” Up next for Sheybani is continued cyber-related research, including K-12 education and awareness in addition to creating highly-needed educational modules. - Melanie Bass From the Regional Chancellor Speaking Refugees’ Language Cultivating Research at USFSM Research: USFSM is the University of Florida Sarasota-Manatee (USFSM) annual publication focused on showcasing USFSM’s expanding profile as a research-active institution. It highlights faculty and student research across four colleges investigating problems and finding solutions in the fields of STEM, education, business, cybersecurity and more with impact on a community and global scale. Research: USF Sarasota-Manatee Campus is the annual publication focused on showcasing and expanding the research activities and community connections. Highlighting faculty and student research, investigating problems and finding solutions in the fields of STEM, education, health, business, cybersecurity, and more with impact on a community and global scale. Copyright 2021 USF Sarasota-Manatee \| Powered by Digital Communications Group	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line663
__label__cc	0.749761	0.250239	DDW A Brief History of Vacuum Cleaners Posted on April 26, 2020 by Grace Shelton The first person to patent a machine for cleaning was David Hess in the year 1860. Housewives all over America had turned to using rugs and carpets, a trait brought over by the waves of immigrants coming from Europe, to cover their bare wood floors and keep the dust and dirt to a minimum. When they were dirty, they had to be carried outside, suspended somehow in the air and then beaten with a metal rod or heavy wooden stick. Vacuum Cleaners, Industrial Vacuum Cleaners, Upright Vacuum Cleaners, Vacuum Cleaner Bags A bit later someone invented a small, tennis racket-looking device called a rug beater for precisely this purpose. Mr. Hess soon realized that there was probably an easier way to clean rugs without all the fuss and mess and he invented the Carpet Sweeper which had a rotating brush combined with a bellows system that created suction. His amazing invention also used two water chambers to trap the dust and fine dirt. The only problem with Mr. Hess machine is that there is no proof it was ever produced. After Mr. Hess invention, there came a period of wilder and weirder inventions that sought to accomplish the same thing. In the late 1870s, Melville Bissell (sound familiar?) marketed a carpet sweeper that picked up the dirt and dropped it into a pan behind the rotating brush. In 1899, John Thurman invented a gasoline-powered vacuum cleaner that is credited as being the first motorized version. In 1901 Hubert Booth of London invented the electric vacuum, a device so large that it was parked outside the house and a 100-foot long hose snaked its way inside and did the dirty work. The device was so popular that housewives all over London held vacuum parties to enjoy the event. It wasnt until 1908 when James Spangler, a janitor in Ohio, invented the first portable, suction cleaner — the precursor to todays high tech machines. He sold his patent to his cousins husband, William Hoover (also familiar?) and the rest, as they say is history.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line665
__label__wiki	0.8979	0.8979	Brazil Protecting Colombian FARC Terrorist Since 2005 by Alex Newman American and Colombian officials suspected that a decision by the Brazilian government granting political asylum to a prominent Marxist terrorist was made under pressure from former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose Workers’ Party (PT) has frequently been accused of receiving millions of dollars from the drug-trafficking terror group known as the FARC. The suspicions surrounding the case were highlighted in an explosive U.S. diplomatic cable from 2006 that was recently released by the whistle-blowing organization WikiLeaks. But despite the enormity of the revelations in the document, entitled “Brazil Grants Asylum to FARC Terrorist,” there has been virtually no press coverage of the scandal so far. Even Establishment media outlets such as Veja Magazine has reported on the FARC - PT contacts. The saga described in the cable began when Francisco Antonio Cadena, the so-called “Ambassador to Brazil” for the communist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), was arrested by Brazilian authorities in 2005. He was apparently living there with his family at the time. Known as “Oliverio Medina” in Brazil, the high-ranking terrorist was taken into custody based on a request from Interpol pursuant to a Colombian warrant. He was wanted for a broad range of crimes including murder for terrorist purposes, extortion, kidnapping, and terrorism. When Cadena was finally arrested, the FARC’s “International Commission” immediately sprang into action. It issued a statement the next day calling for the release of “Oliverio Medina, who is a member of our International Commission.” According to the U.S. cable, citing a Colombian embassy official, Cadena also had many high-level friends within the Brazilian government. “[D]uring the many years Cadena spent in Brazil prior to his arrest last year, he had cultivated close ties with President Lula’s Labor Party (PT) and had met with leaders of the PT in a house just outside of Brasilia (called the Red Heart Mansion) owned by a PT member of Congress,” noted the cable, signed by the highest-ranking American official in Brasilia at the time, Chargé d’Affaires ad interim Philip Chicola. The Colombian embassy official cited in the report also “echoed press and other public accounts that PT leaders had met with Cadena in prison,” according to the U.S. embassy document. “While pointing out that claims of FARC donations to PT campaigns had never been proven, he insisted there was ample proof of Cadena’s ties with PT leaders.” The decision to grant political asylum to the internationally known terrorist was made in total secrecy by the Brazilian National Committee on Refugees in mid-2006. And by approving the request, according to the cable, the government of Brazil was actually violating its own rules — individuals involved in terrorism and drug trafficking are supposed to be extradited, not granted asylum. “The decision by the Brazilian committee is audacious but not necessarily surprising, as is the near silence surrounding it,” the cable noted. “The granting of asylum to a known terrorist flies in the face of Brazilian claims to oppose international terrorism. Particularly troubling are the allegations of the Presidency subverting the judicial process and pressuring the refugee committee to take a decision contrary to its own guidelines, allegations we find credible.” According to “unofficial” information provided to the Colombian embassy in Brazil, the decision to grant asylum was made after Cadena promised to sever ties with the FARC. But American and Colombian officials weren’t buying it. “We, like the Colombians, will be trying to find out what the official rationale for the asylum decision was and how that can be reconciled with the [Government of Brazil]’s supposed opposition to international terrorism,” the cable noted, requesting instructions from Washington about how to proceed. “Embassy believes that high level political pressure resulted in this decision.” The Brazilian government essentially refused to provide any information about what was going on, according to the cable. The refugee committee told the U.S. embassy that all documents and records related to the asylum decision were confidential. The Colombian government, meanwhile, was quietly informed about the denial of its extradition request — with no explanation — via the Brazilian embassy. Filed under World Tagged with Brazil Grants Asylum to FARC Terrorist, brazilian government, Brazilian National Committee on Refugees, corrupt brazil, Dilma Rousseff, extortion, FARC, Francisco Antonio Cadena, kidnapping, Labor Party, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, Oliverio Medina, Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT, terrorism, terrorist purposes	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line669
__label__cc	0.716258	0.283742	Duchess of Kent February 22, 2017 February 21, 2018 ~ Saad719 Happy Birthday to Katharine, Duchess of Kent who turns 84 today. The only daughter of Sir William and Lady Worsley, she was born at the Family Seat, Hovington Hall in Yorkshire. After studying in Yorkshire and Norfolk, she studied music at Miss Hubler’s Finishing School in Oxford. In 1961, Katharine married the Duke of York, a first cousin of the Queen, at York Minster. The couple have three children and ten grandchildren. The Duchess has been a full-time royal since her wedding, carrying out official duties to support the Queen. She was also known as the presenter of trophies at Wimbledon. However, since 2002, she has reduced her public role, and rarely attends royal events. Instead, she gives music lessons in London, and prefers to be known as Katharine, Duchess of Kent (the style given to the widowed or divorced wife of a Duke), though her official title remains HRH the Duchess of Kent. In 1994, she converted to Catholicism, the first member of the Royal family to publicly do so since 1701. The Duke and Duchess live between a house on the grounds of Kensington Palace and a house in Oxfordshire. Last year, the Duchess attended the Ryedale Show and the Queen’s Christmas Lunch. I wish HRH a very Happy Birthday! For more information, check out: Duchess of Kent’s Tiaras Kent Festoon Tiara Kent Pearl and Diamond Fringe Tiara Princess Marina’s Girandole Earrings Duke of Kent Posted in Feature, UK < Previous Canadian State Visit to Sweden- Day 2 Next > Duchess of Kent’s Tiaras One thought on “Duchess of Kent” mavis says: Duchess of Kent was always our favorite	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line672
__label__cc	0.574692	0.425308	‘Burning’ (2018) – Cambridge Film Festival Review Last week we were lucky enough to attend the Cambridge Film Festival and got the privilege of watching Burning - A Korean film with subtitles. The film follows Jong-soo (Yoo Ah-In) who is a working... By Jess Weal & Amy Williams Last week we were lucky enough to attend the Cambridge Film Festival and got the privilege of watching Burning – A Korean film with subtitles. The film follows Jong-soo (Yoo Ah-In) who is a working class man from the countryside in Korea. When working an odd job, he runs into Hae-mi (Jeon Jon-Seo) who used to live in his neighbourhood, when the pair were children. She asks him to look after her cat whilst she takes a trip to Africa (which Jong-Soo thinks is imaginary). She returns a couple of weeks later with a new friend Ben (Steven Yeun), who she quickly becomes close with, causing Jong-Soo to become jealous. Let us start by telling you this… this film is long, you will lose interest and then wish you hadn’t. Burning is – pardon the pun – a slow burner! The first hour and a half is, to put it frank, quite boring, but it turns out to be vital to the plot, once you understand what is happening. Neither of us knew anything about this film, and to be honest, we were only interested because of Steven Yeun. We hadn’t even seen the trailer, so we really did have no idea what this film was about, just that two people had recommended it to us, one even telling us “best film of the year”. Burning managed to exceed expectations we didn’t have, we don’t know how that works but it does. Turns out, the film was a Drama/Mystery, with clues and scenes that all make sense once you finish the film. Which is why your dozing off in the first half will come back to bite you! Many shots lingered way longer than they needed to, and an almost silent sex scene had us giving each other awkward looks and cringing at the deep intimacy being showed through close ups of Jong-soo’s sex face. (Cringing now just thinking about it) This film is 100% polysemic, and you come away with a million different theories and ideas about the film, especially when you think back to them earlier scenes (Told you not watching will bite you in the ass). Some theories online suggest that the film can be politically analysed through the tension of the social classes, between the rich and the poor. But, since we do not have knowledge of the class system in Korea, we didn’t interpret it that way BE WARNED… FROM HERE ON OUT THERE WILL BE SPOILERS! STOP READING NOW. The film gets interesting when Hae-mi goes missing after spending a night with Ben and Jong-Soo at Jong-Soo’s house, which is when Ben confesses to Jong-Soo that he likes to burn down greenhouses and admits that he is planning to burn down a greenhouse “very close” to Jong-soo. Once Jong-Soo discovers Hae–mi is missing, he goes on a mad hunt to find her and discovers how dodgy Ben really is. Jong-Soo decides that Ben has taken her and perhaps killed her (the evidence suggesting this is strong), he meets up with Ben and ends up brutally stabbing him, before setting fire to his car with the dead body in. And to be honest, we’re not happy about it because: We will never find out what happened to Hae-mi because the number one suspect is now dead The almost innocent Jong-soo is now a murderer. IT WAS TOO SOON TO SEE HIM DIE AGAIN ON MY SCREEN? REALLY YOU WANT ME TO WATCH HIM GET BRUTALLY MURDERED AGAIN! RIP GLENN, ALWAYS IN OUR HEART. Amy came away believing that Ben was a serial killer, using greenhouses as a metaphor for women, and him burning down the greenhouses is really him killing women. This theory is reinforced through his sociopathic tendencies of not being able to cry as well as keeping ‘trophies’ of his ‘victims’, such as their jewellery, in a draw in his bathroom. Jess however thought he was grooming the girls (we assume there are more than one), to be coming prostitutes or escorts. He kept their jewellery and we see him doing make up on one of the girls, which he could be doing before delivering them to the men. There is so much you can take away from this film, so much to think about and discuss that it’ll be on your mind for days after. Unfortunately, this film doesn’t look like it is available anywhere in the UK or will be available anytime soon. Tags2018-19 • Cambridge Film Festival • Events • Film Review 0 comments on “‘Burning’ (2018) – Cambridge Film Festival Review”	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line674
__label__wiki	0.504561	0.504561	Category: Computer Science Deep Learning is blooming and with it, all kinds of unthought applications have been sprung to life. Every tech company is trying to implement a form of AI in their businesses in some way or the other. Neural networks, after all, have begun to outperform humans in tasks such as object and face recognition and in games such as chess, Go, and various arcade video games. And as we all know, Deep Learning is a manifestation of the human brain and has tremendous potential. However, An entirely different type of computing has the potential to be significantly more powerful than neural networks and deep learning. This technique is based on the process that created the human brain—evolution. In other words, a sequence of iterative change and selection that produced the most complex and capable machines known to humankind—the eye, the wing, the brain, and so on. The power of evolution is a wonder to behold. Dennis Wilson and a few colleagues at the University of Toulouse in France have shown how evolutionary computing can match the performance of deep-learning machines at the emblematic task that first powered them to fame in 2013—the ability to outperform humans at arcade video games such as Pong, Breakout, and Space Invaders. The work suggests that evolutionary computing should be feted just as widely as its deep-learning-based relations. Evolutionary computing is completely unlike Deep Learning. The conventional way to create code is to write it from first principles with a specific goal in mind. Evolutionary computing uses a different approach. It starts with code generated entirely at random. And not just one version of it, but lots of versions, sometimes hundreds of thousands of randomly assembled pieces of code, and each of these codes have been tested to check whether the end goal is achieved. As a result, a lot of code is generated. But just by chance, some pieces of code are a little better than others. These pieces are then reproduced in a new generation of code, which includes more copies of the better codes. However, the next generation cannot be an identical copy of the first. Instead, it must change in some way. These changes can involve switching two terms in the code—a kind of point mutation. Or they can involve two codes that are cut in half and the halves exchanged—like sexual recombination. Each of the new generations is then tested to see how well it works. The best pieces of code are preferentially reproduced in another generation, and so on. In this way, the code evolves. Over time, it becomes better, and after many generations, if conditions are right, it can become better than any human coder can design. via: MitTechReview, Medium Researchers from Loughborough University, Western General Hospital, the University of Edinburgh, and the Edinburgh Cancer Centre in the United Kingdom, recently developed a deep learning-based method that can analyze compounds in the human breath and detect illnesses, including cancer, with better than-human average performance. The sense of smell is used by animals and even plants to identify hundreds of different substances that float in the air. But compared to that of other animals, the human sense of smell is far less developed and certainly not used to carry out daily activities. For this reason, humans aren’t particularly aware of the richness of information that can be transmitted through the air and can be perceived by a highly sensitive olfactory system. AI may be about to change that. Using NVIDIA Tesla GPUs and the cuDNN-accelerated Keras, and TensorFlow deep learning frameworks, the team trained their neural network on data from participants with different types of cancer receiving radiotherapy, said researcher Angelika Skarysz, a Ph.D. research student at Loughborough University. To increase the neural network’s efficiency, the team increased the original training data by using data augmentation. The convolutional neural network was augmented 100 times, the team said. “A team of doctors, nurses, radiographers and medical physicists at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre collected breath samples from participants undergoing cancer treatment. The samples were then analyzed by two teams of chemists and computer scientists. Once a number of compounds were identified manually by the chemists, fast computers were given the data to train deep learning networks. The computation was accelerated by special devices, called GPUs, that can process multiple different pieces of information at the same time. The deep learning networks learned more and more from each breath sample until they could recognize specific patterns that revealed specific compounds in the breath” as posted by Andrea Soltoggio on The Conversation. 3D view of a portion of breath sample data “Computers equipped with this technology only take minutes to autonomously analyze a breath sample that previously took hours by a human expert,” Soltoggio said. AI is making the whole process cheaper – but above all, it is making it more reliable. Link to the paper: ResearchGate (Via: ResearchGate, The Conversation, NVidia) MIT’s new AI can now see through walls. MIT has given a computer x-ray vision, but it didn’t need x-rays to do it. The system, known as RF-Pose, uses a neural network and radio signals to track people through an environment and generate wireframe models in real time. It doesn’t even need to have a direct line of sight to know how someone is walking, sitting, or waving their arms on the other side of a wall. Using wireless signals, RF-Pose could serve as a healthcare system to monitor patients’ movements from the other side of a wall. Source: MIT CSAIL The MIT researchers decided to collect examples of people walking with both wireless signal pings and cameras. The camera footage was processed to generate stick figures in place of the people, and the team matched that data up with the radio waves. That combined data is what researchers used to train the neural network. With a strong association between the stick figures and RF data, the system is able to create stick figures based on radio wave reflections. One idea is to use the system to monitor those who might be at risk of a fall—a sick or elderly person, say. Here’s the video which might help in comprehending the topic more. Sources: MitTechReview, Extremetech, Popular Science The US is again the home to the world’s fastest supercomputer – the Summit. For five years, China had the world’s fastest supercomputer, the Sunway TaihuLight. But the United States retook the lead thanks to a machine, called Summit, built for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Summit – The machine’s 4,608 servers and associated gear fill the space of two tennis courts and weigh more than a large commercial aircraft. The Summit’s theoretical peak speed is 200 petaflops or 200,000 teraflops. To put that in human terms, approximately 6.3 billion people would all have to make a calculation at the same time, every second, for an entire year, to match what Summit can do in just one second. For certain scientific applications, Summit will also be capable of more than three billion-billion mixed precision calculations per second. Summit will provide unprecedented computing power for research in energy, advanced materials, and artificial intelligence (AI), among other domains. Summit will enable scientific discoveries that were previously impractical or impossible. Summit is 60 percent faster than the previous supercomputing leader, the Sunway TaihuLight based in the Chinese city of Wuxi. However, China still has the world’s most supercomputers overall. And China, Japan, and Europe are developing machines that are even faster, which could mean the American lead is short-lived. As of now, Summit’s computing capacity is so powerful that it has the ability to compute 30 years’ worth of data saved on a desktop computer in just one hour. These capabilities mark a huge increase in computing efficiency that will revolutionize the future of American science. (source: The New York Times, MitTechReview, Quartz, Wired, Energy.gov) Imagen’s OsteoDetect, an AI-based diagnostic tool that can quickly detect distal radius wrist fractures. Its machine learning algorithm studies 2D X-rays for the telltale signs of fractures and marks them for closer study. It’s not a replacement for doctors or clinicians, the FDA stressed — rather, it’s to improve their detection and get the right treatment that much sooner. OsteoDetect uses AI software to analyze two-dimensional x-ray images for distal radius fracture. The software, intended as an adjunct to clinician judgment, marks the fracture location on posterior-anterior and medial-lateral x-ray images. The company submitted a retrospective study of 1,000 radiograph images that assessed the independent performance of the image analysis algorithm for detecting wrist fractures and the accuracy of the fracture localization of OsteoDetect against the performance of three board certified orthopedic hand surgeons. Imagen also submitted a retrospective study of 24 providers who reviewed 200 patient cases. Both studies demonstrated that the readers’ performance in detecting wrist fractures was improved using the software, including increased sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, when aided by OsteoDetect, as compared with their unaided performance according to standard clinical practice. Blockchain Disruptions With the recent disruptions happening around in Blockchain, the rise and fall of bitcoins left people quite perplexed and uncertain. However, a majority of the experts believe that blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt every major industry out there right now. To summarize in a cogent manner, an infographic has been made by the folks at Bitfortune and all the credit for making this meticulous infographic goes to them! This infographic will help you understand how the blockchain technology can and will improve 16 different industries, from music to government. So, read on and find out what their future will look like. via Bitfortune Inside the mind of a Neural Network Neural networks, which learn to perform tasks such as including speech-recognition, automatic-translation systems, image recognition systems and time series prediction by analyzing huge sets of training data, have been responsible for the most impressive recent advances in artificial intelligence. During training, however, a neural net continually adjusts its internal settings in ways that even its creators can’t interpret. Much recent work in computer science has focused on clever techniques for determining just how neural nets do what they do. Neural nets are so named because they roughly approximate the structure of the human brain. Typically, they’re arranged into layers, and each layer consists of many simple processing units — nodes — each of which is connected to several nodes in the layers above and below. Data are fed into the lowest layer, whose nodes process it and pass it to the next layer. The connections between layers have different “weights,” which determine how much the output of any one node figures into the calculation performed by the next. In the case of the speech recognition network, Belinkov and Glass used individual layers’ outputs to train a system to identify “phones,” distinct phonetic units particular to a spoken language. The “t” sounds in the words “tea,” “tree,” and “but,” for instance, might be classified as separate phones, but a speech recognition system has to transcribe all of them using the letter “t.” And indeed, Belinkov and Glass found that lower levels of the network were better at recognizing phones than higher levels, where, presumably, the distinction is less important [MIT]. An important part of the neural network is forgetting. An ANN must know, which part to forget and which part not to. The basic algorithm used in the majority of deep-learning procedures to tweak neural connections in response to data is called “stochastic gradient descent”: Each time the training data are fed into the network, a cascade of firing activity sweeps upward through the layers of artificial neurons. When the signal reaches the top layer, the final firing pattern can be compared to the correct label for the image—1 or 0, “dog” or “no dog.” Any differences between this firing pattern and the correct pattern are “back-propagated” down the layers, meaning that, like a teacher correcting an exam, the algorithm strengthens or weakens each connection to make the network layer better at producing the correct output signal. Over the course of training, common patterns in the training data become reflected in the strengths of the connections, and the network becomes expert at correctly labeling the data, such as by recognizing a dog, a word, or a 1. sources: MIT blog, Wired, arxiv AI creates Cartoons from Text Animation as well know is a great source of entertainment and is difficult to create and stitch them together. It is now possible to stitch cartoons with the help of AI. The researchers at the Allen Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois, have managed to develop an AI called Craft (Composition, Retrieval, and Fusion Network), which does some part of the tedious work. The AI creates scenes from text descriptions. The AI system, Craft was able to recreate the Flintstones cartoon, by being trained on 25000 3 second clips and a brief text description of that scene. The AI works by matching the videos to the brief word-descriptions and builds a set of parameters. Craft can convert the provided text descriptions into video clips and animated series. It can not only put the characters into place but also parse objects, retrieve the background, etc. The results are still raw in nature, and there is a lot of scope for improving the model and training it on other cartoons. The video below briefly describes how the AI works. For detailed information, refer the paper. SqueezeNext – Hardware Aware Neural Network Design April 9, 2018 April 10, 2018 Leave a comment Berkeley researchers have published ‘SqueeseNext’, the successor to SqueezeNet, in their latest attempt to distill the capabilities of very large neural networks into smaller models that can feasibly be deployed on devices with small memory and compute capabilities, like mobile phones. One of the main barriers for deploying neural networks on embedded systems has been large memory and power consumption of existing neural networks. While much of the research into AI systems today is based around getting state-of-the-art results on specific datasets, SqueezeNext is part of a parallel track focused on making systems deployable. Need for SqueezeNext? The transition to Deep Neural Network based solutions started with AlexNet, which won the ImageNet challenge by a large margin. The ImageNet classification challenge started in 2010 with the first winning method achieving an error rate of 28.2%, followed by 26.2% in 2011. However, a clear improvement in accuracy was achieved by AlexNet with an error rate of 16.4%, a 10% margin with the runner-up. AlexNet consists of five convolutional, and three fully connected layers. The network contains a total of 61 million parameters. Due to this large size of the network, the original model had to be trained on two GPUs with a model parallel approach, where the filters were distributed to these GPUs. Moreover, dropout was required to avoid overfitting using such a large model size. These model sizes have millions of parameters and are not suitable for real-time applications! SqueezeNet is a successful example which achieves AlexNet’s accuracy with 50× fewer parameters without compression and 500× smaller with deep compression. SqueezeNext is efficient because of a few design strategies: low-rank filters; a bottleneck filter to constrain the parameter count of the network; using a single fully connected layer following a bottleneck; weight and output stationary; and co-designing the network in tandem with a hardware simulator to maximize hardware usage efficiency. The resulting SqueezeNext network is a neural network with 112X fewer model parameters than those found in AlexNet. They also develop a version of the network whose performance approaches that of VGG-19 (which did well in ImageNet 2014). The researchers also design an even more efficient network by carefully tuning model design in parallel with a hardware simulator, ultimately designing a model that is significantly faster and more energy efficient than a widely used compressed network called SqueezeNet. (via: SquezeeNext) Deep Reinforcement Learning and Q-Learning Deep Learning (neural networks) are used to achieve the state of the result for image recognition, computer vision, machine translation, etc,. Reinforcement learning refers to goal-oriented algorithms, which learn how to attain a complex objective (goal) or maximize along a particular dimension over many steps; for example, maximize the points won in a game over many moves. They can start with a blank slate, and under the right conditions, they achieve superhuman performance. Like a child incentivized by spankings and candy, these algorithms are penalized when they make the wrong decisions and rewarded when they make the right ones – this is reinforcement. Like a human, agents learn for themselves to achieve successful strategies that lead to the greatest long-term rewards. This paradigm of learning by trial-and-error, solely from rewards or punishments, is known as reinforcement learning (RL). Reinforcement algorithms that incorporate deep learning can beat world champions at the game of Go as well as human experts playing numerous Atari video games. While that may sound trivial, it’s a vast improvement over their previous accomplishments, and the state of the art is progressing rapidly. Reinforcement learning solves the difficult problem of correlating immediate actions with the delayed returns they produce. Like humans, reinforcement learning algorithms sometimes have to wait a while to see the fruit of their decisions. They operate in a delayed return environment, where it can be difficult to understand which action leads to which outcome over many time steps. Q – Learning Q-learning is a model-free reinforcement learning technique. It is able to compare the expected utility of the available actions (for a given state) without requiring a model of the environment. Additionally, Q-learning can handle problems with stochastic transitions and rewards, without requiring adaptations. It has been proven that for any finite Markov decision process (MDP), Markov decision processes (MDPs) provide a mathematical framework for modeling decision making in situations where outcomes are partly random and partly under the control of a decision maker. MDPs are useful for studying a wide range of optimization problems solved via dynamic programming and reinforcement learning. Q-learning eventually finds an optimal policy, in the sense that the expected value of the total reward return over all successive steps, starting from the current state, is the maximum achievable. (via Wiki, GoogleDeepmind Blog, DeepLearning4j, IntelAI)	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line675
__label__cc	0.694276	0.305724	Word Of Ross I've got views… they're multiplying. Sharing them here as therapy. Uncategorized Link Simon Hill connects with the bootlaces and… Well done Simon Hill. Today’s editorial on the Fox Sports website was a brilliantly ballsy piece of work. Given that you make your living through the same parent organisation that threw a bucket of vitriolic bile last Sunday, via a ‘jurassic journo’ called Wilson, your actions should not be underestimated. Not surprisingly, it has continued during the week with media organisations seeing a news item generating so much heat. Sadly, the flames weren’t tempered but fanned further on radio and in some other editorials on TV since Sunday. Those of us who have had a life long love of football have seen these attacks many times before and we have probably been worn down by the negativity over the years. I confess that I certainly have. The fact that my sons and their friends are repeating the very same frustrations that we did so many years ago has been depressing. Sure our sport has taken huge strides in Australia, however too many of the old prejudices remain to this day. My initial reaction was to ignore it all. This too shall pass and our sport will continue to grow and prosper nonetheless. After all, readers and listeners who would agree with Wilson and Jones wouldn’t be in the football orbit anyway. These troglodytes preach to the converted and look to maintain relevance in their shrinking world by incubating outrage. It’s a con, it’s malicious and motivated by a mindset set in 1950-ville where everyone knew their place – fullstop. Simon, your editorial today absolutely nailed it – thank you. PS: I’m anticipating that your article will not survive the News Limited stable censors so I repeat it here below. The link (while it lasts) is: http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/simon-hill-on-weekend-reports-detailing-crowd-problems-in-a-league/story-e6frf423-1227621998463 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – By SIMON HILL (25 November, 2015) THERE are always two sides to every story, or so the saying goes. Yet the article in Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph regarding the so-called epidemic of football violence, only tells you one. So, let’s redress the balance shall we? Let’s start with the inherent contradiction that I consider runs throughout Rebecca Wilson’s piece – that is, the suggestion that FFA are somehow bystanders – accomplices even – in the alleged trouble, because they refuse to accept there is even a problem. If that is true, then why has the governing body issued banning orders to the 198 people listed? Isn’t that taking action? What else is FFA supposed to do? It already has a security presence in every town where the A-League is played. Maintaining law and order in public places is the job of the police, as it is at any sporting event, or public gathering. FFA has taken the strongest measures within its remit to punish any perpetrators of trouble, and should be applauded for doing so – not hung out to dry. FFA has also recently dispatched a senior executive to Germany, to learn how the authorities approach crowd control in the Bundesliga (they do it pretty well incidentally), so they can hardly be accused of sitting on their hands on this issue. Have the Australian Police followed their lead? Because at the moment, their tactics, according to Wilson’s article, aren’t working, and it always takes two to tango. All we seem to hear from Commissioners are their outdated opinions on a sport they clearly have little understanding, or experience of. Witness this crass line from NSW Chief, Andrew Scipione, in Wilson’s article. “The last thing we want to get to in Australia is putting rival fans in cages like the UK model.” Now, I don’t know what century Mr Scipione lives in, but it can’t be the 21st, because “cages” vanished from English football grounds post-Hillsborough, as far back as 1989. Mind you, we shouldn’t be surprised he thinks this way – this is the sort of football narrative Australia is repeatedly sold, via media lickspittles whose primary agendas are other codes of football. Some journalists here still truly believe 96 people died that day in Sheffield because of “hooliganism”- not police negligence. They should try reading the harrowing reports of the current inquest in England – they might just learn something. Let’s move on to address the comments made by Assistant Commissioner, Kyle Stewart – who has only been in his post a matter of weeks. Stewart claims that there is a “bloody-mindedness within some of the clubs (and FFA) that does not accept responsibility for the culture.” All of which is news to the Western Sydney Wanderers (who make up the bulk of the “trouble-makers” according to the article) – because, sources at the Wanderers say Stewart has yet to speak to them at all. Clearly, minds have already been made up at Police HQ that all Wanderers fans are potential thugs. The police presence at Wanderers games – in my experience – confirms this. It is quite unlike any other. Riot squads, mobile detention centres, horses, dogs, police officers built like Robocop on steroids, some replete with tattoos on bulging biceps that remind you of nightclub bouncers, rather than your old-fashioned bobby on the beat. It’s an extraordinary fortnightly show of force, which turn areas of the stadium into nervous stand-off zones, where one twitch, you feel, could lead to a can of mace being thrust in your direction. Yet even if – as we are led to believe – there are 90-odd Wanderers fans hell bent on causing mayhem, that is still a tiny fraction of the 14,500 average crowd that watch the club on a regular basis. Talk about using a sledgehammer to smash a nut. On most occasions in Parramatta, the only person “giving it some violence” is Robbie Slater, when he’s sat next to me in commentary. However, it’s Mr Stewart’s next quote that is perhaps the most revealing of all. “Behave like a civilized human and not some grubby pack animal, and you’ll find yourself buying many, many more season passes” This sentence barely makes for cohesive reading, yet cut through the grade two English, and Stewart is, essentially, offering his opinions on the sport itself. In proper grammar it would read “this is why football has so few fans.” Which, again, I’m sure is news to the Wanderers, who have 17,000 plus members, around 4,000 bigger than Parramatta Eels (their co-tenant) average crowd for 2015. Still, I fail to see why a columnist goes to a policeman for comment on the progress of a sport. Similarly, what business does the Police Association of New South Wales have in re-tweeting this via its online account, from someone calling themselves “Ice Maiden” “Axing football al2gether would B the go. Dreadful 4 creating head injury dementia.” We’re really getting to the nub of the issue here, and Wilson is right in one aspect of her piece at least. There is a cultural problem. It lies in the way football is perceived, reported upon and judged by those who exist only on the periphery of it – and most of it is based on age-old prejudice, and pure ignorance. Why else would Alan Jones (patron of the Australian Police Rugby Union team incidentally) no less, ask this of Wilson on his radio show, when she was invited to discuss her article? “Is this like terrorism in Paris? The leaders have no guts?” It is barely comprehensible that Jones would equate alleged issues involving football fans with the horrible slaughter in the French capital. It’s tawdry, squalid broadcasting, yet where football is concerned it seems, no comparison is off limits. This disgraceful slur is one of many from those who appear to live in an Australia stuck in some 1950’s time warp. Where anyone with a surname longer than three syllables is somehow “suspect” – particularly if they like “soccer.” The disease is particularly prevalent among those involved in sports in competition for fans (and corporate dollars) with football. One is Malcolm Conn, one-time cricket writer, now in the employ of Cricket NSW. Conn furiously re-tweets any negative story regarding football, in order to paint his own sport in a better light. There are many others desperately trying to recreate the “glory” days of Sheila’s, Wogs & Poofters. Quite why his employers allow Conn to continue with his daily diatribe is a mystery – though maybe a clue can be found in the attendance figures for Test series’ outside the Ashes, not to mention the Sheffield Shield, where the players regularly outnumber the crowd. It is also indicative of a landscape in which code wars have been allowed to flourish among the media cognoscenti, who – by and large – still originate from, and hanker after, Australia’s Anglo past, rather than its modern multicultural reality. Hence the traditional sports are ferociously defended by such groups as properly “Australian”, while football is treated with the same sort of shrieking hysteria normally reserved for boat people. Grubby pack animals indeed. Still, times they are a changing, and maybe sooner than they think. Ms Wilson’s column may well have outed some who indulge in violent behaviour, and for them, I have no sympathy. Behave badly, and you deserve all you get. But by naming and revealing the identities of ALL those purportedly on the banned list, she has not only invited opprobrium, but opened up a potential can of worms. There are already allegations that some of the names are incorrect, while some are reportedly underage. Others are not necessarily guilty of criminal acts. It’s also believed some of the photographs published were taken from social media sites, and used without permission. On top of that, none of those listed had any course of redress for their bans via an appeal. If that’s the case, then we would appear to have conviction by media without proper judicial process. That would be a very serious matter indeed, and litigation may well follow from some of those involved. Senator David Leyonhjelm meantime, has already called for an investigation by the NSW Police Integrity Commission, to find out whether they are the source of the leak. If proven, it’s a serious breach of ethics on their behalf too. FFA absolutely refute allegations they leaked the confidential list – so unless it’s the police, that only leaves the stadiums and A-League clubs with access to such information. Some are claiming the source is the Sydney Cricket Ground Trust. The SCG trustee list, incidentally, contains not a single person connected to football – that despite Sydney FC being Allianz Stadium’s biggest tenant. There is undoubtedly much more to come on this story, but in the meantime, and in the absence of public comment from FFA (which in my view, sells the majority of fans short), what response should there be from football? In my opinion, the best response is to turn up in even bigger numbers to games this weekend. Be loud, and be proud of the world’s favourite game. But we must also demand to see the names – and faces – of all those banned in the other football codes and cricket, so the public can make a fair comparison. Even if there are – as Wilson claims – only a handful, then so what? Let’s see exactly who they are, and what they get up to. #ShameonYOURgame anyone? I’ll close with the best quote of this entire saga, which came from veteran broadcaster and football fan, George Donikian. It’s simple, but pithy. “Words have consequences.” Indeed they do George, and as we wait for the defamation cases, we can take solace in the fact that this current football-phobic generation, which controls so many spheres of public influence, will eventually retire, and be replaced by a more enlightened one. It can’t come too soon. Twitter – 140 or bust VAR… football’s cane toad? Alfa is Back… & to the Future Let this sink in… 2016 – The New Dark Age of Extremism Is mainstream media now irrelevant?	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line677
__label__wiki	0.930662	0.930662	The Best TV To Watch Over The Christmas Break By Heather Steele Roald & Beatrix: The Tail of the Curious Mouse, Now TV and Sky One Roald & Beatrix: The Tail Of The Curious Mouse is inspired by the true story of when a six-year old boy set off on a big adventure to meet his favourite author, Beatrix Potter. The story follows Dawn French as Beatrix Potter, Harry Tayler as the young Roald Dahl, Jessica Hynes as Roald’s mother Sofie, Rob Brydon as Beatrix’s husband William Heelis, Nina Sosanya as publisher Anne Landy, Bill Bailey as a Bona Fide Gent, as well as Alison Steadman and Nick Mohammed. Visit NowTV.com Cinderella: A Comic Relief Pantomime for Christmas, BBC2 The worlds of theatre, film, comedy and music collide as Comic Relief presents a ‘stay at home’ adaptation of the pantomime Cinderella. The timeless classic, rewritten by the award-winning Dawson Brothers and produced by Richard Curtis, sees a host of A-list stars take on some of the most iconic roles in panto. The stellar cast includes Olivia Colman as the Fairy Godmother, Guz Khan as Buttons, Helena Bonham Carter as Devilia, Tom Hollander as Baron Hardup and real-life sister and brother Daisy May and Charlie Cooper as the Evil Stepsisters. This virtual script-read guarantees big laughs while also raising money to fight loneliness, hunger and cold at home and abroad, both during Christmas and beyond. Soul, Disney+ Exclusively on Disney+ from Christmas Day, Pixar’s latest creation is Soul. Meet Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx) – a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. But one small misstep takes him from the streets of New York City to The Great Before – a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks and interests before they go to Earth. If this is like anything Pixar has done before, Christmas Day is set to be better than ever. Visit Disney.co.uk Call The Midwife, BBC1 The circus comes to Poplar, putting a magical spell on its residents. A delighted Shelagh is reacquainted with an old friend, and Trixie receives an unusual gift. The 90-minute special will see former Doctor Who actor Peter Davison joins the cast as circus ringmaster Mr Percival. Strictly: The Christmas Countdown, BBC1 Strictly: The Christmas Countdown will reveal the 25 most memorable dances of all time voted for by the viewers. From the perfect 40s, the trophy-winning routines, dances that have made us laugh, and perhaps some that are remembered for other reasons, this show promised to have it all. Presented by Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman, join the judges and professional dancers as they count down to see which will be voted the most memorable Strictly dance of all time. Bridgerton, Netflix Bridgerton follows Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), the eldest daughter of the powerful Bridgerton family as she makes her debut onto Regency London’s competitive marriage market. Hoping to follow in her parent’s footsteps and find a match sparked by true love, Daphne’s prospects initially seem to be unrivalled. But as her older brother begins to rule out her potential suitors, the high society scandal sheet written by the mysterious Lady Whistledown casts aspersions on Daphne. Enter the highly desirable and rebellious Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page), committed bachelor and the catch of the season for the debutantes’ mothers. Despite proclaiming that they want nothing the other has to offer, their attraction is undeniable, and sparks fly as they find themselves engaged in an increasing battle of wits while navigating society’s expectations for their future. Visit Netflix.com The Serpent, BBC1 Inspired by real events, The Serpent tells the remarkable story of how the conman and murderer Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) was brought to justice. Posing as a gem dealer, Sobhraj and his girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc (Jenna Coleman) travelled across Thailand, Nepal and India in 1975 and 1976, carrying out a spree of crimes on the Asian ‘Hippie Trail’ and becoming the chief suspects in a series of murders of young Western travellers. As Sobhraj repeatedly slips from the grasp of authorities around the world, Herman Knippenberg (Billy Howle), a junior diplomat at the Dutch Embassy in Bangkok, unwittingly walks into his intricate web of crime. Dancing on Thin Ice with Torvill and Dean, ITV Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean travel to Alaska on an extraordinary quest to fulfil a lifelong dream. The Olympic champions have spent a remarkable 45 years on the ice together – but astonishingly they’ve never skated in the great outdoors. But luck is against them – in Alaska’s hottest year on record there is not a lot of ice to be found. So Jayne and Chris’s travels into the remote wilderness become a hunt for wild ice, skating wherever they can. From train to husky sled, from frozen lakes to glaciers, it’s a spectacular journey. Stephen Fry narrates. Black Narcissus, BBC1 When the young nuns of St Faith attempt to establish a mission at a remote clifftop palace once known as the ‘House of Women’, its haunting mysteries awaken forbidden desires that seem destined to repeat a terrible tragedy. In this first episode of three, Sister Clodagh (Gemma Arterton) and her group of Anglo-Catholic nuns travel from Darjeeling on a mission to the palace of Mopu in the Himalayas. With the help of Mr Dean, the agent of General Toda Rai, they start to repair the palace and open a school. But the unsettling atmosphere of their surroundings, the distracting presence of Mr Dean and stories of the palace’s previous occupants weigh heavily on them all, reawakening memories in Clodagh that she thought she had suppressed. Available to watch on 27th December Little Women, Amazon Writer-director Greta Gerwig helmed this latest adaptation of Little Women, a winter classic that draws on both the novel and the writings of Louisa May Alcott. An unconventional timeline unfolds as Jo March reflects back and forth on her life and decisions. In Gerwig’s take, the story of the March sisters is given a new lease of life, with the help of a talented cast including Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet and Meryl Streep. Visit Amazon.co.uk Cats, Amazon Yes, this was panned by critics last year, but the end of 2020 seems like the perfect time to see this bonkers adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Helmed by award-winning director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech, Les Misérables), the film stars James Corden, Judi Dench, Jason Derulo, Idris Elba, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Taylor Swift, Rebel Wilson and Francesca Hayward. Downhill, Amazon Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus star in this remake of the Swedish/French production, Force Majeure. After barely escaping an avalanche during a ski holiday in the Alps, a family is thrown into chaos as they are forced to re-evaluate everything they hold dear, as well as their true feelings for one another. On Pointe, Disney+ This six-part docu-series captures a season in the School of American Ballet (SAB) in New York City. Featuring unprecedented access to the famous ballet institution, the series follows the lives of the students – aged 8 to 18 – as they pursue their dreams to become ballet dancers. Visit DisneyPlusOriginals.Disney.com The Midnight Sky, Netflix This post-apocalyptic tale follows Augustine (George Clooney), a lonely scientist in the Arctic, as he races to stop Sully (Felicity Jones) and her fellow astronauts from returning home to a mysterious global catastrophe. Clooney directs the adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s acclaimed novel Good Morning, Midnight, co-starring David Oyelowo, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir and Tiffany Boone. Available to watch on 23rd December What To Watch Online This January The top shows and series to stream. The Luxe List: January The things to watch, do and buy this month. TV Guide 18.01.21 What to watch this week. What To Do This Weekend 16.01.21 Wondering how to spend your two days off? Let us help. What To Watch On Christmas Day: Bridgerton The Netflix show to know.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line684
__label__wiki	0.605122	0.605122	Scott Frock, Professional Trumpet Player Trumpet Player Based in New Orleans UJO on Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Soundtrack Released on Netflix in late 2020, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom features Uptown Jazz Orchestra as the behind-the-scenes sounds of Ma’s band as they work to produce a studio album in Chicago in the 1920s. The film, based on the August Wilson play of the same name, tells the story of Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, the “Mother … Continue reading UJO on Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Soundtrack “Gospel According to PJ” ft. Scott Frock Nominated for Grammy Nominees for the 63rd Grammy Awards were announced November 24th. PJ Morton’s latest album Gospel According to PJ has been nominated for Best Gospel Album and features Scott Frock on trumpet, along with a host of New Orleans-based musicians interspersed with big names and vocalists from across the country. Learn more about the album’s background … Continue reading “Gospel According to PJ” ft. Scott Frock Nominated for Grammy Uptown Jazz Orchestra Releases “Jazz Party” Delfeayo Marsalis’ Uptown Jazz Orchestra released their second full length album, Jazz Party, on February 7, 2020. The new album includes Scott Frock on lead trumpet in the orchestra that features more than a dozen professional and student musicians under Marsalis’ direction. Says Geraldine Wyckoff of Offbeat Magazine, “The solos by saxophonist Roderick Paulin, trombonist … Continue reading Uptown Jazz Orchestra Releases “Jazz Party” Sustainable Music Project Indiegogo With a vision to support and enhance the lives of New Orleans area musicians, Scott Frock has launched an Indiegogo campaign called The Sustainable Music Project to finish creating and recording a full-length studio album. The album includes some of the top musicians in New Orleans, who have toured globally with acts such as Nathaniel … Continue reading Sustainable Music Project Indiegogo Scott Frock Interview with Duchess of Rock ‘n’ Roll While on tour over the winter, Scott Frock sat down with Cheryl Swift in St. Louis to discuss his life, career and stories from the road for her video blog The Duchess of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Check out the video below for the full interview and head over to her site for a variety of … Continue reading Scott Frock Interview with Duchess of Rock ‘n’ Roll “Bolden” Film Trailer Released “Cornet player Charles ‘Buddy’ Bolden was a father of jazz, the first king of New Orleans music and largely a mystery of a man. Now a new film from another icon, Wynton Marsalis, is paying tribute to the legend.” – USA Today The film, Bolden, directed by Dan Pritzker with music by Wynton Marsalis, is scheduled to … Continue reading “Bolden” Film Trailer Released Relix Magazine ft. Night Sweats Cover Story Relix magazine featured Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats on the cover of the October-November 2018 publication, with an interview by Matt Inman. Rateliff discussed the band’s origins and where it’s headed, as well as the challenge of moving on after a breakout hit album. “Following a breakout is never easy, though, and for round … Continue reading Relix Magazine ft. Night Sweats Cover Story “Hey Mama” Tops Billboard Triple A Radio Chart “Hey Mama” from the most recent album, Tearing at the Seams, by Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats reached No. 1 on the Triple A National Airplay chart for the week ending January 13, 2019. During 2018, the spot was held by both “You Worry Me” and “A Little Honey” from the same album. Additionally, … Continue reading “Hey Mama” Tops Billboard Triple A Radio Chart Americana Music Assn. Announces 2018 Top Music The Americana Music Association® released its 2018 top 100 albums and singles, the data for which “reflect records reported to the Americana Radio Airplay Albums and Singles Charts during the period of Jan. 9, 2018 through December 10.” Topping both lists are Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats with the number one album, Tearing at the … Continue reading Americana Music Assn. Announces 2018 Top Music Lefsetz Review of Night Sweats Live in Vail Music analyst, writer and podcast host, Bob Lefsetz, reviewed Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats’ recent performance in Vail, Colo. In his piece, Lefsetz discusses some of the band’s early struggles, management break through and rise to fame, while describing the appeal of their live performances and overall musicality. In the review, Lefsetz says, “The … Continue reading Lefsetz Review of Night Sweats Live in Vail	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line689
__label__cc	0.524074	0.475926	Momentum Aviation Systems (MAS) JV awarded OASIS Small Business Pool 3 multiple-award ID/IQ by the General Services Administration (GSA). Momentum Aviation Systems (MAS), a Joint Venture of System Dynamics International (SDI) and MAG Aerospace (MAG), is pleased to announce the award of the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) Small Business Pool 3 multiple-award ID/IQ by the General Services Administration (GSA). OASIS is a Best-In-Class contract vehicle used by various Government agencies, DOD, and commercial entities. Since 2015, GSA has awarded over $11B to the Small Business Pools within OASIS. MAS is now one of the selected small business primes to receive an award for the 2020 GSA OASIS SB On-Ramp. Through the OASIS contract vehicle, SDI and MAG’s longstanding partnership will continue to thrive. “The MAS Joint Venture allows us to deliver aviation technical and engineering services with the speed and flexibility of a small business equipped with the skills and experience of a large business,” says J. Brandi White, SDI CEO and MAS Managing Executive. “We’ve worked diligently to meet the rigorous standards for OASIS and are honored to be awarded this coveted seat at the table among distinguished peers. We’re looking forward to serving existing and new DOD customers on this Best-In-Class contract vehicle right away.” About MAS: Momentum Aviation Systems is an unpopulated Woman Owned Small Business Joint Venture between SDI, who will serve as the Protégé and Managing Partner, and MAG, who will serve as the Mentor and JV Partner. SDI and MAG established this JV under the Small Business Administration (SBA) All-Small Mentor Protégé Program (ASMPP). About SDI: Headquartered in Huntsville, AL, SDI is a Woman Owned Small Business with over 120 employees and more than 40 years of experience providing aviation-focused services to the Department of Defense in Software & Systems Engineering, Test & Evaluation, and other key aviation specialties. We are the prime contractor supporting the Future Vertical Lift Requirements and Analysis Contract for the US Army at Ft Rucker, AL, and the Aircrew Training Device Development and Support contract supporting the US Air Force at Luke AFB, AZ. SDI is a teammate providing Fixed Wing Flight Training and Rotary Wing Maintenance Test Pilot Support at Ft Rucker, and also delivers systems, software, and technical specialist services to Army clients at the Automated Laser Seeker Performance Enhancement System (ALSPES) Laboratory, Centralized Aviation Flight Records (CAFRS) program, and Joint Systems Integration Laboratory (JSIL) through GSA OASIS and our current GSA Professional Services Schedule. Particularly skilled in unmanned systems, over the past 4 decades SDI has supported every major US Army unmanned aviation system with either development, integration, operations, training, simulation, or maintenance. This includes the deployment, flight operations, and logistics of Contractor and Government Owned Equipment in austere locations OCONUS. Our operational and unmanned systems expertise helped shape early training simulator efforts for the US Army Shadow, Hunter, Gray Eagle and Warrior Alpha platforms, and we today support the latest version of the US Army simulator, the Universal Mission Simulator (UMS). About MAG: MAG Aerospace, headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, is a leader in providing and enabling technology to deliver real-time situational understanding and help its customers make the world smaller and safer. In 10 years, MAG has become the leading independent provider of manned/unmanned full-spectrum outsourced ISR services, with 1,700+ employees operating 200+ platforms over 150,000 flight hours annually on 6 continents. MAG offers turnkey C5ISR services (integration, operations, training) and other specialty aviation along with cyber and engineering services through a technology agnostic approach to government, international, and commercial customers globally. MAG has secured diverse contracts with highly sought after customers across multiple end markets. MAG serves its customers’ ISR needs anywhere in the world under extreme and austere operating conditions ranging from the jungles of South America to the mountains of Afghanistan to the coasts of the world’s oceans.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line690
__label__wiki	0.549641	0.549641	Silver Companies has always been committed to making a positive impact in the communities in which we serve by being charitable to children in need, elderly who have no other means, those suffering from illness who have no where to turn, and families who need it most. Over the years our contributions have created opportunities so people can live better lives, and our donations have often gone without fanfare or recognition. “As far as helping people from a charitable point of view, that’s something we believe in. That’s what we do. We practice that. We always have practiced that.” Carl D. Silver Spotlight Contributions Rabbi Josh Broide Director of Silver Foundation Since 2000, Rabbi Josh Broide has been at the forefront of the nonprofit world leading the way with innovative and award-winning initiatives. He now serves as the Director of both the Silver Foundation and the Deborah and Larry D. Silver Center for Jewish Engagement, a Division of Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County. Josh is also the Outreach Rabbi at Boca Raton Synagogue as well as a Senior Rabbinic Fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. Silver Foundation Proudly Contributes to the Following Organizations: The Deborah & Larry D. Silver Center for Jewish Engagement (CJE), a division of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County, FL, is a major initiative developed to reach deeper into the local Jewish community to connect Jewish residents to Jewish life and to each other. The initiative builds on the Jewish Federation’s long-time efforts to connect Jewish neighbors to each other, to synagogues, to agencies and organizations, and to elements of Federation that align with their individual interests and concerns. The CJE’s groundbreaking successes include ongoing partnerships and friendships among local rabbis and congregations, agency and Jewish community leaders, and residents. Recognized throughout North America and beyond as a unique model that should be replicated widely, the Jewish community of South Palm Beach County was awarded the annual Jerusalem Unity Prize in June, 2018, at the residence of Israel’s President, Reuven Rivlin. As the primary sponsor and ongoing supporter of Loisann’s Hope House, The Silver Foundation is dedicated to helping serve homeless families in the Fredericksburg, VA region. Loisann’s Hope House is designed to improve the quality of life for families by helping them move from homelessness to permanent housing, and is the first and largest family shelter in the Fredericksburg area today. Named in memory of Loisann Silver Chacon, daughter of Maxine & Carl D. Silver and sister of Deborah & Larry D. Silver, Loisann was a compassionate social worker who began her life in Fredericksburg, and dedicated her career to working with mentally ill patients, young people who were homeless, abused children, and people trying to find their way. Silver Foundation built a multimillion-dollar project for the Hillel Jewish student organization on the campus of University of Mary Washington in 2020. The 9,800-square-foot student center was named The Maxine and Carl D. Silver Hillel Center, in honor of Larry Silver’s parents. This two-story building, designed to match UMW’s Jeffersonian architecture, was developed to help grow and sustain a Jewish community on campus and increase multiculturalism in Fredericksburg. Maxine’s Holiday Miracles, sponsored by Silver Foundation in memory of Maxine Silver, has been donating gifts every holiday season to those in need. For the past 22 years, Silver Foundation has donated toys, toiletries, and essentials, benefitting 4,500 children and elderly residents in the greater Fredericksburg, VA area. In memory of the recent passing of Maxine Silver, the donation has now been named Maxine’s Holiday Miracles. Gifts are distributed to 300+ individuals each year from organizations including Loisann’s Hope House, (named in memory of Loisann Silver Chacon, daughter of Maxine Silver), Rappahannock Big Brothers Big Sisters, Stafford County Department of Social Services, Rappahannock Department of Social Services, Caroline County Department of Social Services, and Rappahannock Area Agency on Aging. Major donor to the Carl D. Silver Health Center to house the Lloyd F. Moss Free Clinic, in Fredericksburg, Virginia to provide primary healthcare services to those unable to pay for private medical care. As part of a non-profit health council, the Moss Free Clinic’s mission is to: “Improve the health and wellness of low-income, uninsured people through quality healthcare delivered in an atmosphere of dignity and respect.” Donated the Silver Theater, a frequently used and major part of camp life at Victory Junction, a year-round camping facility designed for children with chronic medical conditions or serious illnesses with no cost for their families. Located in Randleman, NC, Victory Junction was started by the Petty family in honor of their son & grandson, Adam Petty, who died racing as a NASCAR driver following in the footsteps of his father, Kyle Petty, his grandfather, Richard Petty, and his great-grandfather and NASCAR pioneer, Lee Petty. Victory Junction is part of the Paul Newman gang camps.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line695
__label__wiki	0.862428	0.862428	No safe haven—how desperate refugees fleeing conflicts are turned away by Ken Olende and Dave Sewell Published Tue 11 Aug 2015 Refugees and supporters protest in Calais last Saturday (Pic: Passeurs d'hospitalites) A series of bloody conflicts right across the world lie at the roots of the current refugee crisis. There’s nothing wrong with people moving in search of a better life—for whatever reason. But as desperate refugees risk their lives at Britain’s border, many politicians and commentators have devoted themselves to accusing them of faking it. The racists claim “real” refugees would stay in the first country they came to. In reality few refugees come even as far as Europe and those who do find little welcome. But the Tories use this mean-spirited argument to deny a safe haven to people who have travelled thousands of miles to find one—and who have nowhere else to go. Sudan and South Sudan—torn apart by resource wars Britain conquered Sudan in the 1890s and it remained in the British Empire until 1956. Sudan is ten times the size of Britain with a population of about 37 million. Four million people have been internally displaced by repression and war. The dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir which has ruled since 1989 has been rocked by repeated waves of protests in recent years. Sudan has a history of popular uprisings, and people have overthrown dictators in 1964 and 1985. The discovery of oil has led to a renewed interest by imperial powers—and particularly China and the US. It has expanded existing tensions and led to civil war, sometimes fought in Darfur to the west. After years of civil war, the south broke away to form South Sudan in 2011, taking most of the oil producing areas. Disputes over control of the oil have returned the two countries to war. Eritrea—ruled by regime of military terror Eritrea is one of the most militarised societies in the world. Thousands of Eritreans flee each year mainly to avoid compulsory extended military service. The state was colonised by Italy in the late 19th century. The British governed it after the Second World War until it was annexed by Ethiopia. The US supported Ethiopia’s annexation of Eritrea because its ruler at the time was a US ally. But through the Cold War the US cynically supported the EPLF Eritrean rebels against the Ethiopians who were allied with Russia. President Isaias Afewerki was the leader of the EPLF which led a liberation war against Ethiopia. He has been president since independence in 1993. He introduced compulsory military service in 1995. The regime became increasingly authoritarian. Everyone under the age of 50 is enlisted in the military for an open ended period, usually of several years. At any time about 5 percent of Eritreans live in barracks in the desert. There are no official figures, but people interviewed for a recent survey for South Bank University had each spent more than six and a half years in the military. Some serve twice that time. No one can go to university or be formally employed until they have completed national service. This vast conscript army is mostly used for labouring—such as road building. Other functions include working as teachers. “The government has held the youth hostage,” one former conscript told the survey. “You cannot reconstruct a country on forced labour.” Others said “cruel and corrupt” camp commanders “demand sexual favours” and threaten to kill conscripts who do not follow orders. Despite having a population of just 6.5 million, Eritrea produces around 2,000 refugees a month. Somalia—invaded by the US and its allies Somalia is in the Horn of Africa which has been an imperial battleground since the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 put it at the centre of world trade routes. Parts of the country were incorporated into the British and Italian empires. By the 1960s this was refracted through the Cold War. Dictator Major General Mohamed Siad Barre was backed first by the Soviet Union and later the US. Since then the US has directly invaded and has encouraged an invasion by neighbouring Ethiopia. The combined result of these has been to turn the remnants of a relatively moderate Islamist movement that looked capable of setting up a central government into the brutal Al Shabaab. Once more without any functioning central government the country is occupied by troops from Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya. Dadaab across the border in Kenya is currently the biggest refugee camp in the world, housing some 350,000 Somali refugees. Naveed’s journey is ‘dangerous and hard’ Naveed has travelled from Afghanistan to Athens Naveed came to Athens because he was caught “in the middle” of the war in Afghanistan, he told Socialist Worker. His story shows the barriers refugees face at every turn. He was deported on his first attempt to reach Europe. The second time he had to cross by sea to the island of Lesvos after Greece’s land border with Turkey was fenced off. Locals who give migrants a lift on the long walk to the immigration centre can be prosecuted as traffickers—though some have defied the cruel rules. “It’s dangerous and hard,” said Naveed. “Even the taxi drivers say they aren’t allowed to help you.” But his difficulties haven’t ended in Greece. “The situation for people who look for asylum here isn’t good,” he said. “There’s no food, no work, most people are trying to get out”. Naveed’s “dream country” would be Britain. He speaks English, and used to work for a firm distributing food to British troops in Afghanistan. “But I’m very scared that they would turn me down because the immigration system is so bad there,” he said. “That would ruin my life.” Why don’t they stay in Europe? Only a minority of the world’s refugees come to Europe. And Britain takes in a shamefully miniscule proportion of these. But those who don’t want any refugees in Britain ask why they can’t just stay in France. It’s true that European Union (EU) member states are more stable than the places refugees are fleeing—or even transit countries such as Libya or Iran. But that doesn’t mean they provide safe haven. Instead border blockages and diplomatic rows are breaking out inside the EU as states scramble to push refugees out—or push them on. The EU’s Dublin Convention says refugees must seek asylum in the first EU country they enter. Other states use this as an excuse to turn them back. Dublin rules only came into force in 1997. They provide Britain’s justification for the horror of Calais. And the same happens elsewhere. In south eastern France, cops drive refugees back to the Italian town of Ventimiglia. Dozens of migrants camp on the rocks either side of the border. Around 200 held a protest in June, with signs saying “we need to pass”. This blockage is despite Italy and France being part of the Schengen Agreement of open borders between some EU states. At the same time states try to drive refugees to move on by making the asylum process as difficult as possible. A rejection in one EU country would almost certainly rule out asylum in any others. And few EU states offer housing to asylum seekers while they wait to find out. In Paris groups of mainly African migrants have had to defy police violence and attempts to split them up. Hundreds are now occupying an abandoned college—but many are sleeping rough. The post-it note held by one migrant arrested in June shocked France. Handwritten, but with the official stamp of the Calais immigration service, it said, “This man has an appointment with the asylum service. Please authorise him, for a short time, to sleep outdoors where he wants. Thanks!” Many African refugees in Calais came across the Mediterranean then through Italy. Fascist groups in some towns have led violent “protests” to drive them out—backed up by right wing politicians. Afghans and Syrians also face hardship on the “Balkan route” through Greece and Hungary. Around 600 Afghans are stuck in Athens’ Areos Park. Anti-racists demand that abandoned hotels be re-opened to house them. But the authorities have provided just four chemical toilets—creating dire conditions and an outbreak of gastroenteritis. With EU funding, 9,000 Hungarian soldiers are building a 13 foot razor wire fence along the 110 mile border with Serbia. They began two weeks ago and hope to finish by the end of August. Officials in the capital Budapest encourage migrants to hurry on deeper into Europe, while border town Asotthalom has hired armed “rangers” to hunt them down and send them back to Serbia. Government posters say, “If you come to Hungary, you cannot take Hungarians’ jobs.” Volunteers helping migrants claim asylum accuse the authorities of blocking their applications. But this isn’t enough for Hungary’s government. A new law this month defies the Dublin Convention. It says migrants coming through any neighbouring country except war-torn Ukraine should apply for asylum there—effectively making them EU entry countries without EU membership. Fortress Europe doesn’t stop at the Mediterranean. European states are caught in a sickening race to make migration hellish.And Britain leads the pack. Tue 11 Aug 2015, 18:00 BST Vile Tory whips up racism—tell Philip Hammond migrants are welcome here How ‘age-old’ national identities were invented Immigration Detention	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line697
__label__wiki	0.774722	0.774722	Trump’s new version of the same old racist ban The latest version of the Trump administration's Muslim travel ban is about to go into effect--but it's every bit as racist as previous ones, reports Nicole Colson. THE TRUMP administration is back with a new anti-Muslim travel ban--and like the first two, this third version is rooted in bigotry and xenophobia. "Ban 3.0 has roughly the same grossly disproportionate impact on Muslims that Bans 1.0 and 2.0 had," Cornell law professor Michael Dorf wrote. The latest travel ban actually affects more people than the original over time, and more severely. Instead of a 90-day ban (and a 120-day ban on refugees), Trump's latest order bars most travel from seven countries indefinitely, along with new restrictions on travel from two others. As of October 18, most people wanting to travel from Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Chad and North Korea will be barred from entering the U.S., and some of those coming from Iraq or Venezuela will face additional security restrictions. The ban applies in most cases to tourists, families of American residents and even people seeking medical visas--though Iranian students and those seeking business or tourist visas from Somalia may be allowed to enter the U.S. if they receive extra screening. Donald Trump (Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith \| Wikimedia Commons) People with permanent residency status are exempt, along with those who already have visas--but visa holders will not be allowed to renew them once they expire. TRUMP'S FIRST travel ban, signed soon after he took office, was met with outrage and large, often spontaneous, demonstrations at airports across the country that brought out thousands to stand in defense of the rights of Muslims and refugees. That tidal wave of protest and public disgust pressured the courts for decisions that put the ban on hold. The Trump administration came back with a slightly altered but equally racist ban in March that targeted six countries instead of seven--Iraq got left off the list--all of them with populations over 90 percent Muslim. The second ban was also put on hold by multiple federal judges on the grounds that it clearly targeted all Muslims. A decision from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated in May that Trump's ban "drips with religious intolerance, animus and discrimination." Enter the Supreme Court: In June, the high court lifted previous stays on the ban, allowing the most important sections to go into effect. The ban on travel from six countries as well as the entire U.S. refugee program was upheld--but with an exception for those with "a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States." As Mukund Rathi wrote at SocialistWorker.org: "The Court's decision that the ban's supposed benefits to national security outweigh its possible harms is the height of imperial arrogance and cruelty: A message to people fleeing civil wars and sectarian bloodshed that have killed millions that their lives matter less than the remote chance than an American might be killed by a Muslim 'terrorist.'" With the previous ban about to expire, the Trump administration rushed a new one into place, even before all the legal appeals of the last one were dealt with. As Mariko Hirose, litigation director of the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), said in a statement to Politico: This case is certainly not moot for our clients and for all of those who continue to be discriminated against by this shameful order and its updated version. IRAP and our partners are not done fighting for the rights of refugees, Muslim Americans and their families. We will be back in court next week to challenge the most recent iteration of the Muslim ban. This administration should know that we will not give up until they're held accountable for their discriminatory actions. IN THEORY, the new version of the ban will only remain in place until listed countries meet certain security requirements demanded by the Department of Homeland Security and prove they no longer have a "significant terrorist presence within their territory." But meeting those standards will be difficult if not impossible, simply because of lack of technology in some cases. There's also no clear understanding of what the latest ban will mean for those seeking to enter the U.S. as refugees--the latest order doesn't apply to them. However, the Trump administration signaled to Congress recently that it will cap the total number of refugees allowed into the U.S. at 45,000 next year--the lowest number since 1980, when presidents first began setting a cap. The cap was 110,000 during the last year of the Obama administration--and even that was woefully inadequate given the untold millions around the globe who have been forced to flee their homes as a direct result of U.S. economic and military actions in the Middle East and beyond. Now, the addition of North Korea and Venezuela to the list of targeted countries--though with limited restrictions, especially for Venezuela--reflects Trump's current political preoccupations with the hostile, nuclear-armed regime Kim Jong-un and the legacy of left-wing governments in Venezuela. But there is another cynical purpose to the administration's action: Providing a possible legal counter to claims that the ban is unconstitutional because it discriminates on the basis of religion by primarily targeting Muslims. In reality, there should be no doubt about the Islamophobia at the heart of the latest ban, any more than there was in previous versions. As Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement: Six of President Trump's targeted countries are Muslim. The fact that Trump has added North Korea--with few visitors to the U.S.--and a few government officials from Venezuela doesn't obfuscate the real fact that the administration's order is still a Muslim ban. President Trump's original sin of targeting Muslims cannot be cured by throwing other countries onto his enemies list. IF VERSION 3.0 of the travel ban was really about restricting entry of people from countries with a known terrorist presence, then it would include U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The fact that the ban doesn't proves that the Trump administration's claims are as bogus now as they have been all along. The indefinite time frame of this new action is especially troubling. "There is no light at the end of the tunnel anymore," Mirriam Seddiq, an immigration lawyer and founder of the American Muslim Women Political Action Committee, told Vox. "Before, the argument was, 'This is only 90 days; why are you freaking out?'" Likewise, the administration's decision to separate out the issue of refugees is likely an attempt to curtail popular anger--and the threat of a repeat of the kind of mass protests that hit airports when the first ban was announced. At those protests, hundreds--and in some cases thousands--turned out to demand that refugees and others traveling to the U.S. be allowed to enter. In some cases, lawyers and other immigrant rights advocates set up makeshift offices to help secure the release of vulnerable people caught in transit. And in many cities, those first airport protests led directly to demonstrations of thousands more in the following days. It was one of the most inspiring examples of solidarity of the early days of the Trump presidency. Now, as the latest ban gets set to take effect, activists are organizing a "No Muslim Ban Ever" day of action on October 18, sponsored by several immigrant rights groups. A return to the kind of protests we saw after the first ban will be necessary in the days and weeks ahead to halt this recycled version of Trump's racist policy. Jonah ben Avraham Criticizing Israel while Black (and Muslim) Ilhan Omar, one of the new progressives in Congress, is being attacked for speaking the truth about the power of Israel’s supporters. Elizabeth Schulte Nabra Hassanen had more than one murderer A young man is behind bars for Nabra Hassanen's murder, but there are many other people responsible for promoting deadly anti-Muslim hate. Countering anti-Muslim hate around the U.S. "Anti-Sharia law" protests in over 20 cities were met with counterprotests that vastly outnumbered the bigots in many places. Christopher Baum Fear and ignorance defeat a mosque A proposal to build a mosque in Bayonne, New Jersey, was blocked by an Islamophobic campaign that made headlines. The left can’t litigate Trump into submission Trump's first travel ban directed at Muslims suffered a stinging legal defeat, but we shouldn't put our faith in a legal strategy. Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky The heroes and sheroes of New Orleans SW contributors Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Beth Slonsky were trapped in New Orleans by Katrina--their story, first told here, shocked the world. The power to stop the far right The counterprotest in Washington, D.C., is important in confronting the threat of the far right — and also in building up our class’s power. Lee Sustar Trump’s trade war on the world The president’s attack on G7 allies was carried out with typical crudeness, but Trump’s “America First” policies are bringing old issues to a head. What will it take for unions to survive Janus? Union members are mobilizing to protest the Janus case before the U.S. Supreme Court. SW asked three of our contributors about the stakes for labor. Campus crusaders for hate Get ready: The right wing--from pro-Trump College Republicans to well-dressed reactionaries to outright fascists--is coming for your college.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line698
__label__cc	0.594484	0.405516	#NoHeroes The Problem With White Supremacy The problem with white supremacy is the supremacy, not that it is white supremacy in particular. I could not agree to that statement without reservations. These reservations arise because the way `white' is used as an identity marker can vary from community to community. In at least some cases -- for instance in the work of Sally Haslanger; it's also very common in cultural studies and swathes of the humanities, as well as activist circles influenced by these traditions -- `white' more or less picks out `people at the top of a local racial hierarchy'. Understood in this way then the initial statement might look like it's objecting to concreteness in analysis, objecting to focussing on an instantiation whereby a particular group of people have power, rather than an abstract form of supremacy as such. This, though, is not what I mean to agree to -- I don't want people to pay less attention to the particular mechanisms which underlie or uphold white supremacy, Conservative Under-Representation in the Academy The topic of conservatives in the academy has recently gained a lot of attention -- for instance see here . There has been much gnashing of teeth over whether or not conservatives are somehow repressed or otherwise under-represented in the academy. I think this is a bit more diffuse a phenomenon than has been made out, and I think a lot of the works in the genre are either awful or just crude propaganda. So, I think I can do better, and in particular do so with the help of some distinctions because that's how philosophers roll. I begin with a (non-exhaustive) typology of (British and American) conservatisms. Risk-Averse Conservatism: the basic idea here is that societies are very complicated things indeed, and lives are on the line if we mess up. As bad as things are now, we may still want to be very cautious in reforming things; because short of a state of Hobbesian anarchy they could always be much worse, and our ignorance of the nature of society is such that we are disturbi Schlick's Utopia Moritz Schlick-- "The 11th Doctor stole my look." Sometimes, when philosophers are bored, we get to describing Utopia. A little known fact about one of my philosophical faves (#NoFaves?) is that he indulged in this pass-time. Shortly before he was murdered in 1936, Schlick had prepared a manuscript for what was to be the basis of a book on social and political philosophy. Drawing entirely from the work of Hubert Schleichert , I'll give a quick summary of Schlick's views on the perfect society. I think it reveals a very different side of Schlick to the one philosophers are familiar with. (How on earth would you verify these propositions!?) Note that I am describing without endorsing - I'll say a bit about what I think of it at the end. It's a long post today! Schlick starts from the assertion that There is nothing in our European civilisation that causes more grief than the state. Under it we suffer most. He then tries to analyse why this is and w Intersectional Alienation Anna Cooper - ``Liam is a fan of how generally disappointed with everyone & everything I seem to be in this photo.'' A long time ago me and some comrades -- the magnificent Dan Malinsky and the terrific Morgan Thompson -- got together to discuss intersectionality theory. Intersectionality theory is a set of ideas that has recently gained prominence after influential work by Kimberlé Crenshaw and the origins of which is often traced back to work by Anna Julia Cooper. It stresses the various ways in which the fact that we simultaneously occupy multiple demographic categories can complicate or undermine social theories that attempt to focus on the consequences of just one demographic category at the time. Examples of allegedly insufficiently intersectional approaches to studying social life are feminist theories of patriarchy, or Marxist theories of class oppression -- the charge of the intersectionality theorist is that something very important is missed out by ne Last Positivist I teach and think and fail.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line708
__label__cc	0.551877	0.448123	5 things Yankees fans should be thankful for this Thanksgiving Scott Thompson Yankees thankful treated art Yankee fans, you didn’t get to see another World Series title despite the lineup looking like one that could do it. But, this holiday season, there is still a lot to be thankful for with this team. Here are five things Yankees fans should be grateful for following the shortened 2020 season and heading into next year: 1) There was baseball Remember when the game actually may not have been played? Being able to have a safe season amidst this pandemic seemed improbable, but MLB figured it out with an entirely new format, including expanded playoffs. All 60 games were played, and the postseason bubble was put in place. So the fact that the Yankees actually played baseball and were able to travel to San Diego to play in the postseason is something to be thankful for in itself. 2) Gerrit Cole was the as-advertised ace Cole’s first season with the Yankees was always going to be under a ginormous microscope, and he didn’t care. The spotlight is something he thrives in and it showed all season long. Yes, he had an issue with the long ball (14 allowed in the regular season). But he still finished with a 2.84 ERA over 12 starts, which included two complete games and one shutout, over 73 innings of work. Of course, Cole would’ve loved to close out Game 5 of the ALDS against the Tampa Bay Rays, but he wasn’t pitching on short rest to begin with. Either way, Cole performed when he needed to, gave the Yankees the innings depth that he has throughout his career, and pitched at an ace-like level all season. It was a great start, and with many more years to come, having Cole in the rotation long-term makes you sleep a little better at night. 3) DJ LeMahieu – no matter what happens in free agency LeMahieu’s free agent status is something that might be uneasy. It might even be a topic of conversation at the dinner table tonight. But no matter what happens in the race to land LeMahieu’s services, be thankful that he has been the Yankees’ MVP for the last two seasons. That consistent, clutch hitting he gave whenever he stepped to the plate was something that awed every fan in 2019. They knew he was good with the Rockies, but he took a big leap when he put the pinstripes on. LeMahieu was easily the Yankees’ best player during their 2019 playoff run, and it could be argued for last season as well after winning the AL batting title. GM Brian Cashman is working hard to sign him yet again, but there are other suitors out there. No fan wants to say goodbye to that sweet swing and trusty glove, but even if it is so, LeMahieu truly gave his all for the Bombers. 4) Gio Urshela What isn’t there to be thankful about regarding this guy? He’s a vacuum cleaner at third base, sometimes making plays that just make you wonder if your eyes are deceiving you. And then he gets to the plate and ropes a double or a home run. Remember, this was a player who came over to the Yankees for peanuts and has developed into someone that Miguel Andujar, the runner-up in Rookie of the Year voting two seasons ago, can’t beat out in spring training. Urshela has become such an asset for this Yankees team and secures one of the hardest positions to play in the sport. And he does so with the biggest smile on his face because playing for the Yanks is a dream job. A hat tip to you, Gio. 5) The future Down the road, Yankee fans should be thankful for the prospects that the front office has been able to secure. We’ve already seen the likes of Deivi Garcia, Clarke Schmidt and others during this 2020 season that shows some promise. But what about the “next Mike Trout” in Jasson Dominguez, who is the team’ No. 1 prospect? There’s also tons of hard-throwing pitchers in the system like Luis Gil, Alexander Vizcaino and more. Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza are middle infielders in the Top 10, too. While the Yankees’ lineup is already one of the best in the game, these young prospects are extremely solid and it’s always good to be able to feel happy about what the future might hold.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line712
__label__cc	0.743147	0.256853	Drivers' Day Off Before WDC Finale Drivers To Converge At Clinton ORC Rules On Waxman, McNair And Five Other Appeals Dream Of Glory To Remember Titans Pacing For Charity Photos McNair Wins Pompano Debut A Year To Remember For McNair McNair On His Hot Start To 2020 Published: February 9, 2020 1:15 pm ET He notched 180 victories and steered his drives to $4.72-million in purses in 2019, but the season left a bad taste in the mouth of reinsman Doug McNair. He promised himself he would come back bigger and better in 2020. The proof has been in the pudding thus far, and the Woodbine Mohawk Park driving colony has been forced to deal with his wrath. From 166 starts so far in 2020, McNair has tallied 38 wins, accrued a UDR of .354, and has guided his charges to $508,910 in purses. Canada’s 2017 driver of the year is currently riding a high that has taken him to the top of the standings at Woodbine Mohawk Park. Things are definitely clicking, but McNair isn’t taking it for granted. “It just kind of rolls like a snowball when you get rolling like that,” McNair told Chad Rozema on Saturday night (Feb. 8) during the ‘Woodbine Racing Live’ broadcast. “Everybody wants to use you (when you’re hot). That’s what you need if you want to be one of the leading drivers: you need to drive for all the guys, not just the top guys, but any ‘small time’ guys that bring good, live horses in here. You just want to get listed on them first or backup on them. If you get on the right horses, that’s definitely what’s set me ahead of the rest of the guys this year: I’ve just been on live horses and it really helps.” What has also helped is McNair’s refocus when it comes to his sulky craft. He’s racing like he has something to prove – to himself, if no one else. “I didn’t have a huge year last year. I made some mistakes on and off the track. I was off in January and then I was off for another six weeks in November and part of December, so I made a few mistakes and I’m just happy to be back on the right track.” McNair went on to say, “I’ve actually been going to the gym quite a bit for the past couple of months, more than I have in the past. I took a month off of drinking… so just to focus more on racing, sort of block everything else out and focus on one thing. I think that really helps when you’re driving racehorses: to stay in shape mentally, and physically, too, because I really think that weight makes a pretty big difference.” Doug McNair, pictured victorious at Woodbine Mohawk Park. Post position has been a renewed topic of discussion at Mohawk as of late, and McNair answered a viewer question in regard to starting spots at the Campbellville, Ont. oval. When asked whether Post 1 is a positive or negative at Mohawk, McNair opined that it is the latter if you want to get your horse involved in the race early. “You can make the front off the rail,” said McNair, “but you have to go as hard as you can from the time you get out of the turn to the time you get to the first turn. So, I’d take [Post 1] over the nine hole, but it’s a tough spot to get out of, especially with a young trotter or a tricky-gaited horse. You’ve really got to watch in the first few steps, because the gate comes back and then jumps ahead, but [if you’re looking to get away in the] middle of the pack it’s not a bad spot.” Doug McNair	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line713
__label__cc	0.587374	0.412626	STUART GRIMLEY MP Member for Western Victoria \| Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party Western Victoria Region Media & In Parliament Speeches in Parliament Motion: Sexual Assault Data Mr GRIMLEY (Western Victoria) (17:57): I move: That this house: (1) notes that: (a) the 2016 personal safety survey recorded that only one in 10 women who had experienced a form of sexual assault by a male contacted the police to report the offending; (b) the experiences of victims and survivors are not often considered when proposing reforms to Victoria’s legal system; (c) the under-reporting of sexual offending and sexual assault cases is not the result of any individual cause; (d) some victims withdraw sexual abuse charges due to the lack of support or belief in the reporting process and feeling pressure from the offender or family in the process; (e) as the gatekeepers to the pursuit of legal action in a sexual assault, training of sexual offences and child abuse investigation team officers, which considers the complex relationships and trauma experienced by the victim, is fundamental to providing positive outcomes for victims, therefore combatting rates of attrition and non-reporting; (f) it is impossible to determine responses to under-reporting without the centralised recording of reasons for the withdrawal of sexual assault cases; (2) calls on the Andrews government to: (a) create a centralised and publicly available database of victim’s experiences and complaints when pursuing sexual offending charges; and (b) undertake authoritative investigation into the specific causes of low rates of reporting and high rates of attrition at each stage of progress through the legal system and consequent reform recommendations. You do not know what you cannot find, and that is the principle that underpins my motion in this house today. How can you change something or attempt to change something if you do not know the problems that warrant the change? In context, it is essential that we know the reasons why sexual assault cases are being withdrawn, not pursued and not prosecuted, in order to address Victoria’s low rates of reporting and high rates of attrition. As many of you know, I worked for a few years in Victoria Police and for some years in the sexual offences and child abuse investigation teams, otherwise known as SOCIT. It is one of the reasons I joined Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party and the reason I stand here today fighting for victims and our kids. To give you a little bit of information about current practice in Victoria Police, the current primary mainframe system used by VicPol is called the law enforcement assistance program, or LEAP. A secondary intelligence database used alongside LEAP is known as Interpose. Both systems hold narratives behind complaints and the details of the offences recorded. It is in LEAP and Interpose that police input data that reflect the status of investigations, and they allow for the court results to be inputted as well once they are done. Generally speaking, LEAP has the following reasons as generic responses as to why charges or investigations are not proceeded with, and they include: ‘complaint withdrawn’ and ‘offender processed’. These codes expose critical gaps in the keeping of police records and the recording of data. Essentially the systems currently utilised by VicPol do not keep accurate records of why any investigations do not lead to an arrest or other formal action. This is particularly concerning in relation to the offences of sexual assault. I actually queried whether LEAP codes could be adapted to incorporate more situations or reasons, but the advice I received from the Chief Commissioner of Police’s office was that this could be misleading. In what way? I am not sure. One of the main issues that underpin the discussion today is the low rate of sexual assault reporting by victims. This should not be a revelation to anyone this place, yet it remains a real and ever-growing problem. If victims of crime, especially sexual crimes, are not coming forward, how are we going to rehabilitate or address this behaviour? This is most important for recidivist offenders, who without proper treatment will continue to offend. Not the least, sexual assaults also have a devastating effect on survivors and their families. This problem of under-reporting obviously builds on a big problem we have in Victoria and Australia more broadly regarding the perceptions of sexual crimes, including that these are taboo to talk about and, more disturbingly, that victims ‘asked for it’, otherwise known as victim blaming. When a sexual assault is reported in the media, we hear at times some people say, ‘Well, they shouldn’t have been walking there at night’ or ‘Well, have a look at what they were wearing’. You rarely hear comments such as, ‘Why did that person sexually assault the other?’; comments almost always turn to victim blaming rather than focusing on the offender who commits the crime in the very first place. An example of why attitudes need to change comes back to a horrible sexual assault in Geelong. It was 2015. A young girl, who in the media report was known as Amy, was gang-raped by three adult men in a park. Several reforms came about as a result of her parents’ strong advocacy and the community outrage, but no convictions were laid—but I will get to that later on. I just wanted to touch on the limited progress in community attitudes towards women, especially young women, in sexual assault and rape charges. After the allegations became public, the details of which I assume many of you know in this place, a Geelong police officer went on ABC radio to answer questions from the community. The first question, bewilderingly, was something to the effect of, ‘What was a young girl doing out there at that hour?’. The officer rightly replied on radio that the first question should be: what were three adult men doing allegedly raping a young girl? This is still a dangerous community attitude that needs to change. Amy’s parents said they had been warned their daughter would be brutalised in the witness stand, which is one reason why many rape reports do not reach court, let alone our police stations here in Victoria. There have been reforms to make the court process more approachable by successive state governments over the past decade, including the Criminal Procedure Act 2009, which restricted the cross-examination of witnesses, including victims at committal hearings; the Justice Legislation Miscellaneous Amendment Bill 2018, which followed the 2015 Victorian Law Reform Commission report titled The Role of Victims of Crime in the Criminal Trial Process, where among other things, restrictions were introduced for the cross-examination of intellectually disabled witnesses and child witnesses; and the Labor state government agreeing to adopt the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the Royal Commission into Family Violence as well. More broadly the introduction of witness screens, support dogs, visual audio recorded evidence statements and intermediaries for children has showed great progress in this space. But I reiterate that this does not mean that things are perfect, and having the knowledge as to why cases are not reported in higher numbers and why other cases do not make it to court is incredibly important if we are to address the continuing rise of sexual offending. In this case I have mentioned, at the request of Amy and through close consultation with the Office of Public Prosecutions (OPP), her parents decided not to pursue the charges, because of the trauma associated with cross-examination by three defence barristers and the likelihood of a very minor sentence being preferred and, if not, the possibility of acquittal. Back to my point about the community outrage, there were no convictions. This was a decision by the victim and one that should be respected; however, this case is not isolated, and this motion affirms a belief that these cases—again, without taking away a victim’s anonymity, or the alleged perpetrator’s, for that matter—should have the specific reasons for attrition reported, not just ‘complaint withdrawn’. A few years after the ordeal, Amy’s mother said this, and I quote: When Amy researched the conviction rates for rape cases she couldn’t believe they were so low and that the prosecution of sexual assaults was so difficult. She was appalled that only one in 10 reported rape cases got a conviction. This makes you wonder if there are cases that are withdrawn because the victim thinks, or is even informed by police or their lawyers, that the rate of convictions is low. Speaking with Amy’s mother, this is what she said about this motion, and I quote: [QUOTE AWAITING VERIFICATION] I am contacted by many victims and mothers of victims, some with more horrific circumstances than Amy’s, and they don’t report because the system is so difficult and they will be revictimised, so I think the problem is much larger than the statistics indicate. Nothing major will occur to change behaviours unless there is data which exposes the magnitude of the issue in the same way it did for victims of family violence. An ABC Investigations piece published online in January this year, which many of you have read and which I have circulated prior to this in an email, stated that: In Victoria, complaints withdrawn soared to one in four in 2018. But without context, how do we know what this means? In the same story Don Weatherburn, a professor at the University of New South Wales, is quoted as saying, and I quote: That’s obviously a problem because if police don’t keep track of why reports of sexual assault don’t result in legal action, there’s little anyone can do to improve the number of successful prosecutions. Karen Willis, executive director of Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, is quoted as saying regarding police reporting data that, and I quote: It’s a ‘tick a box’— exercise, probably suggesting that it should be more than just that. But this is not a blame game. I am grateful to have met with the new chief commissioner recently, over Zoom of course. In this meeting the general reason for not pursuing the database was that LEAP and Interpose do not support such changes in data input, which may further complicate the extraction of data. Whilst this might be the case, I think this is a reason to pursue changes to Victoria Police databases, data from which is reported to the public in annual reports either by Victoria Police or by the Victorian Crime Statistics Agency. A problem we seem to be currently having in this space is perhaps the communication between our regular police on the beat, senior VicPol personnel who sign off on cases to pursue or ultimately not to pursue and the Office of Public Prosecutions. In my experience and from the feedback I have had from stakeholders, there is continuous decision-making between the two latter groups about which cases should or should not make it to court, as you would expect, but it is not unusual for the informant not to be advised of these discussions. However, there is frustration that the reasons are not public and therefore not scrutinised. I concede that there is the option of victims of crime submitting complaints to the Ombudsman, where the public can lodge complaints about decisions taken by government departments or agencies. However, how does an ordinary person know if their case should or should not have been tested in court? A problem I see is that when an investigation is not resolved in court it is the end of the story, and there is no public knowledge or awareness of why these matters were ultimately not pursued or successfully prosecuted. This data is simply not being collected. On this matter I have to pay an enormous amount of respect and thanks to Patrick Tidmarsh, a criminologist and subject matter expert in this field. Patrick is an industry expert on sexual offending and the investigation of sexual crimes, and his views were the catalyst for this motion before you today. Patrick said, and I quote: “SOCIT would probably authorise a significant percentage more cases than they do if they didn’t have to second-guess what they thought the OPP would do.” This demonstrates that there are instances where senior uniformed members probably do not send a file to the OPP because they think it will be sent back with a message, ‘Sorry, we can’t pursue this’, so the evidence therefore is never tested. The idea of a database to contextualise attrition has been called for or suggested since 2006 in New South Wales, where the Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research reported the need to have further context or explanation around reasons for withdrawal. I quote: In cases that are cleared without any charges being laid, police commonly include a notation on their system such as arrest not desired or no formal action in relation to the suspected offender. These descriptors, however, provide no insight into why the offence was cleared but criminal proceedings not commenced. The report identified a number of key questions in this space. In particular: What are the precise reasons why police and prosecutors do not commence criminal proceedings? This data is key as it is essential to understand the reasons underlying the closure of an incident without the initiation of criminal proceedings. The findings of the report go on to say that: This could be achieved by … tracking cases from the reporting of the incident through to conclusion to assess the precise reasons for the decisions made at various stages— and by routinely recording this data on their law-enforcement databases. Put simply, in order to improve the reasons for high attrition we need to understand the reasons for attrition at all stages of the criminal process. It is really important to note that reporting of sexual assault has gone up significantly in the past decade or so, and I am certainly not trying to hide from that fact. In the 2012 calendar year the number of sexual assaults reported was just under 9000, and in the 2016 calendar year, it was just under 30 000 according to the Crime Statistics Agency. This trend is extrapolated to and can be linked as a result of the royal commission, changing community attitudes towards assault and modern campaigns such as #MeToo. But attrition rates are still over 90 per cent, and that is the problem. The reference in this motion to low rates of reporting alludes to the fact that the data out there suggests that almost nine out of every 10 aggravated sexual assault incident in the last 10 years did not result in contact with the police according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. On this note, mentioning how much sexual assault reporting has increased by way of real numbers it would be remiss of me, especially as a former sexual offences and child abuse investigation team detective, to stand here and not advocate for more funding and training for SOCIT officers. Their specialist training, their ability to deal compassionately with survivors of sexual assault and their investigation skills are to be commended, but they are only human and can only handle a certain workload—and I can surely attest to that. I absolutely implore the government, as a sidenote, to consider this. I also want to place on the record that I recognise that not all complaints withdrawn are necessarily a bad thing. With some modern approaches to mending relationships and restorative justice practices we may see victims withdraw complaints under mutual agreement with the accused, and I do not see this as a bad thing at all. But again I come back to the point that by having data collected with this information we can read into these statistics and narratives more, which is the important point. Again, this is all about information sharing and gathering rather than punishing people or, in this instance, vilifying someone for getting back with their partner. One of the final things I will say is that we can always be assured that where there is publicity of something, scrutiny is able to follow. So, if this motion is supported, I hope it puts some onus on the government bodies and parties involved to, firstly, increase the level of information used when recording and reporting on sexual assault crimes and, secondly, carefully consider ways to reduce Victoria’s high attrition rates. Lastly, I did not stand up here today with a bill or a specific model about who should report what, when and how often, because the truth is I do not have access to all the information that I would need to make those decisions. That is why I am actively seeking to work with the government on this, to recognise that there is still massive under-reporting of sexual assault and high attrition rates. Part (2) of this motion asks the government to create this database after investigating and reporting on the causes of under-reporting and high attrition rates, and I hope we can work together on this. This is also with the caveat that identifying factors are not to be published in that instance. I also note that there has been an amendment circulated by Mr O’Donohue. I do not think it has been formally circulated in the chamber but via the emails that I have had a look at. I have certainly had a look at the amendment, which we are not totally averse to, but I can talk on that later if I have time. In summing up I encourage the support of this chamber so that we as decision-makers can be better equipped with the knowledge to make appropriate reforms to our system with regard to the experiences of sexual abuse survivors, because at the end of the day you do not know what you cannot find, and once we have this information in front of us we can make better decisions. It is about the protection and support of victims of sexual offences. I look forward to hearing the other contributions in this place on this matter, and I commend this motion to the house. Image Based Sexual Offences Justice Legislation Amendment Drug Court and Other Matters Bill 2020 Human Tissue Amendment Bill 2020 Horrific Injuries Against Animals Transport Legislation Amendment Bill 2020 (03) 5218 5001 \| 1/15 Pearl Street, Torquay VIC 3228 \| Email Stuart Copyright © 2019 Stuart Grimley \| Funded from Parliamentary Budget \| Contact Us \| Website by Dutch Media Parks and Crown Land Legislation Amendment Bill 2019 Thank you Operation Molto!	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line715
__label__wiki	0.876737	0.876737	Masha lines up Moscow Fed Cup return Maria Sharapova will make a long-overdue return to the Russian Fed Cup team for their quarter-final tie against France in February. Sharapova, a three-time Grand Slam champion, will anchor the four time champions having last represented her country in the women’s team event in a quarter-final victory over Israel in 2008, her sole appearance in the competition. Having battled back from persistent shoulder problems, the 23-year-old will team up with two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova, former world No.1 Dinara Safina and teenage star Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. “Sharapova has agreed to play the first round,” announced Russian Fed Cup captain Shamil Tarpischev. “She has fully recovered from the problems with her shoulder and again could challenge for the No.1 spot.” Vera Zvonareva, the world No.2 and 2010 US Open and Wimbledon finalist, will miss the tie because of a contractual obligation to play at a WTA tournament, but will join the team if Russia advances to the semifinals of the competition. “Vera will help the team no matter where we play — in Australia or at home against Austria,” Tarpischev said. Russia has claimed four Fed Cup titles, winning the title for the first time in 2004 and defending their crown in 2005, before doing the double again in 2007 and 2008. They are 5-3 all-time versus the French, including victories in the 2004 and 2005 finals. The last time Russia fell on home soil, however, was in 2003 – losing against France in a semifinal showdown in Moscow. The winners of the tie, to be held on February 5-6 2011, will face either Australia or defending champions Italy.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line720
__label__cc	0.561673	0.438327	Sec 10(38), CBDT provides host of exemptions Rekha Bagry \| Income Tax - Articles- Featured- Trending This article summarises the amendment brought in Section 10(38) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, the exemptions provided under the section through notification issued by the central government and discusses few situations where exemption may not be available. Prior to the Finance Act, 2017, section 10(38) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (ITA) provided exemption on any income arising on sale of listed equity shares held for a period of more than 12 months, if Securities Transaction Tax (STT) was paid on such sale. The memorandum to the Finance Act, 2017 stated that the exemption provided under section 10(38) of the ITA was misused for declaring unaccounted income as exempt from long term capital gains by entering into sham transactions. To re-align the benefit granted under this section with its intent, the Finance Act, 2017 has amended section 10(38) of the ITA, to provide that exemption from income arising on transfer of long-term equity shares acquired on or after 1 October, 2004, shall be available only if STT is paid when acquiring shares. However, to protect such exemption for genuine cases (IPO, FPO, bonus, rights issue) in which STT could not have been paid, central government would notify certain transactions. The CBDT had issued a press release on 3 April, 2017, along with a draft notification to be issued under section 10(38) of the ITA. The draft notification contained a list of transactions for which the exemption under the section would not be available. On 5 June, 2017, the central government issued the final notification in this regard. While the final notification is similar to the draft notification in terms of prescribing a list of transactions, relaxation has been provided for some transactions of acquisition. The acquisitions made on or after 1 October, 2004, without payment of STT and that shall not be entitled to exemption under section 10(38) of the ITA are reproduced as follows: a. Where acquisition of existing listed equity share in a company whose equity shares are not frequently traded in a recognised stock exchange of India is made through a preferential issue. b. Where transaction for acquisition of existing listed equity shares in a company is not entered through a recognised stock exchange of India. c. The acquisition of equity shares of a company during the period beginning from the date on which the company is delisted from a recognised stock exchange and ending on the date immediately preceding the date on which the company is again listed on a recognised stock exchange in accordance with the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956, read with Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992 (15 of 1992) and the rules made thereunder. To exclude genuine transactions of acquisitions of listed equity shares, made without payment of STT, the CBDT excluded the following transactions, which would not be subject to the above rigour. Exclusions to clause (a) Exclusions to clause (b) Acquisition approved by the Supreme Court, High Court, National Company Law Tribunal, Securities and Exchange Board of India or Reserve Bank of India in this behalf. Acquisition through an issue of shares by a company other than the issue referred to in clause (a). Acquisition by any non-resident in accordance with foreign direct investment guidelines issued by the Government of India. Acquisition by scheduled banks, reconstruction or securitisation companies or public financial institutions during their ordinary course of business. Acquisition by an investment fund being a Category I or a Category II Alternate Investment Fund or a venture capital fund referred to in section 10(23FB) of the Act or a Qualified Institutional Buyer. Acquisition which has been approved by the Supreme Court, High Courts, National Company Law Tribunal, Securities and Exchange Board of India or Reserve Bank of India in this behalf. Acquisition through preferential issue to which the provisions of chapter VII of the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Issue of Capital and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2009 do not apply. Acquisition under employee stock option scheme or employee stock purchase scheme framed under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Employee Stock Option Scheme and Employee Stock Purchase Scheme) Guidelines, 1999. Acquisition by any non-resident in accordance with foreign direct investment guidelines of the Government of India. Acquisition of shares of company made under Securities and Exchange Board of India (Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers) Regulation, 2011. Acquisition from the government Acquisition by an investment fund being a Category I or a Category II Alternate Investment Fund or a venture capital fund referred to in section 10(23FB) of the Act or a Qualified Institutional Buyer; Acquisition by mode of transfer referred to in sections 47 (e.g., transfer of capital asset under a gift, transfer of capital asset to an irrevocable trust, transfer of capital asset between holding company and its subsidiary, transfer pursuant to amalgamation, demerger, etc.) or 50B (slump sale) of the Act, if the previous owner of such shares has not acquired them by any mode referred to in clause (a) or clause (b) or clause (c) [other than the transactions referred to in the proviso to clause (a) or clause (b)]. This Notification is with effect from Financial Year 2017-18. Hence, any transactions (between 1 April, 2017 and 5 June, 2017) that are covered under the Notification, will be subject to tax (in the year of sale of shares). The Notification defines “frequently traded shares” as shares of a company, in which the traded turnover on a recognised stock exchange during 12 calendar months preceding the calendar month in which the transfer is made is at least 10% of the total number of shares of such class of company. This may still pose challenges for transactions in highly valued companies that are not frequently traded. The final notification has addressed most of the genuine transactions not covered in the draft notification. However, it will be helpful to provide clarity for some genuine transactions, such as in case of any distribution of existing listed equity shares by a company to its shareholders on liquidation, transfer of shares between relatives for consideration or strategic acquisitions by private equity investors from promoters of existing listed companies. The Notification has assailed many do’s and don’ts and it is clear that the government wants to restrain any non-genuine transactions with its amendment. Authors: Rekha Bagry, Partner, M&A Tax PwC India and Manjit Bhimajiani, Associate Director, M&A Tax PwC India Views expressed are personal to the author and the article contains inputs from Pradeep Sethia, Assistant Manager, M&A Tax, PwC India and Nihal Rajendran, Associate, M&A Tax, PwC India Tags: Capital Gain, Long Term Capital Gain, Long Term Infrastructure Bond, Long Term Investment, Securities Transaction Tax, STT Name: Rekha Bagry Company: N/A Location: Maharashtra, IN Member Since: 11 Apr 2017 \| Total Posts: 5 Insolvency and the tax conundrum Valuation of unquoted shares…some distance to go Family Arrangement Migration from LLP to Company structure nisha kumari says: For availing exemption u/s 10(38) of income tax STT ought to be paid at the time of acquisition .But what is the tax implication if it is paid at the time of exiting . Will it qualify for the exemption ? Like in the case of mutual fund bagryrekha says: Hi Nisha, In relation to your query, STT now needs to be paid at the time of purchase of equity shares on or after October 1, 2004 (subject to carve out provided in the final notification) and at the time of sale of equity shares, to avail the benefits under section 10(38) of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Leave a Comment to nisha kumari Notice: It seems you have Javascript disabled in your Browser. In order to submit a comment to this post, please write this code along with your comment: 91f28378222c4732dcb5902f705ab5df	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line721
__label__wiki	0.780477	0.780477	Amazon expands program that pays Alexa developers for top-performing voice apps Amazon today announced a new program that gives developers a way to earn money for their Alexa skills – the voice apps that run on smart speakers like the Echo, and other Alexa-powered devices. According to the company, developers will be compensated for top-performing and “engaging” voice apps across over a half-dozen categories, including games, which were previously being compensated through a similar program. This program had first begun in May, when Amazon quietly introduced direct cash payouts to Alexa developers with popular games. Now, Amazon will begin to reward voice apps in other categories, including Education & Reference, Food & Drink, Health & Fitness, Lifestyle, Music & Audio, and Productivity, it says. The idea here is to offer developers a means of making money from their Alexa skills ahead of any formal monetization program. The Alexa App Store today doesn’t let developers charge users for paid voice apps, nor does it allow for in-app purchases. Amazon even changed its policies related to Alexa skill building in order to shut down the first ad network designed for Alexa skills back in June. That’s left developers to build skills largely as a labor of love – and because they want to be ahead of the game, when Amazon does finally introduce some sort of real business model for generating money from voice applications. Amazon doesn’t specifically detail in its blog post how it determines what makes an Alexa skill “engaging.” Rather, the company explains that it’s looking for skills that are designed to be “voice-first,” that are unique, that feature fresh content on a regular basis, and those that make life easier for people, as compared with using a search engine. For example, using a translation skill to figure out how to say something in another language is simpler than having to type the query into a search engine, says Amazon. In addition, Amazon reiterated that games are some of the most engaging skills on the Alexa platform – likely why they were the first category to receive compensation. Though Amazon doesn’t provide a full list of metrics or thresholds that developers should pay attention to, one Alexa developer who has been earning rewards for game skills tells us he believes the payouts are largely tied to rankings. The top six skills get payouts from $5,000 for #1 down to about $2,000 for #6, he estimated. Then the next 300 or so get payouts from about $1,000 for #7 down to about $100 for #300. Alexa developers don’t have all that many numbers to track, at this time. Their dashboards offer metrics for things like sessions, unique users, intents, and utterances (voice commands). But there’s not a direct correlation between any of these and the payouts. That indicates there are other considerations in play that Amazon isn’t disclosing. Amazon confirms to us some of the factors it examines, including minutes of usage, new customers, recurring customers, and customer ratings. Offering cash for top skills is only one way Amazon has been trying to grow its voice app ecosystem. The company also is doling out Amazon Web Services promotional credits to Alexa developers, so they don’t have to pay for AWS usage charges if skills become popular. Plus, Amazon is running a series of Alexa training workshops around the world, and has been giving developers free Echo devices. It’s notable that the Alexa platform has managed to attract a sizable group of developers ahead of any formal compensation program, or support for traditional app monetization business models, like freemium apps, paid apps, and advertising. Despite this, Alexa’s app store has grown to over 15,000 skills in a relatively short period of time – after all, the Echo speaker – Amazon’s first Alexa device – wasn’t even available to the public until July 2015. That said, direct payouts for skills is a program that can only be sustained for so long. Eventually, developers will demand more control over their businesses, rather relying on some inscrutable algorithm. In the meantime, Amazon will face competition from rivals, including Google Home and Apple’s forthcoming HomePod – both from companies who have a better understanding of how an app store ecosystem works. But those two have arrived late to the game. Alexa has traction, thanks to the popularity of Amazon’s Echo speaker, and now, its affordable little cousin, the Echo Dot, among other newer devices. The company wasn’t first to voice, but it essentially figured out how voice computing should work, to growing consumer appeal. Instead of a voice assistant running on a phone to be fished out of a pocket or purse, the Echo sits in a single spot in your home. You just speak out loud and the “computer,” Alexa, responds. This is the future sci-fi painted for us long ago, and we already knew how to use it. Now, Amazon needs to prove it can build a sustainable app ecosystem that will allow it to maintain its position in the voice computing landscape; and keeping developers happy is a critical step.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line723
__label__cc	0.559263	0.440737	Burnes Turns: Nov. 26, 2016-Feb. 15, 2017 My first Burnes’ Turns in months highlights some early Hip-Hop classics, joyfully pissed off Hard Rock riffing and an urgently apocalyptic message from the dearly departed David Bowie that is more pressing than ever. “Five Years” – David Bowie When I was first getting into music and reading Rolling Stone, they published a playlist issue where artists picked their favorite songs from other artists. Bono picked out his 15 favorite Bowie songs and his list served as my introduction to the Starman’s music. At the time, “Five Years” may have been my absolute favorite (except, perhaps, “Space Oddity”), but somehow over the years I completely forgot about it. I dug up that playlist issue with the intention of listening to every song listed (it’s going to take a while) and I rediscovered this apocalyptic classic that sounds even more urgent today than it did when it was first nearly half of a decade ago. “Gangsta Gangsta” – N.W.A. Everybody knows “Fuck tha Police” and “Straight Outta Compton,” but upon my first listen to N.W.A.’s debut, I’m not sure “Gangsta Gangsta” didn’t overshadow both of them. It isn’t as culturally relevant as the previously listed classics, but Dre’s funky Prince-esque beat and N.W.A.’s gang-rapping (led by Ice Cube) that tells a violent-yet-humorous story similar to the Beastie Boys’ “Paul Revere” leaves everyone else in the dust. “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” – Public Enemy Like “Gangsta Gangsta,” “Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos” is overshadowed by bigger hits from Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back like “Bring the Noise” and “Rebel Without a Pause,” but to purists it doesn’t get any better than Chuck D’s downright scary tale of wrongful imprisonment and refusal to submit to crooked authority over a savage Isaac Hayes sample. “What Do You Do For Money” – AC/DC Everybody knows that “Back in Black” and “You Shook Me All Night Long” are Hard Rock classics, but even I had forgotten how great “What Do You Do For Money” is. Conveying a joyful rage similarlyto what N.W.A. captured with “Gangsta Gangsta,” Bryan Johnson almost blows his voice out as he screams down a gold-digging woman over some of Angus Young’s greatest riffing on record. “Hail Mary” – Tupac As I found out when I re-listened to All Eyez on Me, Tupac’s catalog was not without a fair share of filler. But when he was in the zone as he was when he recorded the eerie “Hail Mary,” preaching from the pulpit of his ill-gotten Hip-Hop throne, nobody was better. For more playlists, including my master Burnes’ Turns playlist that contains over 2,000 songs, search for Andrew Burnes or Burnes’ Turns on Spotify. February 15, 2017 in Music. Tags: AC/DC, Andrew Burnes, Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos, Burnes Turns, David Bowie, Five Years, Gangsta Gangsta, Hail Mary, N.W.A., Public Enemy, The Soundtrack Online, Tupac, What Do You Do For Money Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs: 490-481 Burnes Turns: March 17-24 ← Highway to Hell – AC/DC (1979) Adelitas Way – Adelitas Way (2009) →	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line724
__label__wiki	0.703642	0.703642	I Believe That We Will Win…Again It’s hard to believe that four years ago the USWNT won their third World Cup beating Japan 5-2. This summer they’re back on the world’s stage competing for their fourth world championship. The 2019 U.S. Women’s World Cup team has many different faces than the ones that played four years prior, but it has a few you may know as well. Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Carli Lloyd, and Tobin Heath are among the few returning players competing for the coveted World Cup trophy. Several new faces like Crystal Dunn, Lindsey Horan, Rose Lavelle, Sam Mewis, and Mallory Pugh have joined the mix this time in addition to several other new, fresh faces. Whether new or old though, every player has one thing on their mind: winning the World Cup. This post is late in the sense that the World Cup has been underway for about 2 weeks now. The Knockout Stage began this week and the U.S. survived just barely their Round of 16 matchup. After starting their World Cup journey with a commanding 13-0 victory against Thailand, the Gals pulled off a 2-1 win against Spain Monday to earn a spot in the Quarterfinals this Friday against home favorite, France. After the Women’s World Cup draw in December, it was pretty much a guarantee that to win the World Cup this summer the U.S. would have to go through the #2 ranked home country. Whether the U.S. Women win the entire tournament or not, this quarterfinal match is guaranteed to be one for the ages. In the four years since the last World Cup, my life has changed entirely. Four years ago, I was enamored with women’s soccer, but I was also amidst a path of discovery in working towards goals for my future. I owe a lot of credit to women’s soccer and the USWNT players for inspiring me to believe in myself enough to chase my dreams. Now, here I am, living my own dreams, which means unfortunately I don’t dedicate as much energy to women’s soccer as I did four years ago. For that reason, this will probably be my first and last post about the tournament this summer. I promise I’m still watching as many games as I can and following the new Gals on their journey this summer, but I have a lot going on in my own world as well. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting to be as into the tournament this year as I thought I would anyway. Over the last four years there were changes on the USWNT that I wasn’t a fan of. My favorite player, Ali Krieger, was basically blacklisted for the last two years with 98 caps to her name. It discouraged my interest in the USWNT. That changed in March. Krieger was called up to USWNT for two friendlies in April. It was her first time being invited to camp in the last 2 years. Then right after I returned from Coachella, the roster was announced. Krieger was on it. I couldn’t believe it. I was so stoked. I knew that I needed to follow the team more in depth this summer as a result. I even bought a new jersey with the Warrior’s name and number on the back, of course. I know it’s crazy to say that one player made the difference on the USWNT for me. It’s a team sport after all. I started out being a fan of the team in 2011 before I learned anything about the individual players. But, it was the way that Krieger was treated that made me dislike what was happening to the USWNT. She stopped receiving playing time when she was a part of the team, until she finally stopped getting called in to camp altogether. She was playing well at the time and she had 98 caps too. 2 shy of the 100 mark, an honor bestowed to many world-class players to ever wear the U.S. soccer crest. What happened to her was cruel and I didn’t like the direction the team was heading in because of it. It forced players like Whitney Engen and veteran Heather O’Reilly into retirement from the team when they still had the ability to play on the highest stage. I hated it. So I stopped paying attention. I also put my main focus on my own dreams, which was just as, if not more important. But here we are. It’s 2019. Ali Krieger is playing in her third World Cup (she went a full 90 versus Chile). I’m working music festivals (I watched her play against Chile while working Bonnaroo). And the USWNT is chasing down the fourth star. I think it was meant to be even if the past 2 years sucked along the way. Plus, I probably needed another reason for Ali Krieger to inspire me. I really don’t know if the U.S. will win the World Cup this summer. I want to believe they will, but I really don’t have a feeling one way or another. I’m just along for the ride. I do know that even if they don’t win, 2019 already feels like a win to me in so many ways in the soccer world and beyond in my own life. All I want to do is keep winning. So yes, I do believe that we will win again, but I also believe that we already won. Here’s to 2019, being full of more sick times, huge wins, and BIG MOODS…LFG! Posted in Sports, Uncategorized and tagged 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, 2019 Women's World Cup, 2019 WWC quarterfinal, 2019WWC, Abby Dahlkemper, AD Franch, Adrianna Franch, alex morgan, ali krieger, Allie Long, alyssa naeher, ashlyn harris, becky sauerbrunn, carli lloyd, christen press, crystal dunn, Emily Sonnett, FIFA, FIFA women's soccer, fifa women's world cup, FIFAWWC, football, France women's football, france women's national team, France women's soccer, heather o'reilly, Jessica McDonald, jill ellis, Julie Ertz, julie johnston, kelley o'hara, LFG, Lindsey Horan, Mal Pugh, Mallory Pugh, megan rapinoe, morgan brian, quarterfinal match, Rose Lavelle, Sam Mewis, Samantha Mewis, soccer, soccer match, Sports, Tierna Davidson, tobin heath, U.S. Soccer, U.S. Women's Soccer, united states soccer, United States Women's National Team, united states women's soccer, US soccer, US Women's soccer, usa, USA Soccer, USA Women's Soccer, USAvFRA, USWNT, whitney engen, women's football, women's soccer, women's world cup, WWC on June 26, 2019 by prostreetcross. Leave a comment Rio 2016: Medal Round I was looking forward to watching the USWNT take on Brazil in the semi-finals of the Olympic games today at 12 p.m. ET, but sometimes life doesn’t go as planned. On Saturday, the team lost to Sweden on penalties. I was working at a music festival and was unable to watch. I tried my best to follow along on twitter when I wasn’t busy. It was still upsetting regardless of the fact that I wasn’t totally enamored with the game on a TV in front of me. Saturday’s loss was the earliest Olympic exit for the USWNT since they began competing in the games in 1996. The U.S. won gold at the previous 3 Olympic tournaments. The game was scoreless through the first half. Mid-way through the second frame in the 61st minute Sweden’s Stina Blackstenius put her team up 1-0. The U.S. tied it up 15 minutes later on a goal from Alex Morgan. Neither team was able to score through 90 minutes plus stoppage time. In the 30 minutes of added extra time again neither team was able to find the back of the net so the match went to penalties. Alex Morgan took the first shot for the U.S. It was saved by Sweden goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl. Lotta Schelin (SWE), Lindsey Horan (USA), Kosovare Asllani (SWE), and Carli Lloyd (USA) all scored on their PK’s. Linda Sembrant stepped up next for Sweden but was denied by Solo, igniting a surge for the U.S. At that point the score was 2-2 after 3 rounds. Then Morgan Brian put the U.S. up 3-2, but Sweden countered quickly with a goal by Caroline Seger. Christen Press was the final kicker for the USWNT (unless of course the score still remained tied) but her shot sailed over the cross bar leaving it to Lisa Dahlkvist to seal the deal for Sweden, which she did. The U.S. fell 4-3 ending their chances to medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. No matter what the situation it’s always a surprise when the USWNT loses, especially at this point in the competition. They’ve set the standard for so long in the women’s soccer world that it’s expected for them to compete in every final in every major tournament. This time that wasn’t the case. For the first time ever the U.S. failed to medal in a major tournament, but a part of me believes this was coming. Since winning the World Cup last summer the USWNT went through some major changes. The lineup changed drastically with retirements, pregnancies, and injuries, but also with healthy players. Heather O’Reilly, a 14 year USWNT veteran wasn’t part of the active roster. Her status on the USWNT seemed to drop off last year playing in only a handful of matches including once in the World Cup for no visible purpose. She was named as an alternate on the Olympic squad. Ali Krieger, the States’ most consistent and reliable right outside back, began riding the bench some time during Olympic qualifiers for no explicit reason as well. She was a major part of the back line that almost broke the record for scoreless minutes in last year’s World Cup. When it came to retirements, veterans Abby Wambach, Shannon Boxx, Lauren Holiday, and Lori Chalupny hung up their boots. Forwards Sydney Leroux and Amy Rodriguez were left off the roster because both were pregnant. Megan Rapinoe tore her ACL back in December and worked her way back into the lineup and Olympic roster but still wasn’t 100 percent ready to go. Injuries to Morgan Brian and Tobin Heath right before the Olympics and Julie Johnston and Mallory Pugh during the first match of the games happened too. It seems that the USWNT didn’t have the right lineup and game plan formula for winning which puts Coach Jill Ellis to blame and rightfully so. At one point in the match on Saturday she had midfielder, Tobin Heath at right back, a move that made most shake their heads. Her philosophy of having a more offensive team backfired. The U.S. barely outscored opponents during the tournament, never scoring more than 2 goals in any match. Relying heavily on rookies and injured players to perform against some of the best teams in the world was another blunder. Good rookies are important to have on any roster but there needs to be a core group of healthy veterans involved as well. In my opinion, Ellis wasted a roster spot on Megan Rapinoe. She wasn’t ready. She may have been healthy enough to play, but she wasn’t in her element at all. Without playing since December, it’s tough to come back strong and perform at your best in a major tournament. It seems to me that their were more politics at play than anything in this tournament, which caused for the early exit. Now it’ll be another 2 years until the USWNT begins preparing for the 2019 Women’s World Cup. It’ll be time to focus on the NWSL and growing the women’s game in that regard. It was around this time 4 years ago that my love of women’s soccer grew and inspired me. It inspired me in so many ways. I don’t think I’d be where I am today without the game and incredible players/humans that are a part of the U.S. women’s soccer team. Missing the game Saturday was slightly disappointing, but I missed it for great reason as I continue to follow my own dreams. I wouldn’t be doing that without “the Gals” and for that I’m grateful. Win or lose I’ll always be proud of the USWNT players and the way they compete. They’re incredible both on the field and off, and I’m glad to support them. I believe that we will win, but another day and time from now. Posted in Sports, Uncategorized and tagged 2016 Olympic Games, 2016 Olympics, 2016 Rio Olympics, abby wambach, alex morgan, ali krieger, Allie Long, alyssa naeher, amy rodriguez, ashlyn harris, becky sauerbrunn, carli lloyd, caroline seger, christen press, crystal dunn, Emily Sonnett, football, heather o'reilly, Hedvig Lindahl, hope solo, jill ellis, julie johnston, kelley o'hara, Kosovare Asllani, lauren cheney, lauren holiday, Linda Sembrant, Lindsey Horan, Lisa Dahlkvist, lori chalupny, Lotta Schelin, Mal Pugh, Mallory Pugh, megan rapinoe, meghan klingenberg, morgan brian, NWSL, Olympic Games, Olympic Summer Games, Olympic Women's Soccer, Olympics, Rio, Rio 2016, Rio Olympics, Samantha Mewis, shannon boxx, soccer, Stina Blackstenius, Sweden, Sweden Women's soccer, Swedish Women's National Team, Swedish Women's soccer, sydney leroux, Team USA, The Gals, tobin heath, U.S. Soccer, U.S. Women's Soccer, united states soccer, United States Women's National Team, US soccer, US Women's soccer, usa, USA Soccer, USA Women's Soccer, USAvSWE, USWNT, whitney engen, women's football, women's soccer on August 16, 2016 by prostreetcross. Leave a comment Road to Rio: Roster Release I told you the next time I’d blog about the USWNT it would be after the Olympic roster was released. Well the release happened around noon today. With months since qualifiers and a tournament and friendlies in between, there were no surprises, just a few disappointments. The 2016 U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team Olympic Roster is as follows: Goalkeepers: Hope Solo and Alyssa Naeher Defenders: Meghan Klingenberg, Whitney Engen, Ali Krieger, Becky Sauerbrunn, Kelley O’Hara, Julie Johnston Midfielders: Tobin Heath, Lindsey Horan, Carli Lloyd, Morgan Brian, Allie Long, Megan Rapinoe Forwards: Crystal Dunn, Alex Morgan, Christen Press, Mallory Pugh I think the only question anyone had about this roster as time went forward was whether or not Megan Rapinoe would be healthy for the Olympics. She tore her ACL back in December, had surgery, and rehabbed post-op. She made it back though, just in time. My only concern is that she probably won’t be at 100 percent, despite what sources say. She hasn’t played in a match since October (she was injured prior to the U.S. Victory Tour matches in December). It’s almost like Alex Morgan at the World Cup last year. Morgan was injured twice for extended time periods over the past 2 years prior to the World Cup. At the World Cup, her performance suffered. She wasn’t at her peak. I feel like that might be the case for Rapinoe come August. Two of the biggest disappointments of this roster are the exclusion of long-time USWNT veteran Heather O’Reilly (HAO) and 2015 Women’s World Cup back-up goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris. O’Reilly’s playing time began to drop when Jill Ellis took over the reigns of the national team in the spring of 2014. She only played in one match last summer at the Women’s World Cup coming in as a sub in the quarterfinals against China PR. Harris on the other hand was named back-up goalkeeper in the months prior to the Women’s World Cup. After the World Cup, somewhere along the way during the Victory Tour, Harris’s status dropped. It became noticeable following the Victory Tour match in Orlando, FL, a city only about an hour away from Harris’s hometown of Satellite Beach. Harris didn’t receive any playing time, which isn’t common when a friendly gets played in or near a player’s hometown. It was disappointing and rather odd, raising a red flag for anyone who paid attention to the team. Coach Ellis also stated prior to the three December matches that each goalkeeper would receive playing time. Unfortunately the Hawaii match was cancelled because the field was deemed unplayable. In the other two matches Naeher and Solo played. Harris again didn’t receive any minutes, which was another red flag. Maybe she was supposed to play in Hawaii, but we may never know. Since the Victory Tour, Harris hasn’t played in any matches and has repeatedly not dressed for games, which was a sure indication of her third keeper status. Harris and O’Reilly will serve as alternates for the team along with Emily Sonnett and Samantha Mewis. Both are world class players who would undoubtedly be starters on any other national team in the world. What caused their status to drop on the USWNT is unknown and therefore a disappointment for this year’s Olympic Tournament. On a happier note, the final cut from last year’s World Cup roster, Crystal Dunn, has finally made the USWNT for a major tournament. Dunn’s response to being left off the World Cup roster last summer was nothing short of inspirational. She lead the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) with 15 goals and received the 2015 Player of the Year Award. She’s also scored 13 goals and had 7 assists since rejoining the national team during the Victory Tour. She’s been on fire and was a guarantee going into the Olympics. Her comeback was incredible and if you want to read more about that from Crystal, herself, check out this article in the Players’ Tribune. Another happy note from the roster is the 31 year old, USWNT veteran, first time Olympian, Ali Krieger. In 2012 during Olympic qualifying, Krieger tore her right ACL and MCL and didn’t make it back in time to be on the Olympic roster, despite efforts of surgery and rehab. At the time, she was an integral part of the USWNT as the only player who played every minute in the 2011 Women’s World Cup and scored the winning penalty kick against Brazil in the legendary quarterfinal match that put the USWNT in the headlines.Her exclusion on the 2012 roster was expected but also a disappointment. Since then, she has stated numerous times that being an Olympic athlete was always a dream of hers. Now that dream is finally coming true. As a world class defender/right outside back, there’s no doubt that Krieger will be an impact if this team is to win gold, despite her playing time in the last few months being much less than normal (another questionable decision to say the least). Lastly three other players (in addition to Dunn) on this Olympic roster were not part of the World Cup Champion team last summer. The youngest of those three is Mallory Pugh. She received her first call to the national team during January camp and has been lights out since receiving her first cap. The catch is that she just turned 18. She’s about to start college at UCLA in the fall. She’s also scored 2 goals and added 7 assists since her debut for the senior national team. Her 7 assists actually lead the team this year. She’ll be a quality play-maker for the USWNT going forward. Lindsey Horan is another of the other three who wasn’t part of the World Cup last summer. Horan is the only player on the national team to pass on college and go straight to the pros. She played 4 seasons for Paris Saint-Germain in France before joining the Portland Thorns of the NWSL this year. Since coming in this year Horan has played as a holding center mid, occupying the spot most previously held by recent retiree Lauren Holiday (Cheney). There were questions of who would take on that role after Holiday retired, but Horan has fit into the spot well, even if she played forward all her life. Allie Long, the last of the other three players not a part of the World Cup, has also been competing for that spot with Horan. Long has been in and out of the national team for years. She could never quite secure a spot until now making her roster spot a “long” awaited accomplishment. The rest of the roster contains players who won gold in Canada last summer including 2015 FIFA World Player of the Year Carli Lloyd, 2015 Women’s World Cup Golden Glove Winner Hope Solo, and the face of the USWNT since 2011, Alex Morgan. Hopefully these 18 players will be able to bring back gold in the Olympics. If the USWNT wins gold, they will be the first team to ever win World Cup gold and Olympic gold back to back. They’ll face plenty of tough tasks along the way, including France, who beat the U.S. back in February 2015. Host country Brazil will also be a tough task if they meet at some point as well as Germany and the 2012 Olympic bronze medal winning team, Canada. Only time will tell what happens this summer to the reigning world champion USWNT, but it will surely be entertaining no matter what. I’ll probably update a couple times during the Olympics, but I doubt it will be as much as when I covered the World Cup last summer. Look for updates nonetheless. See you in Rio! Posted in Sports, Uncategorized and tagged 2012 olympic qualifying ali krieger, 2015 FIFA Women's World Player of the Year, 2015 NWSL Player of the Year, 2015 women's world cup, 2015 Women's World Cup Champions, 2016 Olympic Games, 2016 Olympics, 2016 Rio Olympics, 2016 Summer Olympics, 2016 U.S. Women's National Soccer Team Olympic Roster, 2016 USWNT Olympic Roster, alex morgan, ali krieger, ali krieger acl mcl tear, ali krieger knee injury, Ali Krieger's dream comes true, Allie Long, alyssa naeher, america, ashlyn harris, Ashlyn Harris left off olympic roster, Ashlyn Harris Satellite Beach, becky sauerbrunn, carli lloyd, christen press, Coach Ellis, crystal dunn, Crystal Dunn 2015 NWSL Player of the Year, Emily Sonnett, FIFA women's soccer, heather o'reilly, heather o'reilly left off olympic roster, hope solo, jill ellis, julie johnston, kelley o'hara, Lauren Holiday replacement, Lindsey Horan, Mallory Pugh, megan rapinoe, meghan klingenberg, morgan brian, National Women's Soccer League, NWSL, Olympian, Olympic Games, Olympic Gold, Olympic Summer Games, Olympic Women's Soccer, Olympic women's soccer roster, Olympics, Rio, Rio 2016, Rio Olympic Women's Soccer, Rio Olympics, Samantha Mewis, soccer, Team America, Team USA, tobin heath, U.S. Soccer, U.S. Women's Soccer, united states soccer, United States Women's National Team, united states women's soccer, US soccer, US Women's soccer, usa, USA Olympic Games, usa olympic roster women's soccer, USA Olympic Women's Soccer roster, USA Olympics, USA Soccer, USA Women's Soccer, USWNT, USWNT Olympic roster, whitney engen, WNT, women's football, women's soccer, women's world cup, Women's World Cup Champions, Women's World Cup Champs, World Cup, world cup champions, World Cup Champs, woso on July 12, 2016 by prostreetcross. Leave a comment USWNT: 2015 WORLD CUP CHAMPIONS “Carli Lloyd who scored both goals and was named Woman of the Match was an absolute beast on Wednesday. She’s a special player. ….She’s a key piece for this team to be successful at the Women’s World Cup. They’ll need her to be on top of her game and on the pitch as much as possible this summer so hopefully she’ll be up for the challenge. With a mentality like Carli’s though, I have no doubt she will.” -Me from a blog post dated 3/11/15 Four years ago, I sat in my basement on July 17, 2011 and watched the USWNT lose to Japan on penalty kicks. After that match as I watched players walk around the pitch in devastation and disbelief, I proclaimed that this team would win the next World Cup for sure. Almost four years later on July 5, 2015, I sat in basement with a USWNT jersey on my back and watched the USWNT beat Japan 5-2 to win the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup (it feels so good to be right!). Yes, I’ve been hyping this team since I started this blog. I’ve been following them so closely for the last 2 1/2-3 years and now…WORLD CHAMPS! THREE STARS ABOVE THE CREST! THEY DID IT! I could not be more happy and proud of these women. They’re incredible humans on and off the pitch. I wouldn’t be where I am today without their inspiration. True story. It’s difficult to really recap the game and try to analyze it like I always do because I don’t feel like talking about stats or what they did well or could’ve done better. They didn’t need to do anything better. They got it done. They won the World Cup. Since I was so amped every time they put the ball in the net though, I guess I should at least recap the goals. Last night was the Carli Lloyd show. She comes up in big games as I stated back on March 11th. She scored the goals in the last two Olympic gold medal matches but, last night she was on another level. For a team that was all about defense and not conceding goals, only allowing 1 in their first 6 matches, they could have fooled me. The offense came alive last night early in a large part due to the absolute beast that is Carli Lloyd. On a beautiful set piece corner in the 3rd minute, Megan Rapinoe sent a low ball into the box that made its way through defenders and to Lloyd’s foot as she put the ball into the back netting. Two minutes later Lloyd struck again. It was off a set piece free kick taken by Lauren Holiday. Lloyd found herself in the right place at the right time as she tapped in a ball that was headed forward by Julie Johnston off the Holiday cross. Holiday, herself, found the back of the net in the 14th minute. She volleyed in a shot from an attempted Japanese clear. Then Lloyd recorded the first ever Women’s World Cup Final hat trick two minutes later from just beyond the midline when she chipped Japanese goalkeeper, Ayumi Kaihori, who was off her line. 16 minutes into the game and the U.S. were up 4-0. They were going to win. There was no doubt in my mind at the start of the match, but after the first 16 minutes, it was certain. I think the goals caused the team to let off a bit on the defensive end. In a way, they kind of lost focus as the emotion from going up by so many goals so early took hold. Japan broke their shutout streak in the 28th minute. Before the Japanese goal, the defense went 540 minutes without conceding a goal. They were seconds away from breaking Germany’s 2007 shutout streak record, which also stands at 540 minutes. In the second half, Japan recorded another goal. It was an own goal by Julie Johnston when she tried to clear a Japanese free kick. The ball found its way to the net to make the score 4-2. There wasn’t anything to worry about though. Two minutes later Tobin Heath one-timed a Morgan Brian pass into the net to put the U.S. up by three once again, which is how the score stayed until the final whistle blew after 90 minutes plus 3 minutes of stoppage time. After the U.S. beat Germany Tuesday night, it was pretty much written in the cards that they would win last night. As fate would have it, nothing stopped them. They won the World Cup. There’s a new legacy. 1999 was great, but now it’s all about 2015. The 15ers earned that third star that will be above the USWNT crest forever. It was incredible to follow this journey that began almost four years ago. Women’s soccer truly changed my life. It feels like a new chapter begins today. Even though the Olympics is next summer, a new World Cup cycle begins. Players will retire. The team will change. I will change. A lot can happen in four years and I can’t wait to see what the future holds. But until then, it’s time to celebrate a championship four years in the making. To perfectly quote the band Queen, “WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WORLD!” The USWNT lifts the World Cup trophy after defeating Japan 5-2 to win the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final at BC Place. Posted in Uncategorized and tagged 1N1T, 2015 fifa women's world cup, 2015 women's world cup, 2015 world cup champions, 2015 world cup champs, abby wambach, alex morgan, ali krieger, alyssa naeher, amy rodriguez, ashlyn harris, becky sauerbrunn, carli lloyd, christen press, christie pearce, christie rampone, FIFA, FIFA 2015 women's world cup, FIFA women's soccer, fifa women's world cup, FIFA women's world cup final, FIFAWWC, heather o'reilly, hope solo, jill ellis, julie johnston, kelley o'hara, lauren cheney, lauren holiday, lori chalupny, megan rapinoe, meghan klingenberg, morgan brian, nomaybe, one nation one team, score settled, score to settle, scoretosettle, shannon boxx, soccer, sydney leroux, the 15ers, the beautiful game, three stars, tobin heath, U.S. Women's Soccer, United States Women's National Team, united states women's soccer, US Women's soccer, usa, USWNT, USWNT World Champions, vancouver, whitney engen, women's football, women's soccer, women's world cup, women's world cup final, world champs, World Cup, world cup champions, woso, wwc2015 on July 6, 2015 by prostreetcross. Leave a comment FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015: USA v. COL Last evening at Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, AB the first match of the Knockout Stage for the USWNT in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup took place. The U.S.A. came away with a 2-0 victory against Colombia allowing them to move on to the quarterfinals on Friday night in Ottawa, ON. As heavy favorites to hoist the trophy at the end of the tournament, it was expected that the #2 FIFA ranked American women would have a dominant all-around performance against the #28 ranked Colombian women, just as fellow favorites (#1 ranked) Germany and (#4 ranked) France did against their opponents the previous day. Although the team did manage to keep a clean slate and put up two goals of their own, their performance was less than convincing compared to the other international powerhouses. Head coach Jill Ellis stuck with the same lineup as featured in the Nigeria match, opting to switch sides for midfielders Tobin Heath and Megan Rapinoe (Heath switched from left to right and Rapinoe from right to left). In the first half, the U.S. attack started a bit stronger than in previous matches as they managed to get a few scoring opportunities early. In the 4th minute Heath sent in a shot from about 8 yards out that was tipped away by Colombia’s goalkeeper, Catalina Perez. The rebound was knocked in the net by Abby Wambach, who was called offside shortly after which disallowed the apparent U.S. goal. As the half went on, frustration set in for the Americans. Colombia seemed to take charge at times possessing the ball to try to gain opportunities. Also, the U.S. attack seemed to dwindle. At half time, the teams entered the locker rooms in 0-0 deadlock with an energy that seemed to favor Colombia. The momentum switched shortly after the second half began though. In the 47th minute a through ball made it’s way to the feet of a sprinting Alex Morgan who was in the clear for a sure goal scoring opportunity. As she reached the top of the 18, Colombia’s Perez made a tackle that took Morgan down causing the referee to hand out a red card to the keeper and award the U.S. with a penalty kick for the take down in the box. Although the U.S. failed to score on the penalty (Wambach’s shot went wide), the red card which caused Perez to be removed from play took a toll on the game. Six minutes later the USWNT made their first dent on the scoreboard when Ali Krieger found Morgan just outside the right of the box. Morgan made a few touches to get inside and took a shot that deflected in off new goalkeeper, Stefany Castaño, near post. Later, in the 66th minute, Rapinoe was fouled inside the box and another penalty kick was awarded to the U.S. This time Carli Lloyd took the shot and converted putting the USWNT up 2-0. From there the game was controlled by the U.S.A. Colombia seemed to lose their flow that they had during the first half and the Americans came away with the win. Of note, Rapinoe and center midfielder Lauren Holiday will be unavailable for the USWNT’s next match on Friday as both received their second yellow cards in the tournament thus far. It’s funny how that worked out considering Rapinoe and Holiday were the only two players on the team to receive yellow cards in previous matches. Also of note, the strong defensive effort by the U.S. back line continued through this match as they limited Colombia to only 2 shots on goal. The USWNT’s defense has consistently proved through four of the possible seven games in this tournament that it is the strongest aspect of their team’s play. The same cannot be said for the offense, which has been inconsistent since the beginning of this year. Through the first four World Cup matches the USWNT has scored only 6 goals, the least amount ever to be scored through four games by a U.S. team in Women’s World Cup competition. Granted, the competition has gotten a lot tougher through the years, but the U.S. women’s soccer program is expected to be the best in the world. Their success at the international level has proved it. It’s time to stop making excuses and start providing the dangerous attack that we know so well from the USWNT. I have heard since the start of this World Cup year about how the U.S. needs to “peak at the right time”. I’ve talked about it on this blog. I’ve been expecting it each match. But right now, we’re three games from the World Cup Final and I have yet to see these talented soccer players reach or even be near that level they keep referencing. I guess frustration has set in for me. It’s because I believe in this team so much and I know what they’re capable of. I also think I just enjoy seeing them create opportunities and score goals. It makes matches so much more exciting to watch. I feel like that dominance hasn’t been a part of their games recently and I miss it. One thing is for sure though. Friday is a new opportunity. To win this tournament, each game needs to be taken one at a time. It’s win and move on. Lose and go home. So far, the USWNT has done the former. I guess that’s all that really matters and only time will tell what happens next on this World Cup journey. Posted in Sports and tagged 1N1T, 2015 fifa women's world cup, 2015 women's world cup, abby wambach, alex morgan, ali krieger, alyssa naeher, amy rodriguez, ashlyn harris, becky sauerbrunn, carli lloyd, Catalina Perez, christen press, christie pearce, christie rampone, Colombia, Colombia women's football, Colombia Women's National Team, Colombia women's soccer, Edmonton, FIFA, FIFA 2015 women's world cup, FIFA women's soccer, fifa women's world cup, football, heather o'reilly, hope solo, i believe, i believe that we will win, jill ellis, julie johnston, kelley o'hara, knockout stage, lauren cheney, lauren holiday, lori chalupny, megan rapinoe, meghan klingenberg, morgan brian, no maybes, nomaybes, now it gets real, nowitgetsreal, one nation one team, round of 16, score to settle, scoretosettle, shannon boxx, shebelieves, soccer, Sports, Stefany Castano, sydney leroux, the beautiful game, tobin heath, United States Women's National Team, US Women's soccer, usa, USWNT, whitney engen, women's football, women's soccer, women's world cup, World Cup, world cup round of 16, woso, wwc2015 on June 23, 2015 by prostreetcross. Leave a comment FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015: USA v. NGA Last night, the United States Women’s National Team played Nigeria in their final match of the Group Stage at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. In front of 52,193 spectators at a sold out BC Place in Vancouver, BC, the red, white, and blue (or white, black, and volt) sealed first place in Group D with a 1-0 over the Super Eagles. The U.S. limited the dangerously quick Nigerian attack to only 7 shots, 2 shots on goal through the duration of the match. Their ball possession was better than it had been in the first two matches. They also seemed to be creating a few more scoring chances, but they had trouble finishing, which stuck with the recurring theme of the last few months. Their lone goal in the match came from, surprisingly, the foot (not the head) of Abby Wambach when she directed a Megan Rapinoe corner kick into the back netting right before the end of the first half (45th minute). This game saw a few lineup changes from the first two games. The most notable one being that Alex Morgan started at forward alongside Abby Wambach. It was Morgan’s first World Cup start. Even though she was sidelined with an injury since April and played 23 minutes plus stoppage time through the first two matches, she made a noticeable impact on the game. Morgan has a natural instinct to find and create opportunities. She has great chemistry with Wambach and she has incredible finishing capability. She was denied on a few scoring chances by Nigeria’s keeper Precious Dede, including one golden opportunity off a well placed low cross by right outside back Ali Krieger in the 62nd minute. She was an offensive threat until she was subbed out in the 66th minute. Although she didn’t make an impact on the score sheet last night, it was evident why she is an essential piece to the USWNT and their offensive attack. To be successful in this tournament, they will need her. Another change from the last two matches was that center midfielders, Carli Lloyd and Lauren Holiday, swapped roles. Holiday who sat back in a defensive central midfielder position played in a more attacking role versus Nigeria, while Lloyd, who took charge of the attacking role against Australia and Sweden, played the defensive position. The change seemed to help Holiday who played better than she had in the first two matches. Once again the USWNT back line kept up their solid play and continued to be a strong asset to the team. All four defenders as well as goalkeeper Hope Solo have played every minute of the tournament so far. The former starting center back, Christie Rampone, also saw action during this match. She entered the game in the 80th minute for Tobin Heath making her the oldest player to ever appear in a World Cup match. She played at the left outside back position while Meghan Klingenberg stepped into the left midfield spot. With last night’s win, the U.S. will play in the Round of 16 on Monday in Edmonton, AB against the third place winner from either group B, E, or F, which will be determined after play finishes today. From now on, every game for the USWNT becomes a lot more interesting. They enter the Knockout Stage of the tournament meaning each match is win and move on or lose and go home. Also unlike the Group Stage where games can end in a tie, the Knockout Stage will feature extra time, which is another 30 minutes added on to the game if the game is tied after 90 plus stoppage time. If the match is still tied after 120 minutes plus stoppage time, it will go to a best of five shootout where a winner will inevitably be determined (if there’s still a tie after five players from each team shoot, then the shootout goes to sudden death). The matches from here on out become more intense and exciting than ever (plus nerve-racking for fans). Stars will shine, goals will be scored, shots will be saved, tears will be shed, and at the end of it all the last team remaining will crowned champions of the world. The pressure is on for the USWNT and it should be a fun ride. Posted in Sports and tagged 1N1T, 2015 fifa women's world cup, 2015 women's world cup, abby wambach, alex morgan, ali krieger, alyssa naeher, amy rodriguez, ashlyn harris, BC Place, becky sauerbrunn, carli lloyd, christen press, christie pearce, christie rampone, FIFA, FIFA 2015 women's world cup, FIFA women's soccer, fifa women's world cup, FIFAWWC, Group D, group stage, heather o'reilly, hope solo, jill ellis, julie johnston, kelley o'hara, knockout stage, lauren cheney, lauren holiday, lori chalupny, megan rapinoe, meghan klingenberg, morgan brian, Nigeria, Nigeria Women's football, Nigeria Women's National Team, Nigeria women's soccer, Nigerian women's football, Nigerian women's soccer, one nation one team, precious dede, round of 16, score to settle, shannon boxx, shebelieves, soccer, Sports, sydney leroux, the beautiful game, tobin heath, United States Women's National Team, US Women's soccer, usa, USAvNGA, USWNT, vancouver, whitney engen, women's football, women's soccer, women's world cup, women's world cup football, women's world cup soccer, World Cup, world cup football, world cup soccer, wwc2015 on June 17, 2015 by prostreetcross. Leave a comment FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015: USA v. SWE On Friday night in front of a packed house at Winnipeg Stadium in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the #2 ranked USWNT matched up against #5 ranked Sweden and former coach, Pia Sundhage. It was quite the battle, but ended in a 0-0 draw giving each team 1 point in their second match of the group stage (Sweden had 1 in the first game, U.S.A. had 3). The game (like one of the Fox announcers said) was a chess match. It was patient, strategic, and well-played by both sides who were unwilling to budge. Both teams had their fare share of possession and chances, the best being off a Sweden corner kick late in the game. For the U.S.A. what stood out the most in this match was the play of the backline. Defenders, Meghan Klingenberg, Becky Sauerbrunn, Julie Johnston, and Ali Krieger, were relentless defending the Swedish attack and proved to be the biggest difference makers for the American side. Megan Rapinoe continued her solid play from Monday night by creating chances and keeping possession on the left flank. In the first half, the game started slow with a back-and-forth settled attack for both sides that didn’t really result in any close chances. Towards the end of the first half though, the U.S. attack was sparked by the undeniable chemistry from Rapinoe and Krieger, even though both play on opposite sides of the pitch. From the left, Rapinoe switched the play by finding Krieger on the right flank, who had space to push the ball forward and send crosses to the box. Despite the effort though, none of their opportunities were converted. In the second half, the game’s intensity picked up as the scoring chances became more frequent and more dangerous for both teams. As mentioned, the best chance overall came from Sweden in the 77th minute. They were awarded a corner kick that was sent to the middle of the box and headed down by a Swedish attacker to the feet of Sweden’s Caroline Seger. She took a left-footed shot that curled to the far post which was covered by Klingenberg, who headed the ball away. The header hit the underside of the crossbar before it bounced away for a U.S. clearance. If Klingenberg did not make the stop, it would have been a sure goal for Sweden as the diving Hope Solo wouldn’t have got a finger on the ball. It was the play of the game for sure. It was also one of several times the USWNT’s backline came up huge. Julie Johnston, who started her first World Cup match Monday night, played with confidence as she thwarted away any attack that came at her. She also maintained possession well and tried to make plays to ignite the U.S. offense. Two-time NWSL Defender of the Year, Becky Sauerbrunn, who played almost every minute of the every match for the USWNT since the beginning of 2015, made a couple huge plays in the U.S. defensive end. Being a centerback, her play often goes unnoticed by many media personnel and fans alike. However, she is one of the most integral pieces of the USWNT. In a tournament like this though, her efforts will surely not go unrecognized for long as the games will get tougher and she will get called upon to make strong defensive plays to stop opposing attacks. Of note, Morgan Brian made her first World Cup start as she was selected to play in place of Abby Wambach. Also of note, for the last two matches the play of the U.S. central midfielders, Carli Lloyd and Lauren Holiday (Cheney) has been average at best. For the USWNT to succeed as the tournament progresses, these two will need to get better (Yep, I’m calling you out Cheney and Carlos!). The U.S.A. currently sits atop Group D with 4 points and one match left to play in the Group Stage against Nigeria on Tuesday night in Vancouver. Right now, they have a pretty good shot at qualifying for the Round of 16, but they’ll still need to put in a strong effort against a fast Nigerian team. In the meantime, there’s another 3 days of agonizing waiting until women’s football’s finest take the pitch again. Another battle begins Tuesday at 8:00 ET on Fox as the USWNT continues their journey to settle the score. I hope you’ll be watching. Posted in Sports and tagged 2015 fifa women's world cup, 2015 women's world cup, abby wambach, alex morgan, ali krieger, alyssa naeher, amy rodriguez, ashlyn harris, becky sauerbrunn, carli lloyd, caroline seger, christen press, christie pearce, christie rampone, FIFA, FIFA 2015 women's world cup, FIFA women's soccer, fifa women's world cup, FIFA Women's World Cup 2015, FIFAWWC, group of death, heather o'reilly, hope solo, julie johnston, kelley o'hara, lauren cheney, lauren holiday, lori chalupny, megan rapinoe, meghan klingenberg, morgan brian, Nigeria, Nigeria Women's football, Nigeria women's soccer, Nigerian women's football, Nigerian women's soccer, NWSL, NWSL Defender of the Year, pia, pia sundhage, shannon boxx, shebelieves, soccer, Sports, Sweden, sweden women's football, Sweden Women's soccer, swedish women's football, Swedish Women's National Team, Swedish Women's soccer, sydney leroux, the beautiful game, tobin heath, United States Women's National Team, US Women's soccer, usa, USA Women's Soccer, USAvSWE, USWNT, whitney engen, Winnipeg Stadium, women's football, women's soccer, women's world cup, women's world cup 2015, World Cup, wwc2015 on June 13, 2015 by prostreetcross. Leave a comment FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015: USA v. AUS BLAST OFF… (I hope you got this as my countdown from the last 3 games) In the first game of the group stage at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup for the United States Women’s National Team (USWNT), they cruised to a 3-1 victory over Australia. Although “cruised” might not be the best way to describe it. The game wasn’t smooth sailing. Australia dictated the play for the first 40 minutes or so. They had more chances, shots on goal, possession, and overall control of the game. At the same time though, it seemed that both teams took a while to settle down in their World Cup opener. Australia just had the better of it. The bright spot for the USWNT in the first half was the play of Megan Rapinoe and Hope Solo. Solo came up with a few huge saves to keep Australia off the board early and from going ahead late. Rapinoe scored the lone U.S. goal in the first half in the 12th minute when her shot from about 20 yards out deflected off an Australian defender and sailed into the far corner. She also seemed to make something happen every time she got a touch on the ball. She was stellar even at the team’s lowest point. Unfortunately the poor play of the U.S. and dominance of Australia in the first 40 lead to a goal by Australian captain Lisa De Vanna in the 27th minute. The first half ended in a 1-1 tie, but the play finally started to come together at the end for the USWNT. When the U.S. came out for the second half, they picked up where they left off in the last few minutes of the first. They controlled play. Their passing was in synch. There were less turnovers. They created more chances and capitalized twice. The first of those came in the 61st minute. The play was started by none other than Rapinoe who settled a Solo goal kick, took a few touches and sent a pass to Sydney Leroux on the left side. Leroux took control from there as she had a step on her defender. She took the ball down the left flank and sent a pass near the end line to a wide open Christen Press who kicked a one-time shot into the back netting. The third goal came from the foot of FIFA Player of the Match (well-deserved honor), yes, you guessed it, Megan Rapinoe (Yes, she was involved in all 3 goals). In the 78th minute, she took an intercepted pass from Carli Lloyd down the left flank, made one-touch to beat out her defender, and put a left-footed shot into the far side of the goal. That was it. The U.S. dominated the second half. It was a complete turnaround of their poor start. 3-1 Final. Game. Set. Match. Of note, star forward, Alex Morgan came on in the 79th minute. Those 11 minutes plus stoppage time were the first she’s seen for the National Team since April 4th (she’s been sidelined with a bone bruise on her left knee). Now the USWNT will look to their Friday night match-up against #5 ranked Sweden, who only took one point away from their first match after a surprise 3-3 tie with #22 ranked Nigeria. They currently sit atop Group D with 3 points. For me watching this game was kind of a surreal moment. Actually writing this blog post is too. I’ve been talking about this game since it was announced after the draw back in December. I can’t believe that it’s over and the World Cup is finally here. It feels like I’ve been waiting forever. Although four years isn’t forever, it is a pretty long time. A lot changes in four years. It’s the amount of time it takes on average for someone to complete high school or college. We grow, age, change. It really is a long time. So as I watched the game, it was much different than when I last watched the USWNT compete in a World Cup or any major tournament at that (2012 Olympics). One reason for that is that I actually know more players than just those on the USWNT. I’ve watched so much soccer since the Olympics in 2012. I’ve learned about the game. I’ve learned about players from all over the world and I’ve learned about more players from the United States than just those on the National Team. Plus, I really know USWNT better than I did back then. I’ve become a huge fan not only of the them, but also of women’s soccer. The second reason that watching the game last night was different was that I’ve changed so much in four years. I’ve become a completely different person in so many ways. Part of the reason for my personal growths I owe to women’s soccer and a certain one or two players in particular. Without them/it, I’m not sure where I’d be as a person and in life. I know that’s a pretty heavy statement, but honestly it’s difficult to put into words how much inspiration it has provided me. To kind of quote/paraphrase one of my biggest inspirations, I’m feeling “totally confident, comfortable, and free” with who I am, who I want to become, and what I want to achieve. For that and for many other personal reasons, I am forever grateful for this sport and for those who play it. The next game for the USWNT is only a few days away. It’ll be interesting to see if any line-up changes are made. With so many games in such a short period of time, line-up changes are imminent for the strength and well-being of the players, especially in this particular tournament since all the games are being played on turf (it changes the game entirely). From last night’s opener, it’s evident that winning a World Cup will be no easy task. It will be a battle every single time the team takes the field from the group stage to the final, if they happen to make it that far. As Coach Jill Ellis stated in a pre-game press conference, she didn’t expect the first game to be their best game. It wasn’t. It was far from it. With each game though, hopefully the team comes together and reaches their highest playing potential. The fun continues Friday night, June 12th at 8 p.m. ET on Fox versus Sweden (and former Coach Pia Sundhage). I can’t wait to see what happens. Posted in Sports and tagged 1N1T, 2015 fifa women's world cup, 2015 women's world cup, abby wambach, alex morgan, ali krieger, alyssa naeher, amy rodriguez, ashlyn harris, Australia, Australia football, Australia soccer, Australia women's football, Australia Women's National Team, Australia Women's soccer, Australian football, Australian soccer, Australian women's football, Australian Women's National Team, Australian women's soccer, becky sauerbrunn, carli lloyd, christen press, christie pearce, christie rampone, FIFA, FIFA 2015 women's world cup, FIFA women's soccer, fifa women's world cup, FIFAWWC, group stage, heather o'reilly, hope solo, jill ellis, julie johnston, kelley o'hara, lauren cheney, lauren holiday, lori chalupny, Matildas, megan rapinoe, meghan klingenberg, morgan brian, one nation one team, pia sundhage, shannon boxx, shebelieves, soccer, Sports, Sweden soccer, Sweden Women's National Team, Sweden Women's soccer, Swedish soccer, Swedish Women's National Team, Swedish Women's soccer, sydney leroux, the Matildas, tobin heath, United States Women's National Team, US Women's soccer, USAvAUS, USWNT, whitney engen, women's football, women's soccer, women's world cup, women's world cup group stage, World Cup, woso, wwc2015 on June 9, 2015 by prostreetcross. 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__label__wiki	0.507836	0.507836	zach’s song The Film Playlist: School of Rock When I was a freshman in high school, I had a solid 7th period Algebra class. My teacher was in his 20’s and an alumni of my high school, so he made at least one class in our transition to a new school pretty relaxed. I learned a few things in his class, all unrelated to math. I found out what it was like to live in NYC and work on Wall Street (his former profession before he became our Algebra teacher), that Pat’s makes the best cheesesteak in Philly (this was a lie because they don’t), and that School of Rock was a great movie (based on his and a fellow classmate’s recommendation). Out of those few things the most useful to me was that School of Rock was indeed a great movie and a must-see for any music lover. Directed by Richard Linklater (Boyhood and Dazed and Confused), School of Rock was released October 3, 2003. It was the highest grossing musical comedy of all time until recently when Pitch Perfect 2 surpassed it this year. The movie stars Jack Black as rock singer/guitarist Dewey Finn, who gets kicked out of his band, No Vacancy. With no job and no way to afford rent for the apartment he shares with his friend and former band mate, Ned Schneebly (Mike White, also writer of the film), and Ned’s girlfriend, Patty (Sarah Silverman), Dewey poses as a 4th grade substitute teacher at a prep school to make some money. The school’s principal, Rosaline Mullins, who Dewey befriends to earn the job, is played by Joan Cusack. After Dewey hears his class during their music lesson, he concocts a plan to transform the class into a band to compete at Battle of the Bands and win against No Vacancy, who is also competing. He assigns the class (starring a young Miranda Cosgrove as one of the students) various roles either in the band or as stylists, roadies, groupies, production team members, security, or managers, and preparation for the event takes over normal class time. Obviously his plan is destined for struggles along the way, but through everything, he teaches the students some important life lessons. The film features a stellar classic rock soundtrack with an original song and AC/DC cover (“It’s A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock N’ Roll)”) played by the cast. Linklater actually searched for and cast young, talented musicians to play the roles of the kids in the band. The soundtrack also features songs by Led Zeppelin (who rarely distribute the rights to their songs for use in film or television), Stevie Nicks, The Who, The Doors, Cream, The Black Keys, and The Ramones. Many other classic rock songs by bands like AC/DC, Deep Purple, and The Clash are featured in the film as well. After seeing School of Rock, I purchased the movie to add to my collection, since I enjoyed it so much. It became a movie night film I would turn to time after time (whether that be by myself or with friends). I even downloaded the original song “School of Rock” or “Zach’s Song” as they say in the movie. It’s still on my iTunes to this day. The film was a great ode to music, specifically rock n’ roll, and taught us all how to “stick it to the man”. The Film Playlist series wouldn’t be complete without it, despite it being just an average, funny, music oriented film. For any music fan, it’s worth checking out though, even if you only want to learn Dewey’s rock n’ roll handshake. Let’s rock, let’s rock. Today. ( If you have seen the film, check out this amazing 10 year reunion performance of “School of Rock” from the cast.) Posted in Entertainment, Film, Music, Uncategorized and tagged 2003 films, 2003 movies, ac/dc, Adam Pascal, Aleisha Allen, Angelo Massagli, battle of the bands, blog series, Brian Falduto, Caitlin Hale, classic rock soundtrack, Cole Hawkins, comedy, comedy film, comedy movie, Cream, Deep Purple, dewey finn, Film, film soundtrack, Freddy Jones, Horace Green, Horace Green Prep School, Jack Black, James Hosey, Joan Cusack, Joey Gaydos Jr., Jordan-Claire Green, Kevin Clark, Led Zeppelin, Lucas Babin, Lucas Papaelias, Maryam Hassan, Mike White, Miranda Cosgrove, Movie, movie blog, movie soundtrack, Music, music film, music film blog, music movie, music movie blog, musical, musical comedy, musical comedy film, musical comedy movie, ned schneebly, No Vacancy, Paramount Pictures, Pitch Perfect 2, Rebecca Brown, Richard Linklater, Robert Tsai, Rosaline Mullins, Sarah Silverman, School of Rock, School of Rock movie, Shawn Rodney, Stevie Nicks, Summer Hathaway, The black keys, The Clash, The Doors, the film playlist, The Ramones, The Who, Veronica Afflerbach, Zach Mooneyham, zach's song, Zachary Infante on November 24, 2015 by prostreetcross. Leave a comment	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line726
__label__wiki	0.683661	0.683661	Health minister David Clark (Radio NZ/Rebekah Parsons-King) The Bulletin: Govt’s all things to all people drug reforms Alex Braae \| Staff Writer Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Government pushes in two different directions with drug reforms, nitrogen runoff tool has serious flaws, and finance minister outlines ‘wellbeing’ budget. The government has launched a range of drug reforms, which somehow manage to pull in two completely different directions. In general terms, the differences in law are about to be much more distinct for users and addicts on the one hand, and dealers and manufacturers on the other. The top line in the government’s sales job on this – and one that many outlets have chosen to run with as their lead angle – is that there will be a heavy crackdown on synthetics manufacturers and suppliers. The NZ Herald reports that two of the most common chemicals in synthetics will be reclassified as class A – which comes with the possibility of life imprisonment at the extreme end of penalties for manufacturers. There will also be a new classification – C1 – which will be usable as a stop-gap measure if new illicit substances come onto the market. But they’ve also thrown a massive bone to drug law reform campaigners. The Misuse of Drugs Act will be amended to direct police to treat drug use as a health issue – which means not prosecuting users of any and all drugs. Health minister David Clark says that’s not decriminalisation, but it does still formalise a massive change in approach. On that point, the Police Association have raised some concerns, reports the NZ Herald. Spokesperson Chris Cahill says he’s concerned the government is asking police to effectively spearhead the decriminalisation of drugs, without that being made legally and politically clear. “If decriminalisation is what Parliament wants, then that’s what the law should say,” he said. However, elements of this approach have already been trialled relatively successfully. One of those trials, in Northland, was reported on by Matters of Substance (a Drug Foundation publication) in which a police spokesperson said they had previously “been disconnected from the health issue. Traditionally, we might have just criminalised everything, but we went out to engage with communities.” Only 52 people were imprisoned for possession or use of drugs over 2017-18 – some would argue that’s 52 too many – but regardless, it’s not a significant portion of either the prison population (close to 10,000) or the total number of New Zealand’s drug users (quite a few more.) Radio NZ reports this morning that addiction services are very in favour of the changes. One person who has both won and lost out of the changes is National MP Simeon Brown, who has been championing a bill this year to increase sentences for synthetics. Newshub reports that NZ First will no longer back the bill, as in their view it is now irrelevant with synthetics being reclassified. It means Mr Brown has largely got what he wanted, but won’t get the political win of passing a bill from opposition. A tool used by farmers and regional councils to measure nitrogen runoff into water has been found to be seriously flawed, reports Newsroom. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment found problems around transparency and accuracy in the Overseer online tool, to the point that some estimates of runoff might be out by more than 50%. Unfortunately, there isn’t necessarily a better way of measuring runoff, and if the government chooses to fix the tool, it could cost millions. Finance minister Grant Robertson has given more detail on how his first ‘wellbeing’ budget will operate in 2019, reports Interest. Basically, he will expect government departments to work together – ‘breaking down silos’ – to deliver on the government’s priorities, and their budget bids will have to reflect those priorities. They’re outlined in the story, and have all been well-signalled as areas the government intends to focus on. Politik has analysed it, and reckons that rather than being dry, it’s actually quite a radical new approach. It is looking less and less likely New Zealand will reach the Smokefree 2025 goal, reports Stuff. That comes off the back of research published in the NZ Medical Journal, which found that quitting rates will need to be much higher to get there. The Otago Uni researchers reckon if the goal is to be reached, government campaigns will have to be massively stepped up. The Air New Zealand engineers strike has been called off, after a new agreement was hammered out between the airline and the E tū Union, reports One News. Union members still have to vote on the revised offer, but the union says their core aims have largely been achieved, and it is a much improved offer. A convention centre in Wellington, which was five years in the planning, has finally been given the go-ahead, reports Stuff. It will cost around $179 million, and be built across the road from Te Papa. The Council’s vote for it to go ahead was unanimous. A couple of weekly community newspapers are being closed by publisher NZME, owner of the NZ Herald, reports rival publisher Stuff. The Bay News in Tauranga and the Whangarei Report will both be folding, though both regions will still be served by dailies published by NZME (Bay of Plenty Times and Northern Advocate respectively.) The last issues of the papers will be printed next Thursday. Here’s a top 10 worth reading – the Science Media Centre has published their top 10 national and international stories of the year. The best thing about the listicles in my view is that they show the breadth of work the SMC has got through this year. It really is a fantastic resource for getting good, solid scientific information out to the public. You’ve almost certainly read a story that they helped the journo out with over the course of the year, by finding experts and passing on their comments on issues. From our partners at Vector: The pros and cons of putting solar panels on the roof of your home are well debated. But what about the empty rooftop spaces on commercial buildings throughout our country? PowerSmart’s Sam Vivian explains why more New Zealand businesses are adding commercial solar systems to their buildings. The Bulletin is The Spinoff’s acclaimed, free daily curated digest of all the most important stories from around New Zealand delivered directly to your inbox each morning. Leighton Smith with Leighton Smith and Vicki Smith, Sails Restaurant, Auckland, in 2013. Photo: Supplied Right now on The Spinoff: Maria Slade has written about meth house testing, and how little is still know about what level of contamination is safe. I’ve handed over the data series to Alex Casey, who has a charming piece about how much Spinoff readers say they like having friends. Jihee Junn has a personal essay about choosing to travel alone as a young woman. And it’s the last day of Leighton Smith’s decades long Newstalk ZB career today, so we’ve asked other people called Leighton Smith what they think of him. One of the stories in particular is actually really touching. And look, there’s a not-zero possibility the entire setting up and managing of The Spinoff for many years has just been a cover, to give Duncan Grieve the profile, mana and connections to write his series of stories on the media industry. And if that’s the case, totally worth it. Here’s his piece on Mediaworks – and keep an eye out over the weekend for more, including the state of Radio NZ in 2018. Best Journalism of 2018: It’s Friday, so how about a bit of a celebration of sport? A suggestion came in from Nicole that I give a shoutout to LockerRoom, the project of Suzanne McFadden which focuses exclusively on Women’s Sport. And I’m more than happy to highlight that – it has been one of the most exciting new media projects to come out this year, I reckon. I also want to give a shoutout to Abby Wilson of One News, not that she needs it after winning a TP McLean sports journalism award for this story. Her scoop was about accusations of bullying and inappropriate behaviour against former NZ Cycling coach Anthony Peden. It was both a really big story in its own right in the sporting world, and part of a much wider cultural conversation about men in positions of power. Another pretty good effort from some unheralded local footballers on the world stage. Team Wellington have just missed out on advancing to the main draw of the Club World Cup, after an agonising loss on penalties to UAE club Al Ain, reports Newshub. They’re a fully professional club, as opposed to Team Wellington which is semi-pro, so to even be competing at that level is pretty remarkable. And believe it or not, the summer of Test Cricket gets underway this weekend. The Black Caps are hosting Sri Lanka at the Basin Reserve from tomorrow, and my word how I wish I could be there. One News has some insightful comment from quick bowler Tim Southee, who says while the wicket looks pretty grassy, the selectors should make sure there’s a spinner on hand. That probably means New Zealand will go into the game with a long tail again, with Ajaz Patel likely to continue on from a promising early start at the top level. That’s it for The Bulletin. If you liked what you read, and know other people who would find it useful, pass on this signup form to them. This content is brought to you by Vector. If you live in Auckland, they also delivered the power you’re using to read it. And they’re creating a new energy future for all of us, as showcased by the incredible Vector Lights in partnership with Auckland Council. The Bulletin is made possible by Z Energy, proudly supporting local news that matters. Check out how they’re delivering New Zealand an alternative fuel future. A lot of you are going to take MDMA this summer. Here’s how to keep safe Legal pill testing at summer festivals is only the first step Justin Giovannetti Political editor The psychedelics revolution has arrived in New Zealand Helen Glenny	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line727
__label__wiki	0.666323	0.666323	← Running the Gauntlet in Academia: The Case of “Selfless Sacrifice” — A Rejected Article Japan develops economic and maritime security ties with Sri Lanka → Lord Michael Naseby challenges the dominant British narrative on Sri Lanka Lord Naseby’s Speech in the House of Lords on 11 June 2014 as reported in The Island 15 June 2014 My Lords, first, I compliment her Majesty’s Treasury on what it has achieved for our economy- secondly, I compliment those associated with welfare reform, in particular, my noble friend Lord Freud, on what his department has achieved. I wish I could say that I complimented her Majesty’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but I regret that I am not in a position to do so. I did not support our actions in Libya or our maneuverings in Egypt. I was totally against our policy in Libya, and wrote to the Prime Minister accordingly. All those actions have just destabilized that part of the world—and, worse, caused thousands of deaths and millions of refugees. The Syria war was from the start nothing to do with democracy; it was the fourth Sunni-Shia internal war. If we really want peace there, Her Majesty’s Government have to find a means of talking to and working with Mr Putin and Russia. It will not surprise your Lordships that I want to say a few words about Sri Lanka. I have been involved with that country for more than 50 years, and I think I know its ins and outs pretty well. I am the elected leader of the all-party group. I do not support any particular ethnic group, political party or Government. I have no business interests there — but I do fervently support the ordinary people in Sri Lanka and I wish to ask a few questions of Her Majesty’s Government. First, Sri Lanka – a former colony, a founder member of the Commonwealth and one of the few countries that supported the United Kingdom over the Falklands situation-finds today that we, the United Kingdom, are exceedingly unhelpful to it. Why is it that we are so anti the democratically elected Government? Why can we not work with them? Why at every turn must we just listen to the vociferous Diaspora, which is usually led by former Tamil Tigers? Why do we not understand that the Tigers were -terrorists who murdered every moderate Tamil leader they could find, along with two presidents and thousands of other Sri Lankans-all in the cause of a separate state called Eelam. It was rather similar to Pol Pot. Can we not understand that after 28 years of fruitless negotiations, it was necessary for a view, democratically elected Government to act to destroy the Tigers? Yes, that meant a bloody war, as the Tigers refused to surrender. However, I know that that Government tried hard to minimise casualties. Why do we refuse to publish the dispatches from our own defence attache, who was an objective assessor? Why do we think that the Sri Lankan army, which we helped to train, is so different from our own Army? After all, there were allegations against our Army in Iraq, as there were against the Sri Lankan army. I think that in both cases they were highly suspect. Certainly in the case of Iraq, they proved to be bogus. Do I think that there should be an inquiry into the final days of the war? Yes, I do, but it should be a military inquiry, because all the argument is basically about gunfire et cetera. A retired general should conduct it, perhaps from Australia. There is a wonderful Sri Lankan, Sir Desmond de Silva, who has done splendid work in Northern Ireland. There would need to be a gunnery officer, probably from the UK and obviously somebody from the UN. It is claimed that the whole issue is about human rights, but I will take just one aspect. I saw the head of the ICRC in Boossa camp and asked him, “Have you, the International Committee of the Red Cross, ever come across terror as defined internationally?”. The answer I got was, “No, I have not and nor have my staff”. How is it, then, that this new group called Freedom from Torture can come up and say that it is rife? I make a plea than we should work diplomatically with Sri Lanka. That may mean a slightly less subservient approach to the Tamil Diaspora and the media around the world. It will mean that the reconciliation, which is already happening, will be speeded up. In what way? They have been very brave in bringing forward trilingualism, which is quite an achievement. Thousands of Tamils have gone back from all over the world to Sri Lanka and settled down quite peacefully. There is total freedom of movement in the country and while there is a lot of criticism of the press, there is actually more freedom of the press in Sri Lanka than in Singapore. Certainly, the LLRC inquiry is slow—but not half as slow as Chilcot has been. I finish on this note. Over the weekend, I sat and listened to the words of President Obama. He said that we, “waged war so that we might know peace”. Why is it any different in Sri Lanka, where so many thousands of young men and Women across all ethnic groups gave their lives to rid their country of terrorism? Filed under american imperialism, British imperialism, centre-periphery relations, historical interpretation, LTTE, nationalism, politIcal discourse, power politics, Rajapaksa regime, reconciliation, security, Sinhala-Tamil Relations, slanted reportage, sri lankan society, Tamil migration, terrorism, the imaginary and the real, truth as casualty of war, unusual people, world events & processes One response to “Lord Michael Naseby challenges the dominant British narrative on Sri Lanka” Pingback: A Propaganda Concoction: Tamil Torture Claims in 2017 challenged by Naseby and WION \| Thuppahi's Blog	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line732
__label__wiki	0.741468	0.741468	Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis declared as Tennis best double partners of 2015 SINGAPORE: Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis concocted another tremendous execution on Sunday, to win the ladies' title of the prestigious $7 million WTA Finals at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. Both have been declared as best double partners. As per details, The top seeds took only an hour and seven minutes to defeat Spanish eighth seeds Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro 6-0, 6-3 in the summit conflict. This is the Indo-Swiss partners first year-closure title together however the 28-year-old Sania won the crown a year ago too with Zimbabwe's Cara Black. Sania and Martina, exclusively positioned the world's two most noteworthy duplicates players, didn't lose a set, not to mention a match, in the five ties they played in the competition this week. "On court, off court, we have a considerable measure of fun. To play in competitions like this is the thing that we've battled every one of our lives for and it's mind blowing to play before a stuffed stadium. We feel exceptionally blessed. We've done some astonishing things together and it's the ideal approach to end the year for us," said Sania. This is the pair's ninth title together this season, having likewise won in Beijing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, US Open (New York), Wimbledon (London), Charleston, Miami and Indian Wells. Their just misfortune in a last was at Rome.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line734
__label__wiki	0.550292	0.550292	“Imagining decay comes easily to me”: A Conversation with Rose McLarney by Katie Pyontek Rose McLarney is the author of three collections of poetry, Forage, Its Day Being Gone, and The Always Broken Plates of Mountains. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, New England Review, Prairie Schooner, Missouri Review, The Oxford American, and many other journals. She is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Auburn University and Co-Editor in Chief and Poetry Editor of the Southern Humanities Review. Forage is Rose McLarney’s third collection of poems. This deeply musical, interrelated collection considers subjects including the extinction of Carolina parakeets, the emergence of coywolves, the sweetness of scavenged persimmons. Forage examines American violence and exploitation, and tends to the “flickering of the familiar before it expires.” The following interview took place via email in August 2019. It has been edited for length and clarity. Katie Pyontek: What was the original impetus for Forage? How old is the oldest poem in the book? Rose McLarney: I developed my original idea for a book oriented around the concept of tributaries when I relocated to Oklahoma for a previous academic job. I was struck by the state’s dryness, meaning its lack of water, as well as its contradictory wetness during its prohibition-defying, cocktail-drinking heyday in the 1920s. One of the oldest poems in the book is “A Fine Dust,” which is based in my reading about the Dust Bowl, and my walking amid the present-day art deco mansions with their sprinkler-irrigated lawns. After a few years, and another move to Auburn, I adapted the book concept to incorporate poems about the increasing range of locations I was trying to come to know. I also had to figure out what to do about the poems I was drafting in which animals figured—after I had given up all the animals who were once my companions on my small farm, and sworn off taking them as subjects of my poems. Yet, there the drafts were, demonstrating just how hard it is to resist making animals beasts of burden, whether as laborers or under the weight of metaphors for oneself. I saw that the work that would become Forage mostly dealt with environmental and social concerns, and that animals could help travel between these themes. The very oldest poem in Forage, “Many Kinds Make the Crowd,” is about an animal—an elephant hung at a circus by a mob. Much more than a decade ago, the front page of the newspaper in the small North Carolina town where I then lived was comprised of two articles: One was about a local hunter shooting an 18-point buck that weekend, and the other was about this elephant’s killing in 1916. My earlier drafts of a poem using material from the newspaper wondered about this combination, about nostalgia and proximity, and about interest in whatever is far back in time but nearby in another sense. (The elephant’s killing was “just over the mountain,” the paper offered as explanation for revisiting this gory story.) Those early drafts failed to deal with the full weight of the subject and I gave up on them. It wasn’t until more recently, after current events had made it impossible for my writing to avoid issues of race and violence, that I was able to fully recognize that it was partially the reminders of lynchings in the elephant’s story that made it so deeply uncomfortable to encounter. Then I wrote the difficult poem that appears in Forage, which is about the potential for hatred and violence harbored in people, especially when formed into groups. KP: A line in “Seasonal” asks, looking at a suburban football field, “Why not such a field as subject for study, / rather than a farm’s.” What drew you to consider the suburban as pastoral? How has the idea of pastoral changed for you while working on Forage? RM: As much I love actual rural places, much of what has always interested me about pastoral poetry is that it has often been about a “figment.” (That’s David Baker’s word from his essay, “The Pastoral: First and Last Things.”) Virgil composed a nostalgic ideal for the relief of city dwellers who wanted to turn their attention to something other than their own settings. Frost’s poetry about little New England farms might initially be taken for pastoral, but really he is writing about sites of failure in cold and rocky soil. Today, when the word “pastoral” is used, it’s likely to be with some irony or to point out the impossibility of such ideals. Many poets are adapting the word “pastoral” for the purposes of poems about their contemporary, and often urbanized or disturbed settings, and in their own variously quirky and crushing ways. It’s hard to choose just a few examples, but some of my students’ favorites are Ed Roberson’s City Eclogue and Ansel Elkins’s poems, such as “Mississippi Pastoral” from Blue Yodel. That poem is about the Old South and sounds like the Old Testament, but while it has an element of nostalgia, it evokes an Eden to be fled, to paraphrase a reviewer. My poem, “Seasonal,” began when I moved to Alabama to teach at Auburn University. I was trying to get over feeling sorry for myself because the surroundings weren’t as pretty as the mountains and rivers of western North Carolina that I was used to (which is not the most substantial cause for sorrow). I tried to think about the good qualities of the place—since every place does have them, for those who pay attention to find—and got the uncharacteristically light-hearted opening of the poem on the page. But, once my consideration of the landscape led me to think of how humans have exploited each other and destroyed other species, and history and the future, that tone proved unsustainable. KP: “Hereafter” describes a post-Anthropocene world. “Imagine all the swimming then, among wrecks filed along the freeways. / An idyll of engines stopped utterly.” How did your imagining of that post-human world influence your poems, and vice versa? RM: Of course I worry about what will happen to people. But—when observing firsthand the disappearance of a fish species in a familiar stretch of stream after the removal of vegetation that provided shade (a hint of what large scale climate change will do) last week, or, this morning, hearing on the radio about how dung beetles on a far continent who have successfully navigated by the Milky Way since the time of the dinosaurs may now become disoriented by our artificial lights—the injustice of the impact humans have on other life forms strikes me as even more wrong. To write post-Anthropocene poems, to think that the assumption that our species has the power to end the world could be false, and that there are creatures better at surviving can be a relief. Imagining decay comes easily to me, as I’ve always been drawn to old house sites where only a few cultivars growing the woods suggest the former domesticity, chimneys standing in fields without their burned buildings, or whatever structure is missing its paint and has cracks in its glass. Maybe this draw is not entirely nostalgia for the past, but a sort of picturing of the future. However, I should point out that “Hereafter” is phrased as conjecture, a tentative wish, because it’s a fantasy of someone who would like to believe there is an escape from the damage she’s been a part of, but knows heaven is the place that’s already been given. KP: In “Winter Hard,” horses escaping a wintertime fire instantly freeze solid when they enter a lake. The speaker reflects, “Which makes no sense. But never mind / science. The idea stays with us.” Can you describe the role of this line within the poem, or within your poetry? RM: Those lines cut into the poem with a voice that contrasts with what has preceded and sounds pragmatic. Yet what they are arguing is to disregard science and sense. I am talking about those lines as “they,” like strangers, because, when I was drafting the poem, they surprised me with their appearance. Yet their down-to-earth briskness sounds more like my own speech than anything else on the page. Getting down to the truth is what we want, right? Yet, if we are to get on with the larger story, there’s no use in quibbling over this point. The poem “Winter Hard” has its own particular argument about connections and distance. But the part you have picked out of it also speaks of overarching themes and conflicts. I’m a scientist’s daughter. Yet I am a poet. People demand proof. Yet emotion governs decisions more than fact. “Hope is the mother of the stupid,” to quote a Polish proverb Zbigniew Herbert referenced. Yet what use or excuse is there for doing anything but hoping? KP: Simple pleasures are portrayed as a kind of spiritual nourishment. How do you understand things like sex, eating, and going for a run intersecting with ecopoetry? RM: The term “ecopoetry” is helpful to me when I want to distinguish poetry that includes the natural world (ideally without sacrificing artfulness) from that which romanticizes or politicizes nature. But I don’t think about ecopoetry as a guiding principle when I sit down to write, or when going running. That said, a person who is trying to be aware of her part in a whole does tend to examine whether her pleasures are necessary or at others’ expense. In the poem you are referencing, “American Persimmon,” I believe eating the fruit is what the speaker ought to do. To let the persimmons go to waste on the sidewalk because they’re not pretty or because to gather them is not conventional would be closer to sin than to enjoy them. Some readers may be surprised that a book titled Forage doesn’t contain more poems about, say, how to differentiate between a chanterelle and a jack-o-lantern mushroom or how to cut the spines out of nopales. But there is plenty of salvaging, ranging from an elephant enjoying fruit rind she finds on the riverbank before she is killed, to a couple who, before pouring cheap liquor, rubs rind on glass rims to scent them. I open the book with a short piece about gathering windfall in a suburb because I believe such acts of appreciation are important, along with the lessening of consumption associated with environmentalism. KP: How was the process of structuring and revising Forage different from other books you’ve written? RM: In my first book, The Always Broken Plates of Mountains, I did not use any sections, though it seemed like that was the expected thing to do, because I viewed the poems as all part of one arc, and of one landscape. I divided my second book, Its Day Being Gone, into three sections: A section of poems set in the U.S. and influenced by folklore, a section of poems set in Central America with its own mythic quality, and after this interlude, a third, more contemporary section set in the U.S. that revisited and reflected on the contents of previous poems. Forage is a very different book, in that it is not as place-based or narrative, so I knew I would need to come up with a new approach to organization. The result is a book in five sections, each containing eight poems. The ending and beginning poems of each section are intended to both speak to each other and to the poems they follow or precede in adjoining sections. There are also recurring notes throughout the collection. I revised the poems many times before putting them in the manuscript, of course, and then revised them all over again and again specifically for their place in the greater order. I don’t write poems in traditional forms, but the way I conceive of books as sequences, and fixate on numbers and balance of parts, is beginning to seem like its own sort of formalism. KP: “A Fine Dust” opens, “Is there time to marry, or at least / to buy a house, plant a maple by the door, / and see it mature? That’s what the small / mind asks when someone speaks / about the big picture: /” How has ecopoetry shaped your relationship to the big picture? RM: I would say that the big picture shaped my relationship to poetry, and that is why my writing acknowledges eco- and other systems. I was raised by a staunchly environmentalist father, who gave me the sense that the resources a person consumes in a life means that she had better do something worthwhile with it, and by an outstandingly frugal mother, who was at every minute making or repairing something of use (or figuring out why we didn’t need something at all). So, if I am going to spend my days adjusting a small number of words that may or may not ever appear in slim volumes of poetry, I want to have a good share of them aim beyond myself. Which is not to say that I am under the illusion my work isn’t dominated by the “I” or anthropocentric. When some people speak of “ecopoetry,” getting the human out is what they have in mind as writing’s goal. I’m doubtful that is possible since writing relies on human language, and every view must come from an eye. KP: “A Participation of Waters” addresses the “stagnant refrain” of violent anti-Black racism and the racially-motivated murders of Black Americans. The poem asks, “And in a storm, who can claim she’s just watching?” What led you to this line? RM: Working on earlier drafts of “A Participation of Waters,” I was observing, pairing atrocities in the news with a particular image of rain that day. (Wasn’t an image what I was supposed to provide?) Yet the poem did not feel right, and simply remarking on the injustices felt like a too-easy reaction. So, I decided that if I was going to make a poem out of the lives that had been taken from people, it was going to have to interrogate my own position, as well as the innocence of anyone, in any region of the nation, who may have benefited from social and economic systems that so favor white people. That led me to swivel the lens around and view the overflowing gutters of my old house and myself in the shelter of the screen porch below. In general, I agree with Carolyn Forche when she warned against construing the personal as too separate from the political, and wrote, “If we give up the dimension of the personal, we risk relinquishing one of the most powerful sites of resistance.” Figuring out how to compose—and recognize as an editor—meaningful, rather than opportunistic, poetry of witness will be an ongoing project for some time. KP: In “Peach Juice,” you write, “If only she knew what tribute, / in return, to pay.” How has poetry effected the ways you pay tribute? RM: In the process of drafting “Peach Juice,” I explored new phrases, such as “dead zone” and “algal bloom,” and the roots and parts and connotations of “tribute” and “tributary.” On my desk now, I have the beginnings of many more explorations of naming. There’s a list of the common names of varieties of the dagger moth: Delightful, Medium, Nondescript, Puzzling, Unclear, Hesitant, Afflicted, Retarded, Funerary. (I have ordered it so as to amuse myself with the suggestion of a story of some assistant assigned to catalog genus Acronicta and growing weary of his task.) There’s a list of the names of members of the family who used to own the bend in the river where I grew up: Loy, Tyndall, Jewel, Titus, and Beulah. Also, there’s a book in which an architect proposes that we need to coin names for contemporary houses, since the majority of us now do not occupy those that fit in any one clear style such as Greek revival, colonial, stick style, or ranch. I don’t know what from among these assorted notes and sources will ever be incorporated into a book of mine. And that which I praise (unless I’m writing about my husband or mother in an obvious manner) probably doesn’t get much benefit from poems. But interest in words is an interest in distinctions and articulations and understanding. Having the intention to write poems maintains a kind of sensitivity, keeps me engaged with the world and with an eye out for what is good about it. KP: How has writing Forage changed your writing practice? RM: The fourth collection of poems that I am working on now is turning out to be the most personal I have written. While this could be interpreted as a reaction to idea-driven Forage, the truth is that, in daring to address issues in Forage, I have become braver about subject matter in general. Like many women, when I was a beginning writer, I gathered that I would be more likely to be taken seriously if I stayed away from feminine themes. Now, I am finally writing about family, the body, etc. The next collection will continue the practice of writing poems that tell different sides of a story or entertain opinions that are not my own. In Forage, for instance, the optimism of the mothers who go on having children despite climate change in one poem is recast, when read in the context of other poems, as willful ignorance of the bleak prospects children will grow up into. And, though I am no defender of the South’s role in the Civil War, a poem does meditate on the aesthetic motivations of Sherman’s photographer. The poems also continue to contain queries and uncertainties. Openness may be criticized as ambivalence, or questions as rhetorical, but I am going to go ahead with putting more feminine patterns of expression in poems, rather than defaulting to what could be typified as a masculine style of asserting conclusions. KP: What projects are you working on now? RM: I was recently working on a poem for a new edition of Don West’s Clods of Southern Earth, edited by Rebecca Gayle Howell, which will reissue his labor rights and proletariat poems along with poems of response commissioned from contemporary writers. I’m polishing poems that will appear in a chapbook titled In the Gem Mine Capital of the World. It is about the good fortune of coming from an area of the mountains where there was no mineral wealth mining companies found worth pursuing in a major way. And I am alternately descending into my obsessive process of sequencing and re-revising the poems that will be a fourth collection someday and extracting myself to pursue side projects with visual artists and writing lyric essays. Finally, phrasing some answers in this interview in the obnoxious royal we, or as if it were possible speak for all of humanity, doesn’t do anything to lessen how much it’s been all about me. I’m an editor, as well as a poet, because I like to give time to others’ writing. So, readers, if you have poems that are ready to be in a journal, send them now until November (through Submittable) to me at the Southern Humanities Review. Katie Pyontek Katie Pyontek is an MFA candidate at Ohio State. She has received a fellowship from Brush Creek Foundation for the Arts and is an alumna of the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop and the Tin House Winter Workshop. Her writing has appeared in New Ohio Review and South Seattle Emerald. She lives in Columbus, OH. Katie Pyontek October 15, 2019	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line737
__label__wiki	0.724701	0.724701	Tyrant: Anti-Arab American hate TV offers new program this summer By Ray Hanania One of the most vicious and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim programs on television was Homeland. It replaced the equally anti-Arab hateful program 24, which returned to television last week. Both had one thing in common: The fictional heroes in Homeland (on the notorious anti-Arab cable channel Showtime) and 24 (on the equally notorious anti-Arab cable channel FOX) mainlined into the warped love affair that Americans have with the ugly truth of their wars like crack cocaine. Americans paint over the horrors that the war in Iraq and Afghanistan created with sanitized fictionalized narratives. They bury the war crimes and play themselves up as victims, always exploiting the fact that 19 terrorists killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001 — some of those Americans were Arab and Muslim. Tens of thousands of Muslims and Arabs who had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were killed, murdered and tortured in order to satiate the American hunger for vengeance. Nothing justified the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorism. But nothing justified the invasion of Iraq and the killing of hundreds and thousands of innocent Arabs and Muslims during the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld campaign of vengeance and greed. The unjustified wars were pretty sad to watch in real life. But to justify the real life hatred that fuels public support of those unjustified wars, television and the movies had to step up to the plate and provide “cover,” justifying the atrocities against innocent victims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Egypt, all places where the official American wars and the secret American wars continue to be prosecuted. Homeland and 24 were two of the most notorious, but not the only ones, for sure. Being an American military veteran of the Vietnam war, I recognize how hatred drives the anger and hunger for revenge among Americans who served int he U.S. Military but more so the Americans who did not serve in the military but seem to enjoy cheering for war and conflict more than many others. The latest addition to this Hate the Arabs and Hate the Muslim TV programming is a series called Tyrant which will premiere on the FX TV Network on Tuesday June 24. I haven’t been able to get FX to provide a screener copy so I can precisely evaluate the content of the new series, but from what I have seen so far in the teasers, the emphasis is on hating Arabs, hating Muslims, and especially hating Palestinians. The anti-Palestinian narrative comes from the anti-Arab producer Gideon Raff, the Israeli writer and producer of the anti-Arab hate program Homeland who was born in occupied Jerusalem in 1973. Knowing how the Israelis love to always play the victim, while pretending that they have never done worse to the Palestinians, Raff has done a great job of spinning the truth through TV fiction to make the Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians appear to be the bad guys, while glorifying the Israelis and Americans, a clever strategy to create a bond with American audiences. There is nothing like fan the flames of hatred against someone else to build a close and tight bond with someone like an American. The Israelis as masters of the PR spin. What are the Arabs doing to counter this “entertainment” garbage? Absolutely nothing, of course. The one truthful narrative of all of these programs is that the Arab World is run by tyrants and dictators and autocrats and monarchs who care more about the profits they get from the Western countries for their oil production (Saudi Arabia, Iraq) and for their military support (Jordan, Egypt, Yemen). But while these hate programs on American TV portray all Arabs are murderers and blood thirty anti-Semites and terrorist killers of babies, the truth is that the majority of Arabs are more moral and principled than even the most honorable American. The Arab World doesn’t produce this kind of hate entertainment because they don’t embrace hatred as easily as do Americans and Israelis. Here are some trailers from Tyrant, published on YouTube: Tyrant offers the creative talents of David Yates, the director of the “true-to-life” (sarcasm, of course) Harry Potter series. Yates knows more about embellishing and fabricating narrative and making it compelling to the gullible American audiences better than anyone. It’s a fascinating American world we live in. On the one hand, many Americans argue that the violence on video games and on television seen by children, teenagers and young people may in fact be a major cause of why so many young Americans pick up guns and then go to their local schools where they try to murder and massacre other American school mates. It happens more often in American schools than it does in schools in any other foreign country. Yet, if you argued that the television-hate broadcast on Showtime, FOX and FX has the same kind of impact on Americans but even more destructive and threatening, Americans laugh at you. They just refuse to believe that they somehow are capable of being worse than the terrorists who attacked this country on Sept. 11, 2001. But clearly, the American TV hate programs are a narcotic that fuels that anger, hatred, stereotypes, racism, discrimination and bigotry against Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians. And that must make Raff very happy. He has done his job to help Israel. I’m sure that maybe next year, Jay Leno will present him the $1 million Genesis Prize in Israeli occupied Jerusalem, which once was the capitol of Christianity but today is a battle ground between Jews and Muslims. (I doubt any TV producer will make a movie about that reality, or that the Arab dictators in the Middle East and the Islamic World would ever think that putting a few million into the movie industry instead of on the Baccarat tables at the world’s most lavish casinos — the “Arab Hypocritical Houses of Haram.”) (Ray Hanania is an award winning former Chicago City Hall reporter and political columnist and managing editor of The Arab Daily News www.TheArabDailyNews.com. Selections of his columns are also distributed by Creators Syndicate.) Campaign to silence Christians who challenge Arab World discrimination Racism in the US entertainment industry Hating the Jew you’ve never met Spying on Arabs and Muslims in New York violates civil rights Muslims must be more supportive of Christian Arabs Israel criticized for helping Christians, but what are Muslims doing? The nexus of the Stevens killing and anti-Muslim hate speech The American fixation with race and Arabs Chaldean Times Exclusive: Israel isn’t only oppressor of Christians in Middle East Norman Podhoretz and the face of modernday hate rayhanania Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster at The Arab Daily News RAY HANANIA — Op-Ed writer, author, radio host, podcaster Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books. Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007). Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald. Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada. His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association. Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues. Click here to send Ray Hanania email. Latest posts by rayhanania (see all) AHRC Observes Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Day: - January 17, 2021 Check Out Books Reviewed in the January/February Washington Report Issue - January 16, 2021 Arab Radio: Challenging biased news media & social media - January 16, 2021 May 29, 2014 rayhanania American Arabs, Bloggers, Commentary, Entertainment, Ray Hanania, VideoArab , Arab people , Arab World , FOX TV , FX Network , Iraq , Israel , Middle East , Ray Hanania , Saudi Arabia , SHOWTIME , Television , Tyrant ← Gaza-Palestine Photojournalist Focuses on the Children Tyrant: hate TV series coming this summer reveals more about Hollywood than Arabs and Muslims → 7 comments on “Tyrant: Anti-Arab American hate TV offers new program this summer” rayhanania says: Islamic extremism is a problem, but it has nothing to do with Islam as a religion. The hatred of Islam by Americans like you is unjustified and driven by racism and pure hatred. It’s an excuse. The majority of serial killers are White men who are Christian, yet we don’t launch a campaign to persecute Christian White men. Treat the terrorists as criminals that they are who make all kinds of claims including the ridiculous posture that they represent Islam, which in fact they do not. Using stereotypes and profiling to attack terrorism and crime is a reflection of an emotional campaign of hatred not a strategic methodology to fight terrorism or crime. You are driven by hatred and nothing more. Your hatred empowers the Islamic fanatics, and it also clouds the Christian extremist terrorist who murder people all the time at High schools, universities, Post Offices. Wake up. The end result is the crime, not the religion of the criminals.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line738
__label__wiki	0.606128	0.606128	The Chronicles of Michael Christopher Links to writings. Musings on life. Photography. Travels. Skulls. Concerning the Author… The Rolling Stones release famed Atlantic City show from 1989 When the Rolling Stones announced their return to the road in the summer of 1989, it was the guaranteed to be the hottest ticket in town as the band had been absent for an excruciatingly long seven years. The run to support the album Steel Wheels was filled with Philly tie-ins – it kicked off right here at the since demolished Veterans Stadium in fact, and now one of the highlights has come to Blu-ray and DVD under the banner Steel Wheels Live. The final three shows of the Steel Wheels Tour in 1989 took place December 17, 19 and 20 at Atlantic City’s Convention Center, a location now known as Boardwalk Hall. It was the middle show that had people talking though, due to a slew of high-profile guests including members of a then white-hot Guns N’ Roses, along with two guitar legends from different generations. Guns N’ Roses’ frontman Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin accompanied the Stones in A.C. for the first-ever live performance of “Salt of The Earth” from their 1968 ‘Beggars Banquet’ album. Eric Clapton brought his slow blues burn to a cover of Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster” and then joined in to back up one of their collective idols, blues legend John Lee Hooker on “Boogie Chillen.” Having been the first tour hitting the US since 1981, the Steel Wheels Tour was famous for one of the group’s longest and most ambitious setlists at some two and a half hours. The Stones not only rolled out their expected hits, but dared to drop several new songs from the then-newly released Steel Wheels album with renditions of “Terrifying,” “Sad Sad Sad,” “Mixed Emotions,” “Rock and a Hard Place” and “Can’t Be Seen.” Time hasn’t been that kind to most of them, with the overly opulent vestiges of the 80s in the air, but what a time capsule to witness. Still, it was on the verge of a new decade, one which saw the jaunt stretch into the summer of 1990 ending up with 115 dates in total, showing the Stones were not going to enter into the rock and roll graveyard as gracefully as so many had been predicting for years. Seeing Mick Jagger and Keith Richards muscle their way through the familiar “Brown Sugar” and “Paint It Black” put to rest any talk of them disappearing. ‘Steel Wheels Live’ has been restored, remixed and remastered and is available as a limited 180gram 4LP set on colored vinyl, DVD + 2CD, SD Blu-ray, 2CD and digital formats. Additionally, the set can be found as a special limited 6-disc version, which includes the Atlantic City performance on DVD, SD-Blu-ray, 2CD, a DVD of their Steel Wheels Tour performance at the famed Tokyo Dome in Japan, as well as Steel Wheels Rare Reels, a CD featuring tracks which didn’t show up on the core tour setlist. This article appeared in yesterday’s print edition of The Daily Times in my weekly Rock Music Menu column under the title “The Rolling Stones release famed Atlantic City show from 1989.” Featured photo by Dimo Safari. Published by Michael Christopher View all posts by Michael Christopher Film, Music, Writing Axl Rose, Eric Clapton, Guns N' Roses, Izzy Stradlin, John Lee Hooker, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Steel Wheels, The Rolling Stones The Fillmore Philadelphia among venues Live Nation will turn into polling sites	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line739
__label__wiki	0.780653	0.780653	The Connectere The Connectere brings forward the mind’s eye and panoramic view of the young writing enthusiasts on various topics Economics Simplified The Connectere News The Connectere Podcast The Weekly Analysis- Edition 25 By The Connectere In The First Forum (News) There are two aspects to the news- knowing the headline and understanding the intricacies of it. We at The Connectere focus on both. While The First Forum edition gives a brief about the headlines, The Weekly Analysis Edition is meant to educate the reader on what do various news mean and what are their intricacies. This initiative is meant to educate the reader on how to understand the important news. In the Twenty Fifth Edition we are covering the following news: 1. Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest serving PM resigns 2. The ‘quota within quota’ Case Explained 3. Centre-State spar over GST compensation dues 4. UAE puts an end on the economic boycott of Israel 5. Indian economy contracts a massive 23.9% in Q1, worst fall in decades 6. India pulls out of Kavkaz-2020 in light of Covid-19 Shinzo Abe, Japan’s longest serving PM resigns Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, 66, in a sudden move resigned from his post of Prime Minister citing health concerns. This announcement comes days after wide speculations being made about his health. Reportedly, Abe suffers from ulcerative colitis, a chronic medical condition that he has lived with since he was a teenager, but has exacerbated more recently. Abe had recently became Japan’s longest-serving leader, breaking the record of spending the maximum number of days in office that was previously set by his great-uncle, Eisaku Sato, who served as Prime Minister of Japan from 1964 to 1972. During his first term as the country’s prime minister, Abe resigned in 2007, only a year after assuming the top job. At that time, political observers had said that Abe’s sudden resignation was a combination of foreign and domestic factors, including a political stalemate in Japan over the country’s logistical support for the US invasion of Afghanistan. However, years later, observers said that in addition to these challenges, Abe’s health condition had also impacted his decision to resign and had pointed to a statement that the leader had made in 2007, admitting that he was “tired”. Abe’s tenure will particularly be known for his aggressive economic policies known as ‘Abenomics’ that focussed on Japan’s economic revival and combined structural reform, monetary easing and fiscal expansion, with the goal to increase domestic demand. Among his foreign policy plans, Abe has been known for approaching North Korea with a firmer stance. In 2014, Abe began focussing on building ties between Japan and ASEAN, India, Australia. Some observers believe that these foreign policy moves were an attempt to offset China’s influence in the region, as well its contentious ties with South Korea over several territorial and diplomatic disputes. As an example of improving ties with India, Abe became the first Japanese prime minister to attend India’s Republic Day parade as the chief guest. Although Abe has taken several policy decisions with regard to the building of defence and security, one of the most striking moves has been his attempts to reform and revise the Japanese Constitution’s Article 9.The revision of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution has been one of Abe’s many goals for which he pushed hard during his tenure but was unable to achieve. More recently, Abe’ handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Japan was heavily scrutinized, particularly following a sharp rise in infections. The pandemic also impacted Japan’s ability to host the 2020 Olympics that was postponed to the summer of 2021. Moving forward after Abe’s resignation, under the provisions of Japanese law, an acting prime minister would step in and there would be no term limit on how long the acting prime minister would stay in the role. Abe would be replaced by deputy prime minister Taro Aso, who also serves as Japan’s finance minister. Next in line would be chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga. The ‘quota within quota’ Case Explained A five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court reopened the legal debate on sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for reservations, or what is commonly referred to as “quota within quota” for SCs and STs. While the Bench ruled in favour of giving preferential treatment to certain Scheduled Castes over others to ensure equal representation of all Scheduled Castes, it referred the issue to a larger Bench to decide. This was because in a 2005 ruling, also by a five-judge Bench, the Supreme Court had ruled that state governments had no power to create sub-categories of SCs for the purpose of reservation. States have argued that among the Scheduled Castes, there are some that remain grossly under-represented despite reservation in comparison to other Scheduled Castes. This inequality within the Scheduled Castes is underlined in several reports, and special quotas have been framed to address it. The Constitution, while providing for special treatment of SCs and STs to achieve equality, does not specify the castes and tribes that are to be called Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. This power is left to the central executive — the President. As per Article 341, those castes notified by the President are called SCs and STs. A caste notified as SC in one state may not be a SC in another state. These vary from state to state to prevent disputes as to whether a particular caste is accorded reservation or not. The basis of special protections for SCs comes, in the first place, from the fact that all these castes suffered social inequity. Untouchability was practised against all these castes irrespective of economic, education and other such factors. The argument is that the test or requirement of social and educational backwardness cannot be applied to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The special treatment is given to the SCs due to untouchability with which they suffer. In a 1976 case, State of Kerala v N M Thomas, the Supreme Court laid down that “Scheduled Castes are not castes, they are class.” The petitioner’s argument against allowing states to change the proportion of reservation is also based on the perception that such decisions will be made to appease one vote-bank or the other. A watertight President’s list was envisaged to protect from such potential arbitrary change. “The constitutional goal of social transformation cannot be achieved without taking into account changing social realities,” the court ruled. Centre-State spar over GST compensation dues The 41st GST Council meeting has added a controversial turn in the issue of GST compensation to states because the centre has asked the states to borrow money to cover the shortfall of GST revenues rather than providing the compensation to states for the same. As per the commitment brought about by the centre in the Constitution Act 2016, Centre is liable to compensate the states for the loss of revenue arising on the account of transition to GST setup from the earlier indirect tax regime for the period of 5 years.This commitment had majorly convinced the states to agree on the GST model. To adhere to this commitment, the centre maintains a compensation fund out of the cess levied on certain sin and automobile items. The commitment for loss is calculated by the difference between the projected revenues and actual revenues from GST for a given year. The projected figure is assumed to be the growth of 14% on base year of 2015-16 in which GST was implemented. As a matter of fact, the economy has been slowing even before the Covid pandemic and there have been continuous delays in the matter of compensation payments the year before as well. This year, the payments are due for the past 4 months (April-July) and both states and the centre are facing substantial fall in the revenues. The states have been complaining and requesting the centre to clear off the compensation dues as they don’t have enough resources to meet their bare expenses. The GST council, in the meeting, claimed that the Act of 2016 guaranteed the shortfalls of revenue arising out of only ‘ implementation of GST’, however, a major proportion the recent decrease in revenues of the states is due the halt in business activity by COVID-19 which FM termed as an “act of god” and hence, the centre is not liable for the full payment of Rs 2.35 lakh crores of shortfall and according to certain calculations, only 97,000 crores is due to the centre. For the same, it has given 2 options to the states for taking loan. First option facilitates the states to take up the loan from RBI at concessional rates through a special window and the second option is that the entire shortfall of 2,35,000 crores may be bought by states by taking loan from public. To ensure that all arrears of compensation are paid, centre will continue the Compensation cess for more years.The centre has given the states a time period of 7 days to decide upon the options. However, many states are rigorously demanding that it should be the centre who should be taking the loan and give them the payments rather than putting the burden on them and claiming that this is the worst treatment of federalism in the independent India. On the other hand, Centre is of view that they are heading towards cooperative federalism by involving states in this decision. This decision can have an adverse affect on the financial stability of states. Instead, if the central govt. borrows to cover up, they can do it at much lower cost because of higher numbers of options to them like sovereign bonds, PSUs, international organizations etc. The deferment of dues also has a negative impact on the trust building between centre and states. Moreover, the idea of continuing compensation cess for further years will affect the business of auto sector as it forms significant component of cess. This compensation crisis clearly suggests how the shortfalls are rising every year and how the concept of GST is somewhat flawed in India and thus, it can pose similar problems in long run. UAE puts an end on the economic boycott of Israel Few days after UAE signed a deal brokered by US President Donald Trump to recognize Israel as a country, it has moved another step towards strengthening bilateral ties with the country by scrapping its economic boycott and allowing trade and financial agreements between the two countries. On top of that, a historic El Al flight has been commenced between these new partners. Emergence of UAE in the league of accepting Israel as a strategic partner shows the recent change in the Geo-Politics in west Asia. Two sides can be seen in the region with pro-Islamist countries like Iran, Qatar, Pakistan and Turkey strongly condemning the move as according to them, it is weakening the Palestinian case. There are others like Egypt and Jordan which already recognize Israel and are welcoming UAE in the suit. Of all the Arab nations, Saudi Arabia has a middle stance as it has not commented on the issue. The friction between the Arab nations and Israel goes long time back. Israel is a Jewish state formed in the area called British Mandate for Palestine when thousands of Jew people migrated in the region demanding a separate Jew state in wake of movement called Zionism and these numbers were increased after the Holocast. On the other hand, the Arab people wanted to develop a distinct national identity in the state of Palestine. In the subsequent Arab- Israel wars, the latter was able to annex most of the region and gained substantial influence over West Bank and Gaza strip, the most critical areas of the region. This led to the rise of uprising of extremists leading the cause for Palestinian state sponsored by fellow Arabic countries. Since then, the state of Israel has not been accepted by most of the Arab states. But, Egypt and Jordan had recognized the country owing to settlements after facing defeat in wars from Israel. Now, UAE has come in the picture as well, however, there was no war between the two countries. The development points out that Israel looks forward to end frictions with more and more Arab nations by using the channel of diplomatic talks, before opting for any hard measures of war which will help it improve its stance on the global front. However, UAE’s decision doesn’t imply that it no longer supports the issue of Palestine, rather it is just that the country wishes to widen its economical and political alternatives, rather than blindly walking along the path of other Arab nations. Also, this move is extremely fruitful for the basket of India because India has good strategic relations with both Israel and UAE. Coming together of these countries will help India strengthen bilateral as well as multilateral ties with both of them. Indian economy contracts a massive 23.9% in Q1, worst fall in decades The Indian economy contracted for the first time in a quarter since the National Statistical Office (NSO) began releasing quarterly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate from 1996. In the April-June quarter, a massive 23.9% contraction was recorded in light of the nation-wide lockdown imposed from 24th March 2020 to tackle the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. India now is amongst the worst performers in this quarter with all the G-7 countries posting better performance than India. Among major economies, China is the only nation to post a positive growth of 3.2% in this quarter. This contraction implies that there was a 23.9% decline in economic activity in Q1 of 2020-21 in comparison with the same quarter in the previous year i.e. 2019-20. GDP at constant prices (Years 2011-12) was measured at Rs 26.90 Lakh crores in Q1 this year, as against Rs 35.35 Lakh crores in Q1 in the previous year. Considering in nominal terms, GDP fell 22.6%. However, even before the pandemic, India was facing an economic slowdown where the quarterly growth rate declined from 5.2% in Q1 to 3.1% in Q4 in 2019-20. With this decline in growth, India is now on the verge of its 5th recession post-independence. Earlier negative growth has been recorded in FY58, FY66, FY73 and FY80. As per NSO data, apart from agriculture which had a growth rate of 3.4%, all other key sectors witnessed contraction during this quarter. While manufacturing, services and mining sector witnessed a 39.3%, 20.6% and 23.8% fall, the construction sector took the hardest hit with a 50.3% fall. With this, the construction and manufacturing sector have now posted three and four quarters of continuous contraction respectively. The opposition was critical to these numbers and was quick enough the hit the government. Senior leader Rahul Gandhi tweeted and took a critical note on the continuous ignorance by the government despite having several signs, warnings and suggestion. Former Union Finance Minister, P Chidambaram, termed the numbers as an “economy tragedy” and said that it was a “matter of shame” for the government that did nothing much to tackle the situation. He also asked the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, to be grateful to the farmers and gods who blessed the farmers after her latest “Act of God” remark. IMF earlier predicted a 1.9% growth for India in this financial year but revised it to a 4.5% negative growth. However, after the latest stats were released, economists now believe that a 7 or even 8% decline can be witnessed in this financial year. Despite this, Chief Economic Advisor, KV Subramanian believes that India will have a V-shaped recovery in the upcoming quarters as lockdown has been eased except for containment zones and unlocking process has now reached its 4th stage. India pulls out of Kavkaz-2020 in light of Covid-19 In a recent development, India has formally withdrawn from a military exercise in Russia, scheduled to be held in its Astrakhan region from 15th to 26th September despite earlier confirming its participation. Although India has cited logistic difficulties due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic as the reason for the pullback, sources close to the government believe that the major reason is its current border standoff with China in Eastern Ladakh from past few months. India is not willing to perform military drills with China and Pakistan in the current scenario. However, India and China earlier participated in the Victory Day Parade to mark the 75th anniversary of World War II in Moscow where Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, was present with his Chinese counterpart. The Russian multinational exercise named Kavkaz-2020 (Caucasus-2020) is a strategic command-post exercise that will have participation from China, Pakistan, Turkey and several other member nations of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). SCO which is an intergovernmental organization established in 2001 in China currently has 8 member states, 4 observer states and 6 dialogue partners. Earlier, India had planned to send 150 Army troops, 45 Air Force personnel and few Navy troops for the exercise. The Russian exercise is held in a four-year cycle and was last held in 2016. According to sources, close to 13000 troops are expected to participate in this exercise to impart real-time training to counter international terrorism in the Northern and Caucasus region of Russia. After India’s withdrawal from Kavkaz-2020, speculations were being made on cancellation of Rajnath Singh’s three-day visit to Russia for a crucial meeting of the SCO defence ministers scheduled on 3rd and 4th September. However, he has left for the meeting but is expected to have no interaction with his Chinese counterpart. Indian Foreign Minister, S Jaishankar is also expected to go for the SCO foreign ministers meeting scheduled on 10th September. Hence, experts believe that India’s current foreign policy doesn’t give a clear stance. India is avoiding China at major meetings amid standoff. However, it has made massive investment under BRICS and SCO of which China is a major member. Despite withdrawing from Kavkaz-2020, India stressed on its close and strategic ties with its major defence partner Russia. India will be hosting a bilateral naval exercise at the Andaman Islands with the Russian Navy on 4th and 5th September. At least three of India’s warships are expected to participate in this exercise. This step is being seen as a message to China that India and Russia share close defence ties despite its withdrawal from Kavkaz-2020. Get The Connectere directly in your E-mail inbox ! Enter your email address to subscribe to The Connectere and receive notifications of our new content on your E-Mail Subscribe via E-Mail! Going Out of Business – Kodak Going Out of Business – BlackBerry About The Connectere The Connectere is a student run organisation which wishes to assist and empower the voice of the youth in the domain of Finance, Business and Politics. Know more about The Connectere. Subscribe to The Connectere via E-Mail Enter your email address to subscribe to The Connectere and receive notifications of new posts by email. If everybody decides to only hire men for low paying jobs, the gender gap will decrease The First Forum – Lesser importance of SAARC The Connectere Podcast #91: Pongal: A celebration of tradition, culture, & change! How do OTT Platforms make Money? Retail Apocalypse Today I Learnt: Pink Capitalism And How It's Doing More Harm Than Good "[…] a result, it increased purchasing power for the LGBTQ+ community, also marking ..." Jason W. Moore "Sharp! Great piece. 🙂 Jason " Mamta Goyal "Well written Ananya " Manya Jain "Really well written and enriching! " Aashna Malhotra "Was looking for an article about this topic for research. Very helpful. Thanks " 2008 ART ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AUTOMOBILES CHINA constitution CORRUPTION cryptocurrency DENMARK DIVIDE DOLLAR DOMINANCE DONALD TRUMP DOWNFALL DRONES ECONOMY EDUCATION ENERGY FINANCE FINANCIAL CRISES GDP GNP health india INTEREST RATES investment iran law MIDDLE EAST MUSLIMS oil OLD AGE Pakistan PRIVACY RELIANCE ROBOTICS SAUDI ARABIA SOCIAL SPORTS START-UPS TECHNOLOGY US USA war WOMEN Get all updates from The Connectere. Sign up below The Connectere publishes new content daily. It ranges from articles to podcasts and news analysis. To not miss out on these updates, sign up for our email newsletter. We promise we don't ever spam. (Once you put in your email, you will need to go and confirm the subscription from your inbox once)	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line740
__label__wiki	0.659808	0.659808	Fear prevents clarity CISA Director Krebs takes a look back and a look forward. And please, knock off the FUD. CISA By CyberWire staff writer A whole-of-nation approach is important, but some contributions to that approach aren't particularly welcome. Take vendor FUD, for example. At CISA’s 2nd Annual National Cybersecurity Summit on Wednesday, CISA director Chris Krebs outlined what the new agency has achieved since it was set up last year. Krebs cited a number of directives and executive orders that have been passed, and he pointed to the series of indictments against threat actors around the world. As an example of the effectiveness of these measures, he said that “indictments of the SamSam ransomware actors have stopped SamSam ransomware attacks worldwide.” Looking forward, Krebs wants to prepare for a large-scale cyberattack before it happens. Relating such an event to a natural disaster, he said we know how to prepare for hurricanes because we know what happens when a hurricane hits. We don’t have that level of knowledge when it comes to a cyber event, but he said the spate of ransomware attacks against government targets this summer came “pretty close” to a large-scale event. One of the threats CISA is preparing for is the possibility that ransomware could be deployed against voter registration databases during the 2020 election. Krebs also asked the cybersecurity industry to stop “selling fear.” He acknowledged that it’s an effective marketing tactic, but said we need to remove the hysteria and have measured and reasonable conversations about threats, particularly those surrounding election security. He said the threats to infrastructure are real, but alarmism doesn’t help and only serves to drive voter confidence down. Throughout his speech, Krebs stressed the growing importance of cooperation between the public and private sectors in defending against threats. “The government’s not going to solve this problem alone,” he said. “This is a national problem set.”	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line742
__label__wiki	0.836179	0.836179	Home Fintech Enforcement Director Stephanie Avakian to Conclude Tenure After Four Years Leading the... Enforcement Director Stephanie Avakian to Conclude Tenure After Four Years Leading the Division Washington, D.C.–(Newsfile Corp. – December 10, 2020) – The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Division of Enforcement Director, Stephanie Avakian will conclude her tenure by the end of the year. Ms. Avakian, who began her career at the SEC, leaves the agency after leading the Enforcement Division over the last four years as Co-Director and then Director. During her tenure as Director, and previously as Co-Director alongside Steven Peikin, Ms. Avakian maintained the Division’s focus on protecting investors, addressing misconduct and market threats in a timely and effective manner, and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the more than 1400-person Division, which has resulted in thousands of high-quality cases. Under her leadership, the Division of Enforcement recommended and the Commission brought more than 3,000 enforcement actions, obtained more than $17 billion in financial remedies, returned approximately $3.6 billion to harmed investors, and paid awards of approximately $595 million to whistleblowers. “I am incredibly proud of what the women and men of the Division of Enforcement have accomplished under Stephanie’s leadership. Her focus on the vigorous pursuit of quality cases, using the recourses of the Division to maximum effect has resulted in a program that is tough on violators, enhances the integrity of our markets, and puts the interests of our Main Street investors first,” said SEC, Chairman Jay Clayton. “Stephanie’s leadership skills are unparalleled. Her deep knowledge of how the Commission works, combined with her personal connections with staff from across the country, have served to empower our investigators, accountants, data analysts, trial team members and other professionals to work collaboratively to produce exceptional work. With Stephanie leading the team, Enforcement also pivoted quickly to address critical emerging issues, acting decisively and deliberately. For example, Enforcement’s ability to root out potential misconduct amid the COVID-19 pandemic while also continuing its existing caseload, all in a virtual work environment, is a fitting testament to her leadership, expertise, and commitment to our mission. Working with Stephanie and her team on behalf of America’s investors has been an immense personal and professional privilege.” “I am grateful to Chairman Clayton for giving me the opportunity to lead the Division, and the freedom and support to run an aggressive enforcement program,” said Ms. Avakian. “To everyone in the Enforcement Division, thank you. Thank you for your passion for our mission and your hard work on behalf of investors, particularly in the face of unprecedented challenges. Thank you, as well, for your good humor, and for the kindness you showed daily, to me and to each other. You made this an incredibly rewarding job, and I will miss working alongside you.” Ms. Avakian approached the work of the Division guided by a single, overarching principle – that the Division’s vigorous, thoughtful enforcement of the federal securities laws is essential to the well-being of investors and to the integrity and fairness of our markets. Protecting investors and market integrity Under Ms. Avakian’s leadership, the Division of Enforcement brought investor-focused actions on conduct that spanned the securities markets, including a number of emerging market threats. The Division’s cases addressed novel misconduct ranging from schemes to trade based on hacked nonpublic information to fraudulent or unregistered initial coin offerings to complex market manipulation schemes. At the same time, the Division continued to focus on areas that have traditionally been an important part of its enforcement efforts, including false and misleading disclosures, FCPA violations, insider trading, offering fraud, and unregistered offerings. The Division’s work under Ms. Avakian in these areas was marked by a willingness to take on particularly complex issues, including in a number of notable cases against public companies, financial institutions, and asset managers, as well as C-suite executives and other individuals. Illustrative cases include those against Tesla and Elon Musk, Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, General Electric, former Congressman Christopher Collins, Facebook, Wells Fargo, Telegram, Goldman Sachs, and the Woodbridge Group and its founder Robert Shapiro. These cases alone resulted in financial remedies of over $4 billion, as well as a range of traditional and innovative remedial relief. The Division’s investigations during this time led to a number of enforcement actions against major financial firms. This focus on aggressively policing Wall Street resulted in a series of cases against some of the world’s largest financial institutions – including Citibank, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and Merrill Lynch – for improper conduct that undermined market integrity in connection with the “pre-release” of American Depository Receipts, which ultimately resulted in the Commission ordering financial remedies of more than $430 million. Protection of market integrity also drove the Division to continue to investigate complex issues of market structure, which culminated in enforcement actions such as those concerning large broker-dealers’ disclosure failures related to their treatment of customer orders. Another key structural issue was the problem of undisclosed conflicts of interest between clients and advisers. Under Ms. Avakian and Mr. Peikin, the Division conducted the Share Class Selection Disclosure Initiative to address the substantial number of investment advisers that had not disclosed to investors conflicts of interest created by obtaining fees for placing clients in higher-cost mutual funds share classes, where lower- cost share classes were available. As a result, roughly $140 million has been or is scheduled to be returned to investors. Through such cases against major companies and industry firms, the Division under Ms. Avakian ensured a fairer, safer market for all investors. These cases came in addition to numerous enforcement investigations and actions concerning retail-level frauds that preyed on the perpetrators’ friends, family members, and members of their communities and other affinity groups. The victims of these schemes included members of identifiable communities such as military service members, teachers, seniors, African immigrants, and members of the Hispanic, Amish and Mennonite, and deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing loss communities, among others. The Division also successfully pursued organizers of numerous Ponzi schemes that sought to victimize investors of all types. Over the past four years, the Commission also protected investors by suspending trading in the securities of more than 1,000 issuers. Across these substantive areas, during Ms. Avakian’s tenure, the Division focused on obtaining meaningful relief through timely action. This focus resulted in roughly 110 asset freezes in emergency actions to stop ongoing fraudulent conduct and freeze illicit profits in an effort to preserve funds for distribution to victims. Similarly, the Division emphasized individual accountability. More than two-thirds of enforcement actions under Ms. Avakian included charges against individuals, many of them at the top of the corporate hierarchy—including chief executive officers, chief financial officers, and chief operating officers—as well as gatekeepers including accountants, auditors, and lawyers. Improving the Division’s effectiveness and efficiency In order to ensure the Division focused on a wide range of risks in the most effective manner, Ms. Avakian sought ways to increase Division efficiency and took steps to maximize the use of resources. These efforts included process changes designed to increase the speed and effectiveness of complex investigations of financial fraud and issuer disclosures. These changes helped yield meaningful results, as the average duration of such cases declined over the most recent fiscal year. Ms. Avakian also placed a particular focus on centralizing the Division’s efforts to distribute funds to harmed investors and streamlining the processes to award whistleblowers. In addition to returning over $3.6 billion to harmed investors over the course of Ms. Avakian’s tenure, the Division also took significant steps to streamline the processes for future fund distributions. For example, the Division established the Office of Bankruptcy, Collections, Distributions, and Receiverships to centralize existing functions and more efficiently compensate victims of misconduct. Ms. Avakian was instrumental in creating that new office, and in implementing changes to the Office of the Whistleblower to make the process of evaluating and issuing whistleblower awards substantially more efficient. This resulted in a substantial increase in the rate at which whistleblower claims are evaluated and awards are issued. Since December 2016, the Office of the Whistleblower has awarded approximately $595 million to eligible whistleblowers, including a record $175 million to 39 whistleblowers in fiscal year 2020, which represents both the highest dollar amount and the highest number of individuals awarded in any fiscal year. During Ms. Avakian’s tenure, the SEC issued the largest single award to date under the history of the program – $114 million to a single whistleblower – along with the five next largest awards. Ms. Avakian also led a number of initiatives and processes to help the Division maintain the level of technological expertise necessary to protect investors from bad actors, including the creation of a new, centralized Cyber Unit to combat cyber-related threats and to address violations involving digital assets and distributed ledger technology. Under Ms. Avakian’s leadership, the Division significantly enhanced its ability to conduct sophisticated data analysis, including to detect insider trading, “cherry-picking” schemes, and potential accounting or disclosure violations. This combination of organizational agility, substantive focus, and strategic process innovations characterized the Division’s response to COVID-19 under Ms. Avakian. As the global pandemic took hold, Ms. Avakian reacted promptly to threats presented by COVID-19, as well as the ensuing dynamic market conditions. In February 2020, the Division began recommending to the Commission trading suspensions in the securities of companies where there were questions regarding the accuracy and adequacy of information in the marketplace. The Commission also brought seven COVID-related enforcement actions within the first year of the pandemic, six of which alleged fraud. Additionally, in the early stages of the pandemic, Ms. Avakian and Mr. Peikin issued a Statement Regarding Market Integrity that emphasized the importance of safeguarding, and preventing abuse or inappropriate disclosure of, material nonpublic information amid periods of great market volatility. More broadly, Ms. Avakian convened and led the Coronavirus Steering Committee, through which they coordinated the Enforcement Division’s response to the threats presented by the COVID-19 emergency. The Steering Committee continues to generate and coordinate investigations concerning a wide variety of potential COVID-related misconduct. Prior to her role as Director, Ms. Avakian served as Co-Director from June 2017 until August 2020 and as Acting Director from December 2016 to June 2017. Before that, she served as Enforcement’s Deputy Director beginning in June 2014. Before being named Deputy Director of the Enforcement Division, Ms. Avakian was a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, where she served as a vice chair of the firm’s securities practice and focused on representing financial institutions, public companies, boards, and individuals in a broad range of investigations and other matters before the SEC and other agencies. Ms. Avakian previously worked in the Division of Enforcement as a branch chief in the SEC’s New York Regional Office, and later served as counsel to former SEC Commissioner Paul Carey. She received her bachelor’s degree from the College of New Jersey and a law degree from Temple University School of Law, both with high honors. For additional information about the work of the Enforcement Division under Ms. Avakian’s tenure, click here for her September 16, 2020 speech. Deputy Director, Marc P. Berger will serve as Acting Director upon Ms. Avakian’s departure. 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__label__wiki	0.706432	0.706432	Noxious Marine Alga (Caulerpa taxifolia) In NSW 23 May 2010, at 1:00am Caulerpa taxifolia, although not native to New South Wales, has grown substantially in recent years. Spreading rapidly the plant can have an adverse effect on What is Caulerpa taxifolia? Figure 1. Caulerpa. Tim Glasby, I&I NSW Caulerpa taxifolia (Caulerpa) is a bright green, fast growing alga that originates from tropical areas of the Indo-Pacific, including northern Australia. It is not native to New South Wales (NSW) (except Lord Howe Island) and was first identified in mainland coastal locations in 2000. The first infestations probably came from aquaria as, prior to it being banned, Caulerpa had been a popular aquarium plant in Australia for many years. Caulerpa favours sheltered waters, such as estuaries and coastal lakes. Despite being a tropical marine alga, Caulerpa has the ability to establish and proliferate in cooler waters like those in NSW. Why is it a problem? Caulerpa is considered a pest in NSW because when introduced to new areas it can grow rapidly and densely to cover large areas of the seabed. This may reduce the availability of habitats, such as bare sand and native seagrasses, for native species. Caulerpa can also have adverse effects on native cockles. Caulerpa is currently present in several coastal lakes and estuaries in NSW (check the I&I NSW website for the current distribution of Caulerpa). In NSW Caulerpa taxifolia is listed as a Class 1 noxious species under the Fisheries Management Act 1994, and possession and sale are illegal. How to identify Caulerpa Caulerpa has light to bright green feather-like fronds that are attached to a main stem (stolon) that runs along the ground. The stolon can measure over 1 m long and has root-like structures called rhizoids to attach to the substrate. Caulerpa can be distinguished from other similar species by the characteristic branching pattern of the pinnules (small lateral branches on the fronds), which attach directly opposite each other on the fronds. What is Industry & Investment NSW doing to control Caulerpa? Figure 2. Applying salt to Caulerpa with a modified punt. In 2009 I&I NSW released an updated Control Plan, which aims to limit further spread of Caulerpa and reduce the impacts of existing populations. This will be achieved through vector management, compliance and education, as well as the control and treatment of high priority areas and continued monitoring and research. I&I NSW will continue to implement fishing closures to minimise the risk of Caulerpa being spread to new locations from both recreational and commercial netting activities. Initial research on control methods for Caulerpa identified the application of salt as the most useful control tool, and many hundreds of tonnes have been applied to infestations in NSW. However, many factors can reduce the feasibility of this treatment technique, including the depth of the infestation, the area of the seabed that requires treatment and the extent of other native seagrass species intermingled with Caulerpa. Consequently, salt is now only used in limited circumstances. Figure 3. Caulerpa on boat gear. What you can do to help Caulerpa can be spread by fishing and boating activities. Propellers and anchors can cut the fragments into small pieces which can then colonise new areas. Any fragments of Caulerpa that end up on your fishing gear, nets or anchor well can remain viable for days. To help stop the spread of Caulerpa it is important to inspect your gear for fragments, and any found should be put in a sealed plastic bag and disposed of in a rubbish bin. You can also get involved in local community groups that may be actively helping to control the spread of Caulerpa. Cooperative efforts have been beneficial in several areas, such as Wallagoot Lake. Contact your local council or I&I NSW Fisheries Office for information on activities in your area. Figure 4. Caulerpa in a NSW estuary. Caulerpa research in NSW A lot of research has been done, and continues, on Caulerpa in NSW. Some of the outcomes include: Native seagrass species Posidonia australis (Posidonia) and Zostera capricorni (Zostera) have shown resilience to Caulerpa, although small beds of Zostera may be vulnerable to the alga, particular in the presence of other disturbances. The numbers and species of fish and invertebrates can vary between Caulerpa and native seagrass beds, and native herbivores have been found to consume relatively little Caulerpa. There appear to be at least two genetic strains of Caulerpa in NSW, which indicates two separate incursions. Restricted antibiotics and sulphites are rife in US shrimp imports A case study from Louisiana suggests that most shrimp products that are imported into the US contain antibiotic residues and sulphites, violating the country’s labelling and regulatory standards. Why catfish farmers should consider probiotics Probiotics can alleviate some of the negative stress effects generated by catfish farming while improving other production metrics like growth rates and feed conversion ratios, according to the authors of a new study.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line744
__label__cc	0.711408	0.288592	The GLORIO Decade: Connections Through Anime in Japan Artemis / January 2, 2020 It sure has been an interesting decade for anime. I don’t just mean in terms of new trends or the anime industry in general (although I’m sure the same could be said for these aspects as well), but rather in terms of my personal anime viewing experience. Having spent over half the decade living in Japan, I found that my anime viewing habits were often influenced by what many of the people around me were watching – sometimes because I was curious enough to take a look based on the conversations I was hearing, and at other times simply because I wanted to be able to take a more active part in those conversations, even if the anime themselves weren’t necessarily my cup of tea. To be sure, this often led me to watching some… let’s just say, titles that didn’t really line up with my own tastes, but it also introduced me to some shows I might have never otherwise watched, and which I ended up enjoying very much. The following anime are not, therefore, comprised of what I would say are the ‘best’ anime of the decade, or even necessarily my top favourites of the 2010s. Instead, this post is about those titles I was introduced to by others in Japan, or which for one reason or another made a real difference in my life in terms of who I was able to make better connections with during my time there. I started watching this show purely from word-of-mouth from the same kids I was teaching in Japan. SAO had begun airing only a couple of weeks before I arrived there to live for the first time, and it was crazy popular with my junior high students for a time, especially the guys. Since I do like fantasy as a whole, and because I thought it might be a good way to find common ground in conversation when it came to some of the shyer kids in particular, I ended up giving it a try. Now I know a whole lot of people in the Western blogging community like to hate on SAO these days as though it signals the coming of the anime apocalypse, and I’m not really here to defend it, since the show has plenty about it that I don’t like either. What I don’t mind admitting is that it did genuinely act as a kickoff point for more than a few discussions, and not just about that specific show or even anime in general. And purely from that perspective, I’d consider SAO a resounding success. This is another show that, while not really my thing, I ended up watching the first season of thanks entirely to word-of-mouth, this time from a sizeable number of junior high girls. I especially remember how insanely popular Levi’s character was. He appeared absolutely everywhere – on pens, pencil cases, pencil boards, phone straps, keychains… everywhere I looked, there was his face staring back at me. This made Attack on Titan really easy for a jumping-off point for conversation, especially at my largest school, where it was more difficult to get to know the students on a casual convo/first-name basis unless I was also able to talk to them properly outside of class. And as it turns out, being able to simply point to a random object with a character’s face on it and say, “Oh, from AoT, right? Yeah, he’s my favourite character, too” helped to forge some pretty strong relationships further on down the track. While I started watching Free! of my own accord, it led to one particular talking point with a student who I’d see just once a week. He wasn’t a swimmer himself, and I never asked what exactly drew him to the show in the first place, but when he asked me one day if I watched anime and I listed this title as an example, his eyes suddenly lit up as he demanded to know who I liked better, Haru or Rin. It turns out this student, who was quite studious, would record every episode of the show as it aired so he could watch it whenever he was done with his homework. Then, every time we met before or after class, we’d steal a few moments to chat about that episode and argue amicably about who really deserved the title of Best Boy. We of course lost touch when I left Japan, and that student would be in university by now (as are, incidentally, much of the main cast of the still ongoing series), but it was an adorable relationship I’ll never forget. I hope he’s still watching, wherever he is out there. Polar Bear Café I don’t know of any of my students who watched this show, and in fact by the time I became aware of it at all, it had already finished airing. I was actually introduced to it by one of my colleagues – and frankly, I can totally see why this kind of title might appeal very much to overworked Japanese female teachers looking to relax at the end of their day. It’s an extremely calming, soul-soothing series that has equal amounts of heart and humour, and is also cutesy enough that you could buy memorabilia for it in Japan without necessarily revealing you liked anime (if this so happened to be a concern). At the same time, Polar Bear Café definitely targets adult women rather than young girls, and therefore likely wouldn’t ring any bells with students or be viewed as an overly childish watch if anyone else did know about the show. I think I actually ended up enjoying this series even more than my colleague did once I got into it, but it was still the source of a number of fun little conversations with someone I didn’t otherwise have that much in common with. Okay, so this title definitely would make it onto my personal list of top anime of the decade, or of all time for that matter. It’s just an amazing show, as well as one, incidentally, that helped get me through a really difficult time in my life. However, the reason it’s here on this particular list is because of someone it unexpectedly brought me a lot closer to, despite the fact that I was actually living in Thailand when it was airing, between my first and second time living in Japan. When I got back to Japan for that second stint of teaching though, only days after I’d moved in to my new home, I binge-watched it together with someone who would later become an extremely close friend – he missed the last train back to his house and, since neither of us had received our company cars yet, he was stuck for the night. We stayed up the whole time and watched all 12 episodes of Yuri on Ice back-to-back, and I can honestly say that no other anime binge-watching anime experience has been more rewarding. January 2, 2020 in Anime, Features. Tags: anime, attack on titan, Free!, iwatobi swim club, polar bear cafe, shingeki no kyojin, shirokuma cafe, sword art online, tag, the glorio decade, yuri on ice GLORIO Best Anime of the Decade 2010-2015 A Very GLORIO 2020: Gee’s Highs and Lows of the Year A Very GLORIO 2020: Euri says this year wasn’t dramatic enough ← The GLORIO Decade: Jel’s Best Anime of the 2010’s The GLORIO Decade: Marlin’s Top Ten Comedies →	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line745
__label__cc	0.56387	0.43613	ERROR: type should be string, got "https://media.blubrry.com/triallawyernation/p/content.blubrry.com/triallawyernation/Ep_71_Richard_Newsome_Trial_Lawyer_Nation.mp3\nIn this Trial Lawyer Nation podcast, Michael sits down with his old friend and seasoned trial lawyer Richard aka Rich Newsome. Rich specializes in automotive product liability cases and is one of the top lawyers in this area in the country. They discuss Rich’s journey to success, his Trial School, the importance of young lawyers trying cases, how to move on and learn from a loss, and coping with fear and anxiety in the courtroom.\nThey begin the episode with Michael asking Rich about his journey to becoming one of the best automotive product liability plaintiff lawyers in the country. Rich explains how he began working in a federal prosecutor’s office right out of law school, then transitioned into working at a civil defense firm doing automotive product liability work. His transition into plaintiff’s work came after deposing a family in a particularly heartbreaking seat belt failure case. In that pivotal moment, he realized he needed to be working for the other side and representing people instead of massive corporations. He joined a small practitioner and began “knocking on doors” of other plaintiff lawyers to start trying product liability cases as their co-counsel.\nMichael then brings up how automotive product liability is a tough field to get into on the plaintiff’s side, to which Rich whole-heartedly agrees. They discuss the difficulties of product liability cases and offer several recommendations for young lawyers looking to get into product liability including “getting plugged in” through AIEG, working for an experienced lawyer with the capital to try these notoriously expensive cases, and many more.\nWith the field being this tough and cases being so expensive to try, Michael asks Rich about his case selection process. He replies simply, “At the end of the day, you can’t try a product case for less than half a million dollars.” With that being said, the case needs to meet two guidelines: 1) There needs to be a catastrophic injury, and 2) there needs to be a clear fact pattern showing the plaintiff should not have sustained a catastrophic injury. He goes on to explain how even though “this whole area is fraught with mine fields,” the work is incredibly important for society in regards to policy changes and consumer safety.\nRich and Michael then discuss the importance of taking cases to trial and refusing to settle quietly, which leads them to every trial lawyer’s worst fear – taking a big case to trial and losing. They trade “war stories” of their most memorable losses which still haunt them to this day, but reflect on what they learned from those early losses and how they made them better trial lawyers. As Rich puts it, “When you take a big loss, it forces you to improve your game.”\nRich ultimately blames his biggest trial loss on picking a bad jury, which was surprising to him because he was following the voir dire method of some of the most successful trial lawyers in the country. This led him to get 30 of these great lawyers together for a 3-day focus group to try out different voir dire methods. They found that the most effective method was really a combination of a variety of methods, which is now known as “Mixed Method Advocacy.” Michael agrees and shares his experience of learning that one lawyer, no matter how great they are, does not have the ultimate answer of how to try a case. The real growth is in practicing and learning which methods work best for you, then being willing to constantly adapt and learn new things.\nThis discovery of Mixed Method Advocacy led Rich to start Trial School, a community of trial lawyers who freely share information for the betterment of the plaintiff bar. Trial School is free to join (yes, completely free), easy to access, and full of incredibly useful information for any trial lawyer.\nThe conversation then comes full circle to where Rich is today after applying the information he learned from those other great trial lawyers. He shares a story of a wrongful death case he tried in an extremely conservative county. He applied everything he had learned from both other lawyers and his own experiences, which resulted in the largest wrongful death verdict ever in that county. They dive into the details of the case and the numerous techniques he applied, which make this verdict even more impressive.\nMichael then asks Rich about how he conquers the fear and anxiety associated with going to trial, a topic which Rich describes as “the great elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about.” He admits to experiencing it and explains how it stunts your performance in the courtroom. He outlines numerous ways to cope with this including beta blockers, “batting practice,” and many more interesting strategies (even learning some from a hypnotist!). Rich feels so strongly about the need for better fear management in the legal industry that he’s dedicating Trial School’s spring program to the topic.\nMichael continues on this point by sharing the strategies he’s learned over the years, to which Rich replies that Michael has a huge advantage over a lot of young lawyers due to his experience in the courtroom. Rich explains this by using an extremely helpful analogy about Nascar drivers which you need to hear to fully appreciate, but concludes with “I think one of the biggest solutions to fear is practice.”\nThey conclude the episode by discussing the need for young lawyers to get experience trying cases. While this can be a challenge, Michael insists that if you offer to try a firm’s small cases they’ll let you. He explains how if you get in there and lose a few times, you learn that you can survive a loss and gain invaluable confidence along the way.\nIf you’d like to join Trial School, visit www.trialschool.org to apply. You will need two plaintiff lawyer references and to fill out an affidavit stating you only represent people, but it is 100% free and an incredibly valuable resource to every trial lawyer, both young and seasoned.\nThis podcast also covers the “gifts” they were given throughout their careers, the importance of visuals in trial, the voir dire technique Rich used in his big verdict, avoiding dogma in trial techniques, and so much more.\nRich Newsome is the senior partner of the Newsome Melton law firm and represents people and families in complex civil litigation.\nAfter graduating from the University of Florida College of Law in 1989, Rich worked as a federal prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern and Middle Districts of Florida. Rich left the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1993 and went to work for a large product liability defense firm in Orlando, Florida where he represented manufacturers. After defending a manufacturer in a case brought by a family who lost a child, Rich felt compelled to leave the defense practice and began representing only families and individuals. Since then, for more than 25 years, Rich’s practice has focused on representing people who have suffered catastrophic or fatal injuries.\nIn 2001, Rich was appointed by the Florida Governor to the Fifth District Court of Appeals Judicial Nominating Commission and served as the JNC’s Chairman during his term. He is a Past-President of the Orlando Federal Bar Association, Past-President of the Florida Justice Association, Past-Member of the Board of Governors of the American Association for Justice, Past-President of the Central Florida Trial Lawyers Association, and is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocacy.\nRich is a graduate of the Gerry Spence Trial Lawyer’s College and was invited to serve as a member of the College Faculty. Rich is a member of the Florida, Texas, New Mexico, and Oregon Bar Associations.\nIn 2016, Rich was selected as the “Orlando Personal Injury Lawyer of the Year” by Best Lawyers, a peer review publication. In 2015, Rich received the Steven C. Sharpe Public Service Award from the American Association for Justice, in recognition of his representation of Corey Burdick who was severely injured by a defective Takata airbag. The Steven C. Sharpe Award is awarded annually to one attorney and their client.\nIn 2017, Rich was appointed to the Constitution Revision Commission by Richard Corcoran, the Speaker of Florida’s House of Representatives. The 37 member Commission drafted and submitted 32 amendments to the Florida Constitution which were placed on the ballot and approved by Florida voters to be part of the Florida Constitution in November 2018.\nIn 2019, Rich was recognized by the National Law Journal as having won two of the Nation’s 100 largest verdicts in 2018.\nRich is a member of the Summit Council, a national group of America’s best plaintiff trial lawyers. Membership is limited to less than thirty trial lawyers from across the country, is by invitation only, and is extended to lawyers who have a proven record of large jury verdicts and are recognized as leaders of the national plaintiffs bar.\nRich is a founding faculty member of Trial School, Inc., a not-for-profit organization which seeks to foster collaboration between lawyers on today’s best trial advocacy methods and to provide free education and practice for trial lawyers who exclusively represent people and families."	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line746
__label__cc	0.512542	0.487458	Open innovation and external sources of innovation. An opportunity to fuel the R&D pipeline and enhance decision making? Alexander Schuhmacher ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7884-57571, Oliver Gassmann2, Nigel McCracken3 & Markus Hinder4 Historically, research and development (R&D) in the pharmaceutical sector has predominantly been an in-house activity. To enable investments for game changing late-stage assets and to enable better and less costly go/no-go decisions, most companies have employed a fail early paradigm through the implementation of clinical proof-of-concept organizations. To fuel their pipelines, some pioneers started to complement their internal R&D efforts through collaborations as early as the 1990s. In recent years, multiple extrinsic and intrinsic factors induced an opening for external sources of innovation and resulted in new models for open innovation, such as open sourcing, crowdsourcing, public–private partnerships, innovations centres, and the virtualization of R&D. Three factors seem to determine the breadth and depth regarding how companies approach external innovation: (1) the company’s legacy, (2) the company’s willingness and ability to take risks and (3) the company’s need to control IP and competitors. In addition, these factors often constitute the major hurdles to effectively leveraging external opportunities and assets. Conscious and differential choices of the R&D and business models for different companies and different divisions in the same company seem to best allow a company to fully exploit the potential of both internal and external innovations. Traditionally, pharma R&D organizations are fully integrated; they are composed of various units with different competencies, skills and technologies and have complex interfaces to accomplish the multi-disciplinary tasks required for developing new drugs. Regulatory hurdles, complex research for new drug targets, or the low predictability of animal models are some examples of why the industry is struggling with its R&D input/output-ratio [1, 2]. These internal and external challenges made it necessary for companies to improve their R&D efficiencies, e.g. by outsourcing to reduce overhead costs, by the installation of proof-of-concept (PoC) organizations or by enhanced scientific rigor in data-driven project decision-making. The latter is included today in many (if not most) decisions that take into account the probability of technical success (PoS), the likelihood of achieving the target product profile (TPP) and the resources needed to achieve the TPP. The translation of innovations from research into clinically meaningful therapies for patients has become the key value generating step in pharmaceutical R&D. Nonetheless, in view of the high complexity of clinical PoC, the attrition rate in the PoC phase is still the highest. This raises the question regarding whether a decentralized and more open R&D organization that accesses additional competencies, skills and technologies from external sources could be a measure to increase the R&D efficiency. Generally, a centralized R&D approach is particularly favoured and relevant in disease areas that necessitate large and long clinical trials to demonstrate PoC and where deep developmental, regulatory and commercial expertise is essential. Whenever an R&D activity is more singular and autonomous or as soon as less synergy within a portfolio of R&D projects exist, a decentralized R&D may have advantages over a central R&D organization since the company has the opportunity to copy the science-based biotech business model. Hence, pharma companies have increasingly moved away from internal R&D models towards more open and collaborative R&D models following the paradigm of open innovation [3]. In this vein, they have established specific collaborations with academic centres of excellence, built innovation centres, made joint ventures with academic institutions (public–private partnerships, PPP), established precompetitive consortia, or experimented with crowdsourcing and virtual R&D [4,5,6,7]. Some models even let competitors collaborate and become partners [8]. Currently, many companies have put greater focus on leveraging external knowledge, licensing or acquiring drug candidates and changing their R&D models from primarily inside-driven concepts to plans that more closely follow the open innovation paradigm [4]. As a consequence, the proportion of externally sourced R&D assets has increased in the past years [9]. This rise in externally sourced innovation coincided with several cases of major downsizing in R&D departments, with Merck, AstraZeneca and Pfizer being the biggest proponents of the R&D cuts [10,11,12,13,14]. This paper summarizes the current situation of open innovation in the pharmaceutical sector. It describes the concepts and models of opening up pharma R&D, and it attempts to address the questions regarding why big pharma has not yet fully embraced the different ideas of open innovation and what measures would help to increase R&D productivity and efficiency. Open source and crowdsourcing to access knowledge of the masses Open source innovation has been successfully applied in the software industry. This radical open model of software development allows anyone to participate, network in the product’s development and then share the results. Rewards for participants are mostly non-monetary but are related to recognition and participation, such as the presentation of expertise, the satisfaction by working on an honourable project, the acquisition of new skills, or peer recognition. Around the time when internet became a commodity, the players in the pharmaceutical sector became more connected, and in turn, it was possible for R&D organizations to become more decentralized. This development allowed pharmaceutical companies to more easily access knowledge and ideas from the outside, promote innovation, use the mass of external experts to solve problems and to develop technologies through collaborative improvements [15, 16]. For example, the Human Genome Project has been a pioneering open source activity in the biomedical environment [17]. In addition, open-access scientific journals follow the principle of the free distribution of scientific information and knowledge. Other examples that are known are from non-profit organizations and governments to discover drugs for neglected diseases in collaboration with pharma companies [18]: In 1974, the Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases (TDR, http://www.who.int/tdr/en/) was initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a global programme of scientific collaboration to combat neglected diseases [18]. The programme is hosted at the WHO and funded by co-sponsors, governments, foundations and agencies, such as the World Bank, the European Commission, or the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [19]. The African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation (ANDI) is a programme of the TDR that started in 2008 under the governance of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). It focuses on the specific health needs in Africa and aims at promoting and supporting pharmaceutical R&D for neglected diseases led by African institutions to develop capacities and centres of research excellence there [20]. The Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV, https://www.mmv.org) was established in 1999 by a few European governments together with the World Bank to reduce the disease burden of Malaria infections [21]. Since then, the programme has gained more facilitators and received total funding of roughly USD 1 billion by 2016. The main sponsor is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with a 54.7% share. Partners form the industry include Novartis, Sanofi, Merck Serono and Takeda. The achievements are enormous. Several hundred million treatments were provided to children; 18,000 healthcare workers were trained to administer malaria medication; and 19 drug candidates have been nominated for clinical development since 1999. Since 2010, the MMV moved 17 candidates into preclinical development, of which 13 are still active [74]. The Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development (TB Alliance, https://www.tballiance.org) is an initiative of governmental and non-governmental organizations. It was started in 2000 to discover and develop tuberculosis drugs. Today, the TB Alliance manages the largest pipeline of new TB drugs, including six new products that are in clinical development phases. Several pharmaceutical companies, such as Sanofi, Bayer or GSK have entered into collaborations with TB alliance in the past, whereas more recently Novartis transferred an entire R&D program to the TB alliance [71]. A further open source example is the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi, https://www.dndi.org) that is supported and sponsored by numerous universities, research centres, governmental organizations, biotech companies, and several pharmaceutical companies, such as AstraZeneca, Bayer Healthcare, Bristol-Meyers Squibb (BMS), Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, GSK, Pfizer, Sanofi and Takeda. It provides platforms for collaborative non-for-profit drug discoveries and developments for diseases such as Leishmaniasis, Sleeping Sickness, Chagas disease and paediatric HIV. Since 2003, DNDi developed four new drugs for the treatment of neglected diseases and plans to deliver 16-18 total new treatments with a total budget of EUR 650 million by 2023. Open source drug discovery (OSDD) was initiated by the Indian government in 2008 as a translational platform for drug discovery [22]. The hybrid model of open source and public private partnership brought together companies, organizations and scientists from different industries (such as TCG Lifesciences, Sun Microsystems, the Institute of Genomics and the Integrative Biology or Sky Quest Labs) in order to establish high-quality research on neglected diseases (such as tuberculosis) at low costs [69]. In its Connect to Decode initiative, the 4000 genes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis were annotated, and a metabolome and a protein–protein functional network of this germ were delivered [69]. OSDD also provides data on promising exploratory tuberculosis drugs via its website (http://www.osdd.net/home) and supports the progress of drug discovery projects [70]. Finally, the Pool for Open Innovation started in 2009 as a partnership of GSK, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It provides free access to 2300 tropical disease patents and ensures that these intellectual property (IP) rights do not hinder drug discoveries on neglected diseases. These examples show how open sourcing in the pharma sector is being used to make drug development for neglected diseases feasible, thus ensuring affordable drugs for those who need them [18]. In addition, it reflects the important social function that the pharmaceutical industry has to play in developing new medications in financially unattractive markets. However, this does not perfectly fit with the pharmaceutical business model, which is built on large R&D investments, confidentiality, proprietary IP and returns-on-investment, and does not serve the needs of the industry to increase productivity in its core businesses [23]. Crowdsourcing is “a form of sourcing in which individuals or organizations solicit contributions from Internet users to obtain desired services or ideas” and has been described as a new business practice [24, 25]. Like open sourcing, crowdsourcing uses the mass of worldwide experts to get problems solved. Companies act as seekers and brokers. They post their questions or issues to a large, company-unknown, diverse group of experts and invite them to provide solutions. The external experts who are the solvers tackle the problems in return for financial gratification. Mining crowd data, web search logs, smart phone applications, social media, and active crowdsourcing are types of crowdsourcing that have found their way into the pharmaceutical business [26]. Active crowdsourcing is a cost-efficient way of open innovation that goes far beyond the more traditional models of research collaborations and partnerships [27,28,29,30]. The advantages include: The integration of external knowledge, The access to new technologies, The solving of problems that could not have been solved by internal experts, and A reduction of overhead costs. The formal hurdles to implement successful active crowdsourcing are relatively low. The initiative needs to be publicized properly, the submission process needs to be simple and non-bureaucratic, and questions and challenges need to be precisely defined [31]. Hence, it is of great surprise that most of the big pharmaceutical companies apply only a seeker-like approach to get single problems solved by collaborating with platform providers (such as Innocentive) rather than hedging the full potential of crowdsourcing (Table 1). Table 1 Examples of crowdsourcing in the pharma industry So far, only Eli Lilly, Bayer Healthcare and AstraZeneca run their own crowdsourcing platforms: Eli Lilly left an early mark with Innocentive (2001), YourEncore (2003), and Open Innovation Drug Discovery (https://openinnovation.lilly.com/dd/) [32]. AstraZeneca runs an open innovation platform (https://openinnovation.astrazeneca.com) that provides access to innovative discovery technologies. And Bayer HealthCare initiated Grants4Targets (G4T) (2009) [33, 34], Grants4Leads (2014; http://www.grants4leads.com), and Grants4Apps (2013, https://www.grants4apps.com). G4T is an open innovation platform to access new drug discovery ideas to fill Bayer Healthcare’s R&D pipeline. The process is simple and fast. External scientists are invited twice a year to propose their ideas for targets and an animal model. The administrative hurdles are low since the IP stays with the inventor. The proposals are evaluated by Bayer scientists, and if a proposal is accepted, the proposer receives a financial reward. If a proposal results in a project that finds its way officially into Bayer’s drug pipeline, then both parties can negotiate a collaborative agreement. So far, G4T has been very successful, as indicated by more than 1100 applications and inputs into 10 drug discovery projects that have led to 6 lead generations, 1 lead optimization and 2 drug development projects [34]. Other examples regarding how crowdsourcing is used by pharmaceutical companies are as follows: Novartis partnered with PatientsLikeMe (http://www.patientslikeme.com) [35], a digital health learning system comprising more than 600,000 participants’ health conditions. Novartis also uses the digital trial technology of Science 37 to allow patients an easy participation in clinical trials and to move more and more to a site-less trial model. A recent new partnership of Novartis is the one with Pear Therapeutics on a digital therapeutic called THRIVE [72]. Merck & Co. collaborated with Kaggle (http://www.kaggle.com) [36] to identify statistical techniques for predicting the biological activities of different molecules. Sanofi has applied a more focused approach around Diabetes using the Data Design Diabetes Innovation Challenge to seek service solutions for diabetes patients. GSK uses crowd sourced data and its Flumoji app to identify the fluctuations of flu infections [37]. And BioMedX (https://bio.mx/) is an example of a new open innovation model at the interface of crowdsourcing and innovation centres that includes pharma companies, such AbbVie, Boehringer Ingelheim, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) or Merck and academia. Physically based on the campus of Heidelberg University, experts from universities and pharma partners support the interdisciplinary projects of teams of young scientists. Anyone (the crowd of scientists) can apply via the internet and can ask for financial and scientific support to study new drug discovery ideas in the biomedical field (oncology, respiratory diseases, neuroscience, diagnostics and consumer care) with the purpose of translating the research activities into drug development projects of the respective pharma partner. Public private partnerships to improve competitiveness PPPs have emerged as another cost-efficient way to propel drug innovations [38, 39]. These business ventures are financed and operated by a partnership of academic or publicly funded institutions, charities [such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (http://www.gatesfoundation.org)], and pharmaceutical companies. PPPs contribute to drug discovery efforts and allocate their resources primarily in niche indications with high unmet medical needs in which pharma companies are traditionally less active. In these open networks, the participants exchange data, bring in their expertise, resources and IP, and consequentially leverage synergies and share risk. So far, there are numerous convincing examples demonstrating the potential of PPPs in the pharmaceutical sector [40]. Amongst them, the most prominent are as follows: The Biomarker Consortium (source: http://www.biomarkerconsortium.org), The Critical Path Institute Consortia (www.c-path.org/consortia.cfm), The Innovative Medicine Initiative (www.imi.europe.eu), The Serious Adverse Events Consortium (http://www.saeconsortium.org), The National Center for Advanced Translational Sciences (https://ncats.nih.gov), Bristol–Myers Squibb’s International Immuno-Oncology Network (http://www.immunooncologyhcp.bmsinformation.com), The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunizations (http://www.gavi.org), The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (http://www.theglobalfund.org/), The Stop TB Partnership (http://www.stoptb.org), Roll Back Malaria (http://www.rollbackmalaria.org), and The FDA initiated the Critical Path Initiative [41]. More specifically, the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) is a PPP established by the European Union (EU) and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) [42, 43]. Its goal is to accelerate the development of better and safer medicines. IMI has been engaged in the areas of establishing robust and validated models for drug development, eliminating poorly predictive preclinical models, providing novel biomarkers and drug targets, and establishing more effective tools and methods to predict adverse drug effects [44, 45]. With funding of up to EUR 5 billion, the IMI is stocked to boost the development of new medicines in Europe until 2024. Today, 86 consortia with 593 research teams of EFPIA members, 1214 teams of academic partners and 249 other partner teams are supported by IMI. They focus on all kind of pharmaceutical research topics, including infectious diseases (14%), CNS disorders (10%) or biomarkers (10%) (see Table 2). Sanofi, GSK, J&J and AstraZeneca are the most active contributors from the pharmaceutical industry. They use the potential of IMI intensively by contributing 51, 47, 46, and 44 teams to different projects, respectively (see Table 3). ADAPT-Smart (17 pharma partners), EUPATI (13 pharma partners), GETREAL (13 pharma partners) and PREFER (13 pharma partners) are the projects that have the most EFPIA partner companies. They cover topics of medical research, clinical development (ADAPT-Smart, GETREAL, PREFER) and medical training (EUPATI). To give a few more examples: Table 2 Overview of the IMI projects’ positioning Table 3 Overview of pharmaceutical companies contributing to IMI The SAFE-T consortium (http://www.imi-safe-t.eu) has been initiated to identify biomarkers for the early detection of drug-related safety issues related to the kidney, liver and vascular systems [46]. The U-BIOPRED (http://www.europeanlung.org/en/projects-and-research/projects/u-biopred/home) and the PRECISESADS (http://www.precisesads.eu) consortia are both active in the field of personalized medicine in order to address the need for the characterization and classification of severe refractory asthma and autoimmune diseases [47, 48]. The Open Pharmacological Concepts Triple Store (Open PHACTS, http://www.imi.europa.eu/content/open-phacts) is another PPP with AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, GSK, Merck, Novartis and Pfizer that complements the 31 consortia members of universities, research organizations, public bodies and governmental organizations. It aims at delivering an open pharmacological space and linking diverse and complementary drug discovery databases to support drug research [49]. Most likely, the most prominent example of an IMI projects is the European Lead Factory (ELF) that aims at providing new drug targets for all kinds of disease areas [50]. Any scientist from a European academic institution or small- to medium-sized entity (SME) can present a target proposal for High-Throughput-Screening (HTS) or ideas for a compound library. The ELF currently brings together 30 internal partners from private and public organizations, including AstraZeneca, Bayer, and Sanofi (https://www.europeanleadfactory.eu/about/partners/). Starting in 2013, IMI’s goal is to identify high quality small molecule drug candidates. By 2017, the ELF had delivered 300,000 new chemical compounds that were combined with the 300,000 compounds that have been provided by the EFPIA collection to a Joint European Compound Library of more than 500,000 chemical compounds for HTS screening. In addition, by end of 2015, 60 drug target proposals had been evaluated positively and accepted, and more than 500 hits had been handed over to academic institutions and SMEs for further drug development. The IMI consortia cover topics of high medical need and/or regulatory relevance (see Table 2). The projects generally address topics of the highest scientific and operational complexity that need a multi-stakeholder environment and that do not affect the business success of the participating companies directly. This open innovation model improves companies’ competitiveness and thus may help reduce R&D costs. Meanwhile, it does not increase the competition amongst the companies. It helps reduce the fragmentation of knowledge that is inherent to the IP-driven pharma industry. Other projects of IMI also stimulate the interest of pharmaceutical companies in research topics that would not have been examined without rewards, such as antimicrobials (see ENABLE) or Ebola vaccines (see EBOVAC1). In summary, pharmaceutical companies use PPPs as a tool of precompetitive collaboration with peers: To increase scale, To strengthen research networks, To share risk with industry partners, To integrate external (university) know-how, To access public financial resources, To accelerate the exploitation of innovation, To serve society and increase reputation, and To improve R&D productivity [51]. In addition, they need to meet the following challenges to leverage the potential of PPPs: Pool and share the right data that are relevant for the PPPs, Manage the alliances professionally, Exclude the IP relevant (competitive) topics, Manage the IP rights if such rights result from a PPP, Manage the cultural conflicts of partners, and Align the diverse interests of partners that are coming from academia and industry. Pharma innovation centres and research alliances to leverage synergies from open innovation Another path to open up R&D and to access external innovation is pharma innovation centres. They may be best described as hybrid models of centralized R&D mixed with elements of open innovation. Some of the biggest players in the pharmaceutical sector have embraced this new concept that brings scientist from pharmaceutical companies and experts from the academia together to solve problems, provide new solutions and deliver innovative products. Pfizer started in 2010 their Global Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTIs), a USD 85 million partnership with the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). This one example out of eight planned CTIs shall become part of Pfizer’s BioTherapeutics Research Group and it is Pfizer’s way to leverage synergies from open innovation at the interface of translational research between Pfizer and academic medical centres (http://www.pfizercti.com). The idea is that Pfizer adds its developmental knowledge, financial resources and human resources to the collaboration. Meanwhile, it expects to benefit from the research expertise in disease areas, target biology and patient populations from their academic partners. Partners in the CTI network include 25 academic institutions, four patient foundations, the National Institute of Health (NIH) and large hospitals such as the Medical Center at Columbia University, the Tufts Medical Center or Mount Sinai Hospital. Together with the NIH, Pfizer plans to identify new drugs that serve both partners’ strategic interests. NIH scientists provide more of the research aspects in the collaboration (such as disease-related pathways or mechanisms as potential drug targets), while Pfizer enables the NIH to move new drug projects into therapeutic development using industry-standard translational tools and Pfizer’s developmental expertise. Other large pharma companies have also started their own innovation centres: Bayer HealthCare, the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) initiated a drug discovery alliance in 2009 where DKFZ and NCT provide their expertise in cancer research and tumour biology, and Bayer brings in its know-how in drug R&D. The goal of this strategic partnership is technology transfer from the DKFZ to Bayer [52]. Bayer HealthCare recently opened a centre in San Francisco to identify and manage partnerships with academic and biotech researchers in the USA [53]. The German company Merck established a new innovation centre located at their headquarters to open Merck’s R&D towards innovation from the outside and to provide a platform for external innovation to translate their ideas into real business cases [54]. J&J started its Life Science Innovation centre in San Diego with a Concept Lab that provides a platform for start-up companies in the earliest phase and with the Open Collaboration Space that gives the start-up companies desk space later in their development. With both programmes, J&J enables innovators to get an early proof-of-concept for their ideas by offering infrastructure, equipment and resources [55]. GSK experimented much earlier in the field of open innovation with the Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD). At its start in 2005, CEEDD’s goal was to better access external technologies using a small team of approximately 20 GSK scientists to work across all therapeutic areas and facilitate partnerships from drug discovery to PoC. Until its closure in 2012, CEEDD managed a total of 16 partnerships. One example for collaboration under this umbrella is the GSK alliance with ChemoCentryx, which was established in 2011 to access the technology of chemokine-based therapeutics. After one of the trials failed and the chemokine receptor 9-inhibitor did not achieve its primary endpoint for the treatment of Crohn’s disease, the programme was discontinued. Despite such drawbacks, CEEDD was successful in establishing both the internal and the external paths to access drug candidates at GSK and it helped to fill GSK’s early stage pipeline currently covers nearly half of its projects that are externally sourced [56]. Since more than a decade Novartis and the MIT are collaborating on continuous manufacturing (https://novartis-mit.mit.edu/). In 2018 they added a partnership with MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) on patient real-time motion monitoring [73]. Novartis has also successfully collaborated with selected institutions such as the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute on cancer alliances or the University of Pennsylvania on the chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell [57]. In a recent interview, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research’s (NIBR) president Jay Bradner announced a division-wide programme to enhance the external focus and foster external collaborations in several ways [58]. A faculty of scholars will be invited to join NIBR to lead their own projects that “would not be accessible in their home institutions” [58]. This could be access to technologies but also libraries of molecules to test new concepts. The programme is special and different from other open innovation models since it focuses on sourcing new ideas into a company and provides leading academic scientists and innovators the opportunity to benefit from pharma’s strengths. Thus, this turns the effort into a collaborative partnership to the benefit of science and patients. In addition Novartis has started “Genesis labs” to offer employees the opportunity to suggest high-risk, high-reward transformational projects and apply for resources, funding and lab space. Another example of a pharma innovation centre is Takeda’s Center for IPS Cell Research Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University (TCiRA). Launched in 2015, its goal is to investigate cell therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular, metabolic, neural and cancer diseases. While Takeda provides 10 years of funding of approximately US$ 177 million, research management expertise, Takeda researchers, access to its compound library and access to the research facilities at its Shonan Research Center in Japan, it can benefit from the world-class science of the CiRA team that is headed by director Shinya Yamanaka, the 2012 Nobel Prize winner on induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. Takeda is one of the global players that has reduced its internal R&D over the past years and that increasingly uses the potential of external R&D [59, 60]. It recently announced a collaboration with the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute (TDI) in New York, which is a consortium of three institutions (Cornell University, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), to support target research [61]. It also collaborates with J&J and OrbiMed Advisors LLC by co-investing in the Israeli biotech accelerator FutuRx with the purpose to fund medical breakthrough innovations that can be spun off in the form of new, independent companies [62]. These examples demonstrate how access to world-class science is facilitated by agreeing on a long-term partnership with academic institutions. The further advantages of innovation centres are: They bypass tedious long-lasting licensee-licensor negotiations in subsequent drug licensing; They allow access to internal scientific resources within the remit of the arrangement, which is an important flexibility given the risks of pharmaceutical R&D; They allow R&D to familiarize themselves with new technologies or therapeutic indications without the need to make significant investments upfront; and They give access to potential new drug candidates. Conversely, the academic and biotechnology partners also benefit from such collaborations. They get access to the drug discovery, developmental expertise and financial resources of pharmaceutical companies without the necessity to seek a strategic investor and without the risk of losing control of their own drug candidates. Academic institutions such as UCSF, Harvard University or the University of Pennsylvania have realized the potential of long-term research alliances and have all formed partnerships with major research-based pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer, Sanofi, Boehringer Ingelheim or Novartis. It is important to state that any kind of collaboration, alliance or partnership also creates a set of specific challenges. Among the latter are increased management complexity, coordination costs and the risk of IP failure. Academic research is often early-stage with respect to commercialization, and substantial additional work and financial investments are needed before a return-on-investment can be expected. There is the constant challenge of early result publication since academia expects and needs findings to be published, while companies need to protect their assets via IP. These conflicts are not easy to solve and require tactful manoeuvring and mutual understanding of the different priorities. Virtualization of R&D to increase efficiency Virtual R&D pharmaceutical companies look to control overhead costs by operating a critical mass of internal expertise and complementing this with external know how and resources to drive internal R&D. In general, the fixed costs of R&D are reduced through the transfer of less intensively utilized services to partner companies, economies of scale and scope are leveraged, and flexibility is increased by choosing the best R&D service providers globally [62,63,64]. This dynamic has four major advantages: A reduction of internal complexity due to concentration, A focus of resources on core technologies that may provide a competitive edge, A mitigation of investment risks to partner companies, and A reduction of external interfaces, since the task is now shared with the partner companies. So far, virtual R&D has been successfully applied predominantly by SMEs, such as Fulcrum, Shire, Debiopharm or Endo Pharmaceuticals. Eli Lilly is an example of a global pharma company that also uses this open innovation model. It realized that the big pharma franchise approach of a central R&D may not be applicable for all R&D projects. Thus, it established the Chorus group as a lean and efficient way to PoC that was better suited to drug candidates that rely on targets with a lower target validation status and higher inherent technical risks. Chorus is a small and independent entity that has the goal to run clinical studies with a minimum required data package in a “quick win, fast fail” model. It aims at advancing projects from candidate selection to PoC and to provide the candidates for Eli Lilly’s phase III pipeline [65]. It has the science-driven business model of a biotechnology company with flat hierarchies, fast decision-making processes and a project organization as follows: Projects have dedicated project-budgets, The focus is on phase I and clinical PoC studies, Projects are managed with small expert teams, and The main tasks are run by intensive outsourcing. By 2016, Chorus managed a portfolio of 15 drug projects with clinical trials in 19 countries with 40 full-time equivalent staff. Chorus was able to run its operation with 25% of its budget as fixed overhead costs and 75% of the financial resources allocated to the external costs of the drug projects [65]. Overall, Eli Lilly’s concept of virtual R&D met its proof-of-principle since its average success rate in phase II improved significantly (54% Chorus vs. 29% traditional Eli Lilly) and its productivity increased by a factor of 3–10 compared with Eli Lilly’s traditional clinical development model [65]. Debiopharm is an additional example of the success of virtual R&D. It has been operating its business model successfully over the past 39 years by utilizing its internal expertise and absorptive capacities (60% of staff hold a Ph.D. or M.D.) in drug development to identify and in-license promising therapies and develop them with the aim to outsource it to a partner with sales and marketing expertise. The company operates an open innovation model that engages external experts and service providers for project-related activities, with the flexibility to include vendors with the latest technologies and solutions to the question at hand. In consequence, Debiopharm has one of the highest revenue rates earned per employee across pharmaceutical companies, indicating the advantage of this open innovation model (see Table 4). Table 4 The comparison of average revenue earned per employee across different pharmaceutical companies One of the core elements of the open innovator type “knowledge leverager” is the virtualization of R&D [4]. Shire is one of the prototypes of this model. Over the last 30 years, they have established themselves as one of the world’s fastest growing specialty pharma companies. Currently, they are one of the major players in rare diseases with a market capitalization of approximately USD 40 billion. Shire does not conduct any early internal research but chose to fill its portfolio through the acquisition of companies with late phase assets that must be driven through the developmental process for approval and commercialization. Shire is a lean organization that is extremely cost effective, thus reflecting their high EBIT-margins, annual growth and flexibility with respect to changing environments and opportunities. Shire focuses its internal efforts around efficient clinical development, fostering relationships with key opinion leaders and advocacy/patient groups around diseases of interest, and preparing the market (specifically around pricing and reimbursement). Overall, the common denominator of these examples is a project-oriented organization of scientific and industry experts with excellent networks with industrial partners and academic institutions, a limited number of permanent and costly headcounts and infrastructures, flexible access to external resources and knowledge on demand and an organizational structure that enables fast decision-making (Table 5). Table 5 Success factors of virtual R&D Why is the potential of open innovation not fully utilized in the pharmaceutical industry yet? During the past years, the industry has experimented with some collaborative R&D concepts that may help companies to open up their R&D towards external knowledge and technologies. Pharma innovation centres, research alliances, and the seeker-like approach in active crowdsourcing are all open innovation concepts that are new for the industry, but that fit more with the traditional, predominantly internal R&D models of the big pharma companies. The industry also tested newer open innovation models, such as PPPs or open source, but primarily did so in research areas that do not affect its major franchises. Only Eli Lilly, Bayer Healthcare and some smaller players progressed in implementing more open concepts, which is surprising in light of the enormous challenges that the industry is facing. Therefore, why has the industry not yet used the full potential of open innovation? For example, implementing active crowdsourcing and running a proprietary crowdsourcing platform is related with challenges and requirements, such as Company’s R&D processes need to be extroverted to implement external solutions, R&D employees need to be open to ideas coming from the outside, The R&D organization needs to have sufficient resources to access external innovation, Internal champions need to be able to take the lead on external proposals, An environment needs to exist that enables bilateral agreements, Concepts need to be in place regarding how to financially reimburse solvers properly and Clear IP regulations need to be implemented that consider the needs of both parties. In short, using the full potential of open innovation would be linked to a change of the complete R&D model. Possible reasons for not completely embracing the full potential of open innovation could be related to the factors of (1) legacy, (2) risk, and (3) control. Changing cultures: Shifting an R&D organization’s traditional R&D model to a new one could be viewed as an unnecessary attempt since the old R&D strategy is often hard-wired in the DNA of the organization and the culture of its people. Changing people: The typical pharma scientist in the big pharma franchise model still tends to be a more introverted specialist, whereas working in an environment of external collaboration or virtual R&D requires individuals to be drug developers with excellent communicative and collaborative skills and networks that they bring to the project teams. Risk associated with academic research: Drug development is certainly more costly and challenging today than in the past. The expectation to deliver differentiated products in stratified populations in existing markets increases the bar for success. There is no doubt that academic institutions and biotech groups are conducting innovative research in certain disease areas and generating new targets in new indications. However, a great deal of these targets are not clinically validated. Return-on-investment risk of licensing: Recent deals seem to suggest that for relatively early projects, the market is willing to pay several multiples of the value of an asset, thus making the internal generation of assets more attractive again. Financial risk of restructuring: The costs for restructuring a global R&D group located at different sites to become a slim virtual organization and the effort involved in changing the mindset and culture would be substantial. Controlling IP: External innovation and IP often tend to result in multiple contributors where each requires a percentage of the royalties and an unrealistic upfront payments and milestones. Controlling markets and competitors: Although big pharma has moved to a leaner and more focused R&D model for non-core assets, they have been reluctant to apply a similar model to their core assets. These major franchises have been established over the years in specific therapeutic areas where a large amount of investments has been realized in infrastructure, established knowledge and expertise, which they are reluctant to dismantle since it provides a competitive edge. For example, the difficulties associated with the change of the R&D model and culture can in retrospect be exemplified by the ALTANA-Nycomed–Takeda mergers. In 2006, the Danish Nycomed AS bought the German ALTANA AG. Nycomed came along with a team of approximately 100 full time equivalents who have been working according to the “knowledge integrator” approach, whereas ALTANA’s tenfold larger R&D organization traditionally had been operating according to the “knowledge creator” model. Nycomed’s intention was to run the newly generated joint R&D organization according to the open innovator of a “knowledge leverager” and therefore make the organization more extroverted than ALTANA traditionally was. Although there were many isolated project successes, the attempt to shift the R&D model and employ more open innovation concepts was ultimately not embraced on a broad basis and was eventually abandoned when Nycomed was sold to Takeda in 2012. The goal to establish a “knowledge leverager” model was driven by the head of R&D and the next two management levels, but it was never fully supported by other C-suite leaders whose focuses were to defend their organizations, structures and approaches. The more traditional knowledge creator model of ALTANA acted as a brake for the execution of the new open innovator by focusing too intensively on internal innovation and maximizing the value of late-stage assets. The predominant organizational R&D culture also limited the influence of the open innovation strategy implementation. R&D employees were often distrustful of any replacement of internal capacities by external resources, in-house scientists were sceptical of any external asset to be evaluated for licensing (“not-invented-here”) and R&D managers were too anchored in the competitive mode to understand how to build a culture of collaboration and creative working with multiple partners and stakeholders. To conclude, the influence of the more traditional organizational culture should have been reduced by: Challenging the automatic distrust towards external partners who are motivated differently, Questioning the over-identification with internal capabilities and thereby overcoming the “not-invented-here syndrome”, Letting go of the limiting competitive reactiveness that sees everyone outside of the organization as a potential threat, and Reducing the influence of control in decision making. Changing an R&D model involves cultural change. Thus, this change takes time and is a huge effort. A McKinsey survey of 3199 executives around the world found that only one out of every three transformations succeeds [66]. This low success rate prompts the question of how pharma can increase its chances of success, for example, when changing its R&D model to the open innovator of a “knowledge leverager” and copy the successful biotech business model that continuously outperformed large pharma with respect to their R&D output [67]. Possible answers include: Incubate a new project that is geographically and structurally separate and protect it from the rest of the organization. If the project grows and succeeds, gradually redirect investment funds towards it and away from traditional operations. Recruit an elite team from within the old organization and from outside along with the downsizing or closure of the existing operations. Establish a company-based R&D-independent fund that supports new innovative ideas from employees. These can be projects that either do not have a home in a functional line or therapeutic area or that are (currently) regarded as out of scope. In any case, any new concept to open up pharma R&D needs to be linked to a new and more entrepreneurial organizational culture and an open and collaborative mindset of the people. The challenge for the more conservative large pharma companies in general is to maintain the entrepreneurial spirit at a large scale, which must also involve innovative approaches to legacy, risk and control. Some large pharma (e.g., Eli Lilly, GSK or J&J) have experimented with smaller, more autonomous units, or even new R&D models (e.g., Nycomed), but may have ignored the underlying influence of the old R&D model, thus leading to mixed results. Eli Lilly has been very successful with Chorus. G4T is another positive example of how an open innovation model can be implemented. In addition, Actelion can also be seen as a successful example and representative since innovation and entrepreneurial spirit is their motor, as they continuously kept investing in its R&D, even in case of drawbacks. The fact that even after having sold Actelion to J&J for USD 30 billion the “Idorsia” (the R&D part of Actelion) was not part of the deal (and will remain operational and independent) underscores that R&D can be both very profitable and successful if well managed [68]. What can big pharma learn from the new open innovator types? Companies following a more traditional R&D Model (such as the open innovator “knowledge creator”) have a fundamentally different view of R&D than those companies that operate a completely open R&D concept. The open innovator of a “knowledge creator” is based on a predominantly internally generated R&D pipeline with a preference for introverted innovation management [4] that is based on highly innovative research approaches, the assessment of medical needs (to address real needs) and the understanding of basic biological principles (work on the right targets and thus reduce technical risks). In contrast, companies with a virtual R&D model are innovative in their business models (i.e., with respect to scouting, business development and licensing activities) rather than in their research approaches. Therefore, what can the more traditional big pharma companies learn from this more open R&D model? Expand the portfolio strategy: Re-position projects that would have been put on hold or out-licensed. Since the true commercial value of an asset is often difficult to assess, decisions should be made based on their transformative potential rather than sales predictions. Reduce costs: Big pharma companies need to focus more on project-related expenditures rather than on capacity or capability building. With today’s rapidly changing environment, they often can be insourced and might be outdated once they are built internally. Increase flexibility: This relates to a mindset that implies that a discovery that might not fit the corporate goals or project portfolio still can be of high value or impact to another part of the organization or therapeutic area. Assumed or perceived R&D strategies with seemingly defined out-of-scope areas can limit employees’ creativity and ownership. Thus, considering opportunities should become a part of big pharma’s mindset. Currently, pharmaceutical companies can benefit from numerous sources of external innovation, including open sourcing, crowdsourcing, public private partnerships, dedicated innovation centres and research alliances. To this end, pharmaceutical companies need to develop absorptive capacities where external knowledge gets identified, valuated and actively incorporated. To release the next wave of innovation in the pharmaceutical industry, pharma companies need to tap external sources of innovation. However, first they need to be innovative in the way that they design new organizations that are fit for external innovation. Depending on the companies’ sizes, their portfolio breadths and their strategic goals, companies need to apply different open innovation models ranging from simply adding elements of open innovation to their existing R&D models to completely virtualizing their R&D. The available options are pretty different from each other and have specific advantages and shortcomings. A best-in-class or ones-size-fits-all approach cannot be recommended currently. Instead, drug innovators need to choose the option that best fits their current needs and strategic directions. Companies aiming at leveraging the full potential of open innovation first need to adapt their approaches with respect to the three success factors, namely, legacy, risk and control. Second, they need to fully engage their external partners and resources in a truly collaborative model, which provides benefits to all partners involved. African Network for Drugs and Diagnostics Innovation BMS: Bristol–Meyers Squibb chimeric antigen receptor CEEDD: Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery CiRA: Center for iPS Cell Research Application CTIs: Centers for Therapeutic Innovation DNDi: Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative DKFZ: German Cancer Research Center EBIT: earnings before interest and taxes EFPIA: European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations ELF: European Lead Factory EU: FDA: GSK: G4T: Grants4Targets HTS: High-Throughput-Screening IMI: Innovative Medicines Initiative induced pluripotent stem J&J: MMV: Medicines for Malaria Ventures NCT: National Center for Tumor Diseases NIBR: Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research’s NIH: National Institute of Health OSDD: open source drug discovery PoC: proof-of-concept PPP: public–private partnerships SMEs: TB Alliance: Global Alliance for Tuberculosis Drug Development TCiRA: Takeda CiRA Joint Program for iPS Cell Applications TDI: Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases TPP: target product profile UCSF: UNECA: United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Schuhmacher A, et al. 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Evolution or revolution? McKinsey perspectives on drug and device R&D; 2012. McKinsey & Company. Pharmaceutical and medical products R&D practice. http://www.mckinsey.com/search?q=evolution%20or%20revolution%20mckinsey%20perspectives%20on%20drug%20and%20device%20r%26d%202012. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Staton T. Merck tallies 36,000 jobs cuts in 5 years of restructuring. Fierce Pharma. 2015. http://www.fiercepharma.com/corporate/merck-tallies-36-000-job-cuts-5-years-of-restructuring. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Caroll J. Exclusive: pfizer is once again cutting back R&D staff in reorganization. Fierce Pharma. 2015. http://www.fiercebiotech.com/r-d/exclusive-pfizer-once-again-cutting-back-r-d-staff-reorganization. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Sagonovsky E. Takeda relocates hundreds of R&D, vaccine jobs and cuts 480 in sales: report. Fierce Pharma. 2017. http://www.fiercepharma.com/pharma/takeda-has-moved-hundreds-r-d-vaccine-employees-from-illinois-to-boston-report. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Hirschler B. GlaxoSmithKline’s new boss streamlines R&D, axes slew of drugs. Reuters. 2017: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gsk-results/glaxosmithklines-new-boss-streamlines-rd-axes-slew-of-drugs-idUSKBN1AB1BH. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. CNBC. Eli Lilly to cut 3500 jobs, focus on developing new medicine. CNBC. 2017: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/07/eli-lilly-to-cut-3500-jobs-focus-on-developing-new-medicines.html. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Strauss S. Pharma embraces open source models. Nat Biotechnol. 2010;28:631–4. Munos B. Can open-source R&D reinvigorate drug research? Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2006;5:723–9. Collins FS, et al. The human genome project: lessons from large-scale biology. Science. 2003;300:286–90. Maurer SM. Finding cures for tropical diseases: is open source an answer? PLOS Med. 2004;1(3):e56. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0010056. Reeder JC, Guth JA. What have we learned from 40 years of supporting research and capacity building? PLOS Negl Dis. 2015;9:1–3. Mboya-Okeyo T, et al. 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Governing patientslikeme: information production and research through open, distributed, and data-based social media network. Inf Soc. 2015;31:193–211. Bender E. Challenges: crowdsourcing solutions. Nature. 2016;533:S62–4. Bulik BS. GSK and MIT Flumoji app tracks influenza outbreaks with crowdsourcing. FiercePharma. 2017. http://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/gsk-and-mit-flumoji-app-tracks-influenza-outbreaks-crowdsourcing. Accessed 25 Aug 2017. Goldman M. Public private partnerships need honest brokering. Nat Med. 2012;18:341. Goldman M, et al. Public–private partnerships as driving forces in the quest for innovative medicines. Clin Transl Med. 2013;2:2. Vaudano E. The innovative medicine initiative: a public private partnership model to foster discovery. Drug Discov Today. 2015;14:95–101. Woodcock J, Woosley R. The FDA critical path initiative and its influence on new drug development. Ann Rev Med. 2008;59:1–12. Kamel N, et al. The Innovative Medicine Initiative (IMI): a new opportunity for scientific collaboration between academia and industry at the European level. Eur Respir J. 2008;31:924–6. Hunter JA. The innovative medicine initiative: a pre-competitive initiative to enhance the biomedical science base of Europe to expedite the development of new medicine for patients. Drug Discov Today. 2008;13:371–2. Goldman M, et al. The innovative medicine initiative. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2015;14:1–2. Vaudano E. The innovative medicine innovative: a public–private-partnership model to foster drug discovery. Comput Struct Biotechnol J. 2013;6:e201303017. https://doi.org/10.5936/csbj.201303017. Sauer J-M, et al. The predictive safety testing consortium: safety bio-markers, collaboration, and qualification. J Med Develop Sci. 2015;1(1):34–45. https://doi.org/10.18063/JMDS.2015.01.007. Bel HE, et al. Diagnosis and definition of severe refractory asthma: an international consensus statement from the innovative medicine initiative (IMI). Thorax. 2011;66:910–7. Hofmann-Apitius M, et al. Towards reforming the taxonomy of human disease. Nat Rev Drug Discovery. 2015;14:75–6. Williams AJ. Open PHACTS: semantic interoperability for drug discovery. Drug Discov Today. 2012;17:11881198. Karawajczyk A, et al. Expansion of chemical space for collaborative lead generation and drug discovery: the European Lead Factory perspective. Drug Discov Today. 2015;20:1310–6. Laverty H, et al. Improving R&D productivity of pharmaceutical companies through public–private partnership: experiences from the Innovative Medicines Initiative. Expert Rev Pharmacoecon Outcomes Res. 2012;12:545–8. Settmann S. German Cancer Research Center and Bayer Healthcare Join Forces to Combat Cancer. DKFZ. 2011. http://www.dkfz.de/en/presse/pressemitteilungen/2011/dkfz-pm-11-03-German-Cancer-Research-Center-and-Bayer-HealthCare-Join-Forces-to-Combat-Cancer.php. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Monegain B. Bayer to expand U.S. innovation Center. Healthcare IT News. 2012. http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/bayer-expand-us-innovation-center. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. https://www.merckgroup.com/en/research/innovation-center.html. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Marschall M. Janssen Labs at San Diego expands to add concept lab and open collaboration space to accommodate individual entrepreneurs and additional life-science start-ups. Johnson&Johnson. 2013. https://www.jnj.com/news/all/janssen-labs-at-san-diego-expands-to-add-concept-lab-and-open-collaboration-space-to-accommodate-individual-entrepreneurs-and-additional-life-science-start-ups. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Fishburn CS. Uprooting CEEDD. SciBX. 2013. https://doi.org/10.1038/scibx.2013.565. Martz L. Open house at NIBR. Why Bradner is applying his open innovation ideas at NIBR. Biocentury. 2016. https://www.biocentury.com/bc-innovations/strategy/2016-06-30/why-bradner-applying-his-open-innovation-ideas-nibr. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Mullard A. An audience with Jay Bradner. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2017;16:232–3. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2017.50. Carroll J. Takeda to ax 2,800 workers, consolidate R&D in global restuctering. Fierce Pharma. 2012: http://www.fiercebiotech.com/r-d/takeda-to-ax-2-800-workers-consolidate-r-d-global-restructuring. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Carroll J. Takeda continues global R&D reboot with a new joint venture with PRA. Endpoints News. 2017. https://endpts.com/takeda-continues-global-rd-reboot-with-a-new-joint-venture-with-pra/. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Takeda. Tri-institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, Ins. Expands Partnership with Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd. Takeda. 2016. https://www.takeda.com/newsroom/newsreleases/2016/tri-institutional-therapeutics-discovery-institute-inc.-expands-partnership-with-takeda-pharmaceutical-company-ltd/. Accessed 15 Sept 2017. Osherovich L. Biotech Kibbutz. SciBX. 2014;7(2). https://doi.org/10.1038/scibx.2014.41. Zhang M-Z. Virtual drug discovery with the rise of Chinese CROs. Drug Discov Today. 2010;15:693–7. Forster SP. Virtual pharmaceutical companies: collaborating flexibly in pharmaceutical development. Drug Discov Today. 2013;19:348–55. Owens PK, et al. A decade of innovation in pharmaceutical R&D: the Chorus model. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2015;14:17–28. Aitken C, Keller S. The irrational side of change management, McKinsey Quarterly. 2009. http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-irrational-side-of-change-management. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Munos B. Lessons from 60 years of pharmaceutical innovation. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 2009;8:959–68. Adams B. J&J to spin off Actelion R&D unit into new biotech in major M&A deal. Fierce Pharma. 2017: http://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/j-j-to-spin-off-actelion-r-d-unit-into-new-biotech-major-m-a-deal. Accessed 21 Dec 2017. Ardal C, Rottingen J-A. Open source drug discovery in practice: a case study. PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2012;6(9):e1827. Open Source Drug Discovery Initiative. Open Source Drug Discovery Submission to WHO CEWG. 2011. http://www.who.int/phi/news/cewg_submission_csir_ind.pdf. https://www.tballiance.org/news/novartis-provides-drug-candidate-compounds-tb-alliance. Accessed 19 Apr 2018. Pharmaceutical Technology. Novartis partners with Pear Therapeutics to develop digital therapies. 2018: https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/novartis-partners-pear-therapeutics-develop-digital-therapies/. Accessed 19 Apr 2018. Elisabeth Dougherty. Tracking patients’ progress with radio signals and machine learning. 2018. https://www.novartis.com/stories/discovery/tracking-patients-progress-radio-signals-and-machine-learning. Accessed 19 Apr 2018. Medicines for Malaria Venture. 19 Malaria drug targets validated since 1999. 2017: https://www.mmv.org/our-impact/achievements/19-new-malaria-drug-targets-validated-1999. Accessed 19 Apr 2018. AS and MH are the main authors of this article. Both collected and analysed available information and wrote part of the paper. The general framework on open innovation has been provided by AS and OG. NM provided the examples and data on Debiopharm and Shire. All authors contributed to the discussion and conclusions. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. We acknowledge Aubyn Howard for his valuable contributions. The authors declare that they have no competing interests. MH is an employee of Novartis. NM is an employee of Debiopharm. The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author. There is no funding for the research reported. Reutlingen University, Alteburgstrasse 150, 72762, Reutlingen, Germany Alexander Schuhmacher Institute for Technology Management, University of St. Gallen, Dufourstrasse 40a, 9000, St. Gallen, Switzerland Oliver Gassmann Debiopharm International S.A., Chemin Messidor 5-7, 1002, Lausanne, Switzerland Nigel McCracken Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Postfach, Forum 1, 4002, Basel, Switzerland Markus Hinder Correspondence to Alexander Schuhmacher. Schuhmacher, A., Gassmann, O., McCracken, N. et al. Open innovation and external sources of innovation. An opportunity to fuel the R&D pipeline and enhance decision making?. J Transl Med 16, 119 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-018-1499-2 Knowledge leverager	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line750
__label__wiki	0.585986	0.585986	Fast-Food Restaurants From 12 Countries Around The World Find Tours and Vacations Though American fast food chains like McDonald’s, KFC, and Domino’s tend to dominate the fast food industry in many countries around the world, that doesn’t mean those are the only ones that exist. Most countries have their own popular fast food chains like Giraffas in Brazil or Dico’s in China. We take a look at some of the best fast food chains across the globe. MORE AROUND THE WORLD CONTENT: What 23 Sandwiches Look Like Around The World What Street Foods Look Like Around The World 20 Comfort Foods From Around The World #FastFood #Travel #FoodInsider Insider is great journalism about what passionate people actually want to know. That’s everything from news to food, celebrity to science, politics to sports and all the rest. It’s smart. It’s fearless. It’s fun. We push the boundaries of digital storytelling. Our mission is to inform and inspire. Subscribe to our channel and visit us at: https://www.insider.com Food Insider on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foodinsider/ Food Insider on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisinsiderfood/ Food Insider on Twitter: https://twitter.com/InsiderFood Insider on Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/discover/Insider/4020934530 Insider on Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/v/thisisinsider Insider on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@insider Food Insider on Dailymotion: https://www.dailymotion.com/foodinsider Fast-Food Restaurants From 12 Countries Around The World \| Around The World Same as below	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line751
__label__cc	0.730965	0.269035	Best Courtyard by Marriott Hot... Best Courtyard by Marriott Hotels in Virginia Courtyard by Marriott hotels cater to business travelers looking for affordable digs. Technology... READ MORE Courtyard by Marriott hotels cater to business travelers looking for affordable digs. Technology features are prominent in all Courtyard guest rooms, lobbies and meeting areas, and the 1,150-plus hotels around the world offer remote check-in for the convenience of busy travelers. What's more, Marriott Rewards members can rack up and use points at Courtyard by Marriott hotels around the world. You'll find several Courtyard by Marriott hotels made our Best Hotels in Europe and Best Hotels in the USA rankings – check them out below. Best Courtyard by Marriott Hotels by Destination 12 matches \| See all Virginia hotels » Courtyard Williamsburg Busch Gardens Area Courtyard Williamsburg Busch Gardens Area appeals to travelers visiting Busch Gardens Williamsburg and other attractions in Williamsburg, Virginia. All 139 rooms and 12 suites offer guests free Wi-Fi access, a coffee maker, a minifridge and a microwave. The Bistro is on-site and serves breakfast and dinner, as well as Starbucks beverages. Visitors staying at this hotel can make use of the hotel’s 24-hour fitness room, indoor pool, hot tub and seasonal outdoor pool. Recent guests particularly appreciate that this property is not far from attraction, such as historic Jamestown and Water Country USA. This Courtyard hotel is part of the Marriott hotel group, which means that Marriot Rewards members can earn or redeem points at this hotel. Courtyard Alexandria Old Town/Southwest The Courtyard Alexandria Old Town/Southwest is conveniently situated near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Cameron Run Regional Park, the National Science Foundation and Hoffman Town Center. The property has 178 rooms, which feature free Wi-Fi access, flat-screen TVs with cable channels and coffee makers. Amenities include a fitness center and a business center. The Bistro, the hotel’s on-site restaurant, serves American cuisine, cocktails and Starbucks coffee; it’s open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The hotel offers a free shuttle service to the Eisenhower Avenue Metro station, which eases access to Washington, D.C., and other destinations. Nonetheless, this Courtyard property still feels rather remote from the area’s main attractions for some guests. In addition to clean rooms, recent visitors appreciated that the property provides free parking. The hotel also participates in the Marriott Rewards program, which means that program members can earn and redeem points here. Courtyard Alexandria Pentagon South As its name indicates, Courtyard Alexandria Pentagon South is relatively close to the Pentagon and other governmental offices in northern Virginia and Washington, D.C. Its 203 rooms have free Wi-Fi access and flat-screen TVs with cable channels. Amenities include an indoor swimming pool, a 24-hour fitness center, a business center and laundry facilities. It also has more than 2,000 square feet of space for meetings and events. The Bistro, its on-site restaurant, serves dinner (which some recent guests find to be very good) and cocktails, as well as various breakfast options. Parking is available for a fee, which some visitors found to be unnecessarily steep. Because this Courtyard hotel is a part of the Marriott family, Marriott Rewards members can earn and redeem points here. Courtyard Arlington Crystal City/Reagan National Airport The guest rooms at the Courtyard Arlington Crystal City/Reagan National Airport come equipped with free Wi-Fi access, ergonomic workstations, minifridges and Keurig coffee makers. On-site amenities include a fitness center and a complimentary shuttle to and from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The on-site restaurant, The Bistro, serves breakfast with Starbucks beverages and dinner with cocktails. The hotel provides easy access to the Pentagon, Old Town Alexandria and sites in Washington, D.C. Recent guests said they enjoyed the convenience of the free shuttle and the proximity to local attractions,along with the friendly staff, although those with cars said parking was pricey. This Marriott property allows Marriott Rewards members to accrue and redeem points by staying here. Courtyard Arlington Rosslyn The guest rooms at the Courtyard Arlington Rosslyn all feature flat-screen TVs with premium cable channels, coffee makers and free Wi-Fi access. Property amenities include a fitness room, and the hotel is near popular attractions like Arlington National Cemetery, the National Mall and Georgetown. Recent guests enjoyed being close to attractions and the Metro, and they also found the rooms clean and comfortable. Another highlight for many was the friendly customer service. The Bistro offers casual American fare with Starbucks beverages and evening cocktails, although some recent guests wished breakfast was free. This Marriott property allows Marriott Rewards members to accrue and redeem points by staying here. Courtyard by Marriott Charlottesville North The Courtyard Charlottesville North is located in northern Charlottesville, Virginia, and right across the street from the Fashion Square Mall, which is home to many restaurants and shops. All of the guest rooms and suites come with sofa beds, minifridges and microwaves, along with free Wi-Fi access and flat-screen TVs with premium cable and movie channels. Recent guests said the property is showing its age, but appreciated that the rooms were clean. The Bistro serves food and beverages for breakfast and dinner, though there is no lunch service. However, numerous chain restaurants can be found nearby. Additional on-site amenities include a fitness center, an indoor pool and self-service laundry facilities. There's also free parking and a complimentary airport shuttle to Charlottesville Albermarle Airport, which is about 6 miles north. Guests should note that they will likely need a car to explore popular local attractions, including Monticello and downtown Charlottesville. Since this hotel belongs to the Marriott brand, Marriott Rewards members can use and earn points by staying here. Courtyard by Marriott Charlottesville – University Medical Center The Courtyard Charlottesville - University Medical Center is located in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, and less than a mile west of the University of Virginia campus. The hotel's guest rooms and suites include minifridges, microwaves, Paul Mitchell toiletries, sofas, complimentary Wi-Fi access and flat-screen TVs with premium cable and movie channels. The Bistro serves American fare for breakfast (it's not free) and dinner, though there is no on-site lunch option. However, numerous dining options can be found within walking distance. Additional on-site amenities include a fitness center, an indoor pool and parking (though it costs extra). Because this hotel has ties to the Marriott family, Marriott Rewards members can accrue and redeem points by choosing to stay here. Courtyard by Marriott Harrisonburg The guest rooms and suites at the Courtyard Harrisonburg come equipped with a king-sized bed or two queen-sized beds, complimentary Wi-Fi and flat-screen TVs with premium movie channels. Suites have extra space and include microwaves, minifridges and wet bars. The Bistro serves American fare for breakfast, but guests must venture off property for lunch and dinner. However, a handful of restaurants can be found within 3 miles of the hotel. Recent guests had high praise for the customer service throughout the property, especially the staff at breakfast. Other on-site amenities include a fitness center, an indoor pool and complimentary parking. While guests will likely need a car to explore the area, James Madison University is less than a mile east. Since this hotel has ties to the Marriott brand, Marriott Rewards members can use and earn points by staying here. Courtyard by Marriott Norfolk Downtown Nestled in the heart of downtown Norfolk, Virginia, the Courtyard Norfolk Downtown is surrounded by restaurants, shops and local attractions. All of the 140 guest rooms and suites feature minifridges, complimentary Wi-Fi access, coffee makers, pillow-top mattresses, desks with ergonomic chairs and flat-screen TVs with premium cable channels. The Bistro serves American cuisine for breakfast and dinner; however, there is no lunch service. Guests will find a variety of restaurants within walking distance, though. Other on-site amenities include a fitness center, an indoor pool and valet parking for a daily fee. The hotel is located across the street from the MacArthur Center shopping mall and less than a half-mile north of the Waterside District. Because of this hotel's ties to the Marriott brand, Marriott Rewards members can use and gain points by choosing to stay here. Courtyard by Marriott Richmond West Recent guests rave about Courtyard Richmond West and its excellent location in Richmond, Virginia. Travelers who choose to stay here find themselves situated within 10 miles of the University of Richmond, Carytown, downtown Richmond and the Virginia State Capitol Edgar Allen Poe Museum. Meanwhile, Richmond International Airport is also only a short drive away. At this Marriott property, guests will find an outdoor pool, a fitness center, a business center, free parking and laundry services. The Bistro is the hotel’s on-site restaurant, where travelers can grab breakfast and dinner. Standard accommodations sport vibrant sunset colors and include free Wi-Fi access, flat-screen TVs and other modern amenities. Extra perks like minifridges are available in suites. Keep in mind, members of the Marriott Rewards program can earn and redeem points by choosing to stay here. Courtyard Richmond Northwest/Short Pump The Courtyard Richmond Northwest/Short Pump sits northwest of popular Richmond, Virginia, destinations. In addition to Short Pump Town Center, travelers who choose to stay here will find themselves within 15 miles of downtown Richmond, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens and the Science Museum of Virginia. Better yet, this Marriott outpost boasts rave reviews by recent guests for its friendly staff members and clean, comfy accommodations. On-site amenities include an indoor pool, a 24-hour fitness center, event space, free parking and laundry facilities. The Bistro provides breakfast (not complimentary) and dinner, while local restaurant dinner delivery and a snack shop are also available. Rooms and suites feature golden yellow and bright yellow accents as well as minifridges, free Wi-Fi access and flat-screen TVs. What’s more, members of the Marriott Rewards program can earn and redeem point by choosing to stay here. Courtyard Virginia Beach Oceanfront/South Located on the Virginia Beach Boardwalk, Courtyard Virginia Beach Oceanfront/South overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. All rooms have private balconies with ocean views. Room amenities include free Wi-Fi access, flat-screen TVs with premium channels and minifridges. Suites include added perks like microwaves and wet bars. The Bistro, the on-site restaurant, serves breakfast (for a fee), dinner and cocktails. Guests can enjoy an indoor pool and a 24-hour fitness room. The hotel is less within 2 miles of the Virginia Beach Convention Center. Other nearby attractions include the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, Virginia Beach Fishing Pier and Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Recent guests say that the customer service makes this Virginia Beach property stand out. What’s more, this Courtyard hotel is part of the Marriott hotel group, and members of the Marriott Rewards program can earn or redeem points while staying here.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line753
__label__cc	0.629537	0.370463	Raja Yoga Insights #16 Physical Activity / Yoga / Raja Yoga Insights #16 Eric Armstrong 22 Dec 2017 Yoga Session 16 of the Raja Yoga training at the Ananda center. Liberation! It was just supposed to be a wrap up session. I wasn’t expecting anything like I got. Ananda’s Raja Yoga course covers more than I have described here. These are my personal highlights — the things that were, for me, either new, especially interesting, or especially illuminating. As they mention in the very first session, what they teach in this course is not unique to Ananda. Raja Yoga is an ancient science that belongs to the world. It is the “kingly” (raja) Yoga in that sense that it spans many different branches of Yoga practice—organizing them and devoting resources (your time and energy) to each in turn, for the good of the whole (you). As incredibly illuminating and inspiring as the program has been, there are a few places where I feel it could be improved. Should you take the course (and I highly recommend that you do), you might want to print out the PDF of suggested enhancements for this already exceptional course of instruction. I hope they wind up producing as much benefit for you as they did for me! Thu, 14 Dec, 2017: Session #16 – Liberation Yoga Poses and Energy I Qualify! Liberation! Continuing Insights Healing Hitler’s Parents The World Needs the Orbital Lift! Healing Broadcasts Complete Healing Circuits A few small tidbits: Cat/Cow pose is a really sneaky way to get people doing Jalandhara Bandha. You not only get the forward chin lock, as in Bridge Pose, you also get the action of lifting the head to the rear. Nice! Heidi observed that forward bends make room for energy in the spine, but it is backward bends that activate the energy flow. We had just completed the Camel pose (upright on your knees, hands on your hips and butt, push hips forward and arch your back.) Coming out of it, I was feeling a lot of energy flowing! On the other hand, I notice that forward bends generally do very little with the spine. Mostly, the stretch is in the hamstring, and even more in the hips. When I really work the hips, I feel a strong energy flow from that action, as well — but it doesn’t happen so much in something like the standing forward bend we did before the Camel. This was wonderful, and unexpected. I’m not sure if anyone realizes it yet (the probably do!) but I qualify for Kriya Yoga initiation! The reason I can say that is a story told about Lahiri Mahasaya. If I got the details right, he originally said to teach it only to those who will devote their lives to it. But what about all of the other people, he was asked — people who are deserving, who need it. “Very well,” he replied, “Give it to people who are well-intentioned.” (That was a really nice way to phrase it, too. It’s not like you have to be “deserving,” according to some unidentifiable standard — especially important since many people may not feel deserving, even though they would benefit and do good things. But if they are “well-intentioned”… Well, that just makes a lot of sense.) So the good news is, whether or not anyone realizes it, I qualify for Kriya Yoga initiation! Because I am nothing if not well-intentioned. (Despite how spectacularly short of the mark I may fall!) It was just a wrap up session. Shanti was giving a great talk about the insights she had while reading the last chapter, The Yogic Scheme of Life. She gave us an 18-point overview of all the fantastic stuff it was saying, and encouraged us to read it again. Then it happened… We were talking about unity and stuff — about how we are all one energy, because God is manifested as all. But of course, we sure do seem different. And somehow, the question got around to the tough one someone always asks, “Does that mean we’re supposed to love Hitler.” That was a tough one for anyone of Jewish descent. For me, it has always been the inquisition. And for most every woman I’ve known, it has been about witch hunts and stuff. All really hard stuff to forgive. How does anyone come to love someone who has done such things. And that’s when it hit me. It was the culmination of everything we had done the past 16 weeks. I thought the Maha Bandha insights were the peak. But no, that was an energetic peak. Tonight, it was a soul peak. You see, I had sent Hitler healing energy just the other day! Earlier, when I came to understand that the medulla was really inside the body, right at the base of the brain, it became clear to me that if energy is arriving from anywhere, it had to be coming from sort of Fifth Dimension. And clearly, energy is arriving from somewhere. That’s why the base of the skull is called the “Mouth of God” — because it’s said that God breathes energy in at that point. (I, for one, find it plausible, because discovering that energy center in my Ipsalu Tantra practice was the start of a whole new level of spiritual connection.) Last week, when we focused on healing, it had come to me that the only possible explanation for “healing at a distance” was the existence of that Fifth Dimension — which would also explain all manner of psychic phenomenon like seeing things at a distance, and seeing the future. As part of the healing practice, I found that sending energy from the 3rd eye was an important part of the process — and that sending to the medulla of the recipient helps to “complete the circuit”. Without both the intent to send from the right point, and the intent for it to arrive at the right point, I don’t feel a lot a happening. But with the right intent on both accounts, I’m basically “marshalling” the energy of the Cosmos — asking it to join with me in delivering a healing flow of energy to the recipient. Now then, if there is a fifth dimension, then it operates beyond the bounds of space and time — the four dimensions we’re familiar with. So, here’s the thing, if we can heal at a distance through that dimension, then we can also (maybe) heal over time. So as the talk was going on, I began sending healing energy to those poor sods who so desperately needed it, way back when. Golly. They better hope there’s no such thing as Karma! But it is interesting to think that maybe, just maybe, if we can heal our past, we can change our future! For example, I’ve long railed at the poor souls who burned the Library of Alexandria and the Mayan libraries. (After all, if it duplicated the Bible it was redundant, and if it differed it was heresy!) So maybe one of them, touched by our healing energy, put something aside and hid it — something we could come along and find, any day now! (In my lifetime, I’ve been astonished by how much of the history we were taught was so far off the mark. And we make new discoveries every day. So it is at least possible. All of that aside, it is at least interesting to contemplate the possibility of sending healing energy into the past. After all, if anyone in the world ever needed, those poor sods certainly did. So at this point, we have gone from Recognition of Evil to Sending Healing Energy. That’s not much of a stretch. Heck, you’d certainly like to heal those folks, if you could! And that’s when the goodness began. Because to surprise, I found that healing energy was followed by love! They’re part and parcel of the same energy flow. So from Sending Healing Energy it is a very short step to Sending Love. (Mostly, it’s just a matter of changing the label on the stream!) Now the really interesting part was what followed that. Because after I realized I was sending love, I realized in a heartbeat that I was really and truly free. I was no longer attached to that situation at all. I was, in a word, liberated! Now, whether or not those guys got anything out of it, I can’t say. But I sure as hell did! And it was a lot more than I was expecting on I thought would be a quiet, wrap-up night. Then Shanti put the cherry on top of the Sundae when she said (referring to the 5th dimension and energy flows and such), “Yes. That is exactly the way it is.” For energy to arrive at a chakra from an external source, we have to assume the existence of some sort of Fifth Dimension. That dimension would explain psychic phenomena and all manner of otherwise inexplicable events. To “love your enemy” is a step too far for most of us. But clearly, they are need in enlightenment. So it only makes sense to send them healing energy. We can only benefit! But as day follows night, the energy of love follows the energy of healing. So we wind up our loving our enemy — not because we really wanted to. It just happens. The moment we realize that fact, we are liberated from the “death spiral” we are otherwise engaged in, where each party makes an act that triggers the worst in the other. Most of all, we are psychologically and spiritually lifted up and out of the engagement. We are no longer attached to it. We are free! So the sequence is: Recognition of Evil -> Sending Healing Energy -> Sending Love -> Liberation! Friday morning, it occurred to me that if Hitler needed healing energy, then surely his parents needed it, too. Because unless he came into this world with evil intentions as a baby, then surely his upbringing had something to with how he turned out. And if his parents needed healing energy, then so did their parents, and theirs, and … As we go back in history looking for where healing energy could have prevented the horrible events that eventually transpired, it’s possible that we could have forestalled the interactions and situations that resulted in the corruption of the human spirit. One can imagine small corruptions, at first, gradually growing from generation to generation, until there were enough people willing to do an evil person’s bidding that pure evil could result. As I write, I am mentally translating “evil” into “someone in desperate need of massive amounts of healing energy”. And I’m sending it, as I write! But here’s the thing: As I wrote after the 4th Raja Yoga sequence, the Orbital Lift Comes to the Rescue when you’re frustrated or angry. And as I’ve written in this one, eventually it leads to real liberation. It’s also an antidote for the ego-centrism that can result from praise and adulation. In short, whatever situation you find yourself in, and lifts you out of it and brings you closer to the Divine essence of All. But it all starts with the Orbital Lift — something that is so easy to do, it can be throughout the day, in every situation, all day long. But hardly anyone knows about it! By rights, the technique would be taught in every Sunday school, Synagogue, and Mosque. It would taught as part of every high school curriculum, and in every trade school in the country. I mean, it takes like, minutes to learn. Yet it is extremely powerful. Had it been taught throughout history, who knows where we would be today? So why wasn’t? Well, turns it was — sort of. The Raja Yoga tradition has been teaching it for at least a couple of millennia. Maybe even 10 of them (1o thousand years). But the language they’ve been using has been so misleading that the world has been effectively deprived of the technique. What Yoga tradition has taught as “focus at the point between the eyebrows” is so far off the mark as to be effectively useless. It’s a great reminder for someone who already knows what they should do, but it is entirely misleading for anyone who hasn’t been taught, or who has forgotten what they learned. My hope is that with a new name (the Orbital Lift), and clear instruction, it can begin to radiate through society and make a difference in the world! Driving home Friday night, I found myself repeatedly broadcasting healing energy. It started with some of those folks who “can’t drive”. You know, the ones that frustrate you. I was giving them healing energy as I became aware of them, and after they were gone (which lifted me up, for sure, and hopefully helped them). Then I saw a police car with lights flashing in a parking lot. I radiated healing energy the officer’s way, and broadcast to whoever was involved in the situation he was addressing. Noticing how wonderful I felt, I realized that by generating healing energy and sending it to the recipients’ medulla, I felt like I was doing something in such situations, rather than merely passing by and feeling guilty, or concerned, or whatever. So it’s clearly something that can be done when encountering yet another panhandler (who have at times been observed riding away in expensive cars — but you never really know). In sense, the process was one of “bestowing blessings”. Of giving, in a way that felt real to me, at least. And that, in turn, created a powerful sense of detachment. Driving on, I was content and serene, not attached to the situation in any way. If healing energy is flowing from my third eye to someone’s medulla, and at the same time they are flowing it from their third eye back to my medulla, how could that be described as something other than a total connection, or love? And if there are multiple chakras capable of giving and receiving energy through the fifth dimension (not the least of which are the heart and kunda!), then I suspect that becomes total union between two people, which also unites them with God. That’s the ultimate goal of Tantric union, after all. Perhaps the generation of “healing energy” is the way to get there. Well, the “enlightenment high” is wearing off, but I remain elevated far above where I was when I started. My practice has been re-invigorated with a variety of techniques that are making a real difference. I find myself experiencing positive energy flows several times a day, and am now engaging in my practice a couple of times a day! Yesterday, in fact, I couldn’t wait to get home for an “energy boost”. I’ve that waiting 24 hours between sessions allows too much of the good stuff to wear off. But most of the “erosion” occurs after 18 hours or so. So getting a booster shot every 12 hours makes a huge difference! Anyway, that’s where I am, at the moment. Super positive, and looking up. Copyright © 2017, TreeLight PenWorks Series Navigation << Raja Yoga Insights #15Raja Yoga – Series Index >> Add your thoughts... Cancel reply Grow Great with #BenchYoga Pulsing Yoga – A Radically Effective Exercise	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line754
__label__wiki	0.577414	0.577414	All Categories Timeline Artifacts People Exhibits Entertainment All Decades 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 200 Years of the Topsfield Fair A day at the fair: Could there be a more classic slice of Americana? And when it comes to fairs, you won’t find one that offers more history, tradition, or educationthan the iconic Topsfield Fair in the North Shore region of Massachusetts. The Seeds of this seminal event trace back to 1818 in Essex County, which had survived two drought-related famines in a five-year period. In a classic example of “community,” a group of 20 farmers gathered to trade ideas and information– and in the process formed the Essex Agricultural Society. As its founders wrote, the society’s goal was “to promote and improve the agricultural interests of farmers and others in Essex County.” Starting with it’s early cattle shows, the Society has done just that. Now, as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of it’s founding, the Topsfield Fair stands as a reminder of the importance of–and hard work behind–agriculture and farming. At today’s fair, you’ll see everything from oxen and horse pull contests and a vibrant flower show to a giant pumpkin contest and the biggest beekeeping exhibit in America. Yet you’ll also see the types of attractions that draw us in; midway rides, games, concessions, entertainment, and more. In this richly illustrated, well-researched book you’ll get a closer view of the Topsfield Fair–and its fascinating history– than ever before. It’s the next-best thing to being there. # of Books * Shipping Options * Ship to my address below - $5 per order Pick up at Topsfield Fair office (207 Boston Street Topsfield, MA 01983) - FREE Total ($) Credit Card * Credit Card Month 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Credit Card Year 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line758
__label__wiki	0.942086	0.942086	New Zealand Cops Raided Home of Reporter Working on Snowden Documents Glenn Greenwald Ryan Gallagher Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher October 16 2014, 6:00 p.m. Agents from New Zealand’s national police force ransacked the home of a prominent independent journalist earlier this month who was collaborating with The Intercept on stories from the NSA archive furnished by Edward Snowden. The stated purpose of the 10-hour police raid was to identify the source for allegations that the reporter, Nicky Hager, recently published in a book that caused a major political firestorm and led to the resignation of a top government minister. But in seizing all the paper files and electronic devices in Hager’s home, the authorities may have also taken source material concerning other unrelated stories that Hager was pursuing. Recognizing the severity of the threat posed to press freedoms from this raid, the Freedom of the Press Foundation today announced a global campaign to raise funds for Hager’s legal defense. In August, one month before New Zealand’s national election, Hager published Dirty Politics, which showed that key figures in Prime Minister John Key’s National Party were feeding derogatory information about their opponents to a virulent right-wing blogger named Cameron Slater. Hager published evidence in the form of incriminating emails, provided by a hacker, demonstrating coordination between National Party officials and Slater. The ensuing scandal forced the resignation of a top Key ally, Justice Minister Judith Collins, and implicated numerous other National Party officials and supporters. Despite the scandal, the National Party won a resounding victory in the election, sending Key to a third term as prime minister. On October 2—less than two weeks after the election—detectives from a regional “major crime team” came to Hager’s Wellington home armed with a search warrant authorizing them to seize anything that might lead them to the identity of his source for Dirty Politics. The warrant shows that prior to the raid, a police “intelligence analyst” had studied Hager’s media appearances in an effort to discover information about his sources for the book, taking particular note of references Hager made to knowing the source’s identity. While there is no evidence that Hager’s work on NSA documents was a factor in the raid, it is possible that authorities knew or suspected that he had been given access to some of those documents. Over the past several months, Hager has exchanged multiple encrypted emails with reporters at The Intercept which, if obtained by New Zealand authorities under a warrant, could have tipped them off to the existence of a relationship. When The Intercept reported last month on the activities of the nation’s surveillance agency GCSB, we made clear that we were working with local journalists on further stories, and it was widely speculated that Hager was the likeliest local candidate for such a partnership. At the time, Key expressed concern that future stories from the Snowden archive could jeopardize the country’s bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council. Whether or not Hager’s work with The Intercept may have partially motivated the raid, the situation underscores the dangers of using invasive law enforcement tactics against reporters—they impede the reporting process, render source relationships very difficult to protect, and offer the very authorities that reporters are attempting to hold accountable a window into their ongoing reporting. (The Intercept‘s collaboration with Hager will proceed.) The raid at Hager’s home took place while he was out of town, visiting the University of Auckland to give a series of lectures. Six officers arrived at his home at 7:45 a.m., waking his 22-year-old daughter, who was presented with a search warrant as she answered the door. Once they entered the property, detectives spent ten hours sifting through Hager and his family’s personal effects, making copies of any USB storage devices they found and seizing Hager’s computer, personal documents, a camera, a dictaphone, CDs, and dozens of other items—not to mention his daughter’s laptop, cellphones, and iPod. “This was an unusually heavy action for New Zealand police to take against someone in the media,” Hager told The Intercept. “Occasionally police use a warrant to go after a particular piece of evidence held by a media person or organization. But hours of sifting through someone’s files and seizing piles of their materials does not normally occur. It has a strong smell of politics about it.” Hager, New Zealand’s most well known independent reporter, emphasized the potential damage the raid could have on work that is wholly unrelated to Dirty Politics: “It is disruptive to anyone’s work to suddenly not have their computers and especially an investigative journalist’s work. There is now also the legal battle to get my equipment and files back untouched. There is no choice about fighting it. I have to protect this and other sources for life or why should anyone ever trust me again?” The New Zealand Police did not immediately respond to email request seeking comment. Hager is challenging the legality of the warrant in court, and the property that was seized remains sealed and unavailable to the police for the time being. Although he is being represented by pro bono counsel, Hager has already incurred legal expenses reaching into the thousands of dollars, and New Zealand’s “loser pays” provision could subject him to a very large monetary judgment if he loses. The Freedom of the Press Foundation campaign to raise money for Hager is intended to help him fight for the return of his property, challenge the legality of the raid, and defend himself against any potential future threats stemming from his work as a journalist. (The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras are co-founders of the foundation and, along with Edward Snowden and Intercept technology analyst Micah Lee, are also board members; in May, The Intercept‘s parent company First Look Media donated $350,000 to the foundation.) Press freedoms are under increasing assault in the English-speaking world—there have been similar controversies in the other Five Eyes alliance nations of the U.S., the U.K., Australia, and Canada—and the ability of New Zealand police officers to cavalierly raid the home of a reporter who has criticized the government in power threatens to establish a dangerous precedent everywhere reporters operate. A successful campaign on Hager’s behalf would signal that people around the world are willing to defend basic press freedoms and stand against such assaults. Those wishing to do so can contribute to Hager’s defense fund here. Update: In an emailed statement to The Intercept on Friday, New Zealand Police spokesman Ross Henderson denied that officers were aware Hager was working with leaked U.S. government documents. Henderson insisted that the raid was aimed at seeking information related to the source for Dirty Politics, and added that the police force “has a duty to appropriately investigate matters involving alleged criminal activity, regardless of a person’s occupation or position, and Mr. Hager is no exception.” Whether Hager’s material is covered by a law in New Zealand that protects a reporter’s right to keep his sources confidential, Henderson said, depends on whether Hager “meets the legal definition of a journalist” which “is now a matter for the court to rule on.” Photo: AP/Mark Mitchell/New Zealand Herald Ryan Gallagher[email protected]theintercept.com@rj_gallagher	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line761
__label__wiki	0.697827	0.697827	MC/DJs Top of The World – A Carpenters Tribute Who can forget the incomparable music of the Carpenters? The popular brother/sister duo of the 70’s and early 80’s gave us some of the most unforgettable ballads and melodic pop songs of all time. Debbie Taylor and her band bring the most authentic versions of the Carpenters music to the stage. No doubt, you will be singing along as they perform hits like; “Close to You”, “We’ve Only Just Begun”, “Rainy Days and Mondays”, “Please Mr. Postman” and “Yesterday Once More”, to name a few. Debbie captures the warm tones and contralto range that made Karen’svoice so unique. Debbie started her career on stage at the age of 7 performing in Children’s theatre. After directing numerous productions in children’s and community theatre, her career path led her to the world of professional singing. For the past 20 years, she has been the owner and leader of ‘The Debbie Taylor Band’, a wedding, corporate, and private party band. As well as opening numerous times for Barry Gibb, Debbie and her band have been flown to St. Martin and St. Barts to entertain on the Silversea luxury cruise lines. The music of the Carpenters has always been close to Debbie’s heart. That sweet spot at the low end of her contralto range is a comfortable fit for singing Karen’s songs. “This is a project of love and passion for incredible music and to be shared with my fellow Carpenters fans”. Sit back and enjoy as Debbie and her band take you on a nostalgic journey through the Carpenters greatest hits while sharing some of the backstories behind the music. We've Only Just Begun Goodbye to Love 4650 Coral Ridge Drive Coral Springs, FL 33076 info@TheMikeSipe.com Our Mission is to provide our clients with the most unforgettable entertainment experience, while promoting an atmosphere of trust and togetherness. Our Legacy is to better a life with every memory we create. © 2021 Mike Sipe \| Web Development by Landy Marketing	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line768
__label__wiki	0.617708	0.617708	History of Juneteenth June 10, 2020 June 18, 2020 The Positive Community Magazine Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation – which had become official January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation had little impact on the Texans due to the minimal number of Union troops to enforce the new Executive Order. However, with the surrender of General Lee in April of 1865, and the arrival of General Granger’s regiment, the forces were finally strong enough to influence and overcome the resistance. Later attempts to explain this two and a half year delay in the receipt of this important news have yielded several versions that have been handed down through the years. Often told is the story of a messenger who was murdered on his way to Texas with the news of freedom. Another, is that the news was deliberately withheld by the enslavers to maintain the labor force on the plantations. And still another, is that federal troops actually waited for the slave owners to reap the benefits of one last cotton harvest before going to Texas to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation. All of which, or neither of these version could be true. Certainly, for some, President Lincoln’s authority over the rebellious states was in question For whatever the reasons, conditions in Texas remained status quo well beyond what was statutory. General Order Number 3 One of General Granger’s first orders of business was to read to the people of Texas, General Order Number 3 which began most significantly with: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired laborer.” The reactions to this profound news ranged from pure shock to immediate jubilation. While many lingered to learn of this new employer to employee relationship, many left before these offers were completely off the lips of their former ‘masters’ – attesting to the varying conditions on the plantations and the realization of freedom. Even with nowhere to go, many felt that leaving the plantation would be their first grasp of freedom. North was a logical destination and for many it represented true freedom, while the desire to reach family members in neighboring states drove the some into Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Settling into these new areas as free men and women brought on new realities and the challenges of establishing a heretofore non-existent status for black people in America. Recounting the memories of that great day in June of 1865 and its festivities would serve as motivation as well as a release from the growing pressures encountered in their new territory. The celebration of June 19th was coined “Juneteenth” and grew with more participation from descendants. The Juneteenth celebration was a time for reassuring each other, for praying and for gathering remaining family members. Juneteenth continued to be highly revered in Texas decades later, with many former slaves and descendants making an annual pilgrimage back to Galveston on this date. Juneteenth Festivities and Food A range of activities were provided to entertain the masses, many of which continue in tradition today. Rodeos, fishing, barbecuing and baseball are just a few of the typical Juneteenth activities you may witness today. Juneteenth almost always focused on education and self improvement. Thus, often guest speakers are brought in and the elders are called upon to recount the events of the past. Prayer services were also a major part of these celebrations. Certain foods became popular and subsequently synonymous with Juneteenth celebrations such as strawberry soda-pop. More traditional and just as popular was the barbecuing, through which Juneteenth participants could share in the spirit and aromas that their ancestors – the newly emancipated African Americans, would have experienced during their ceremonies. Hence, the barbecue pit is often established as the center of attention at Juneteenth celebrations. Food was abundant because everyone prepared a special dish. Meats such as lamb, pork and beef which not available everyday were brought on this special occasion. A true Juneteenth celebrations left visitors well satisfied and with enough conversation to last until the next. Dress was also an important element in early Juneteenth customs and is often still taken seriously, particularly by the direct descendants who can make the connection to this tradition’s roots. During slavery there were laws on the books in many areas that prohibited or limited the dressing of the enslaved. During the initial days of the emancipation celebrations, there are accounts of former slaves tossing their ragged garments into the creeks and rivers to adorn clothing taken from the plantations belonging to their former ‘masters’. Juneteenth and Society In the early years, little interest existed outside the African American community in participation in the celebrations. In some cases, there was outwardly exhibited resistance by barring the use of public property for the festivities. Most of the festivities found themselves out in rural areas around rivers and creeks that could provide for additional activities such as fishing, horseback riding and barbecues. Often the church grounds was the site for such activities. Eventually, as African Americans became land owners, land was donated and dedicated for these festivities. One of the earliest documented land purchases in the name of Juneteenth was organized by Rev. Jack Yates. This fund-raising effort yielded $1000 and the purchase of Emancipation Park in Houston, Texas. In Mexia, the local Juneteenth organization purchased Booker T. Washington Park, which had become the Juneteenth celebration site in 1898. There are accounts of Juneteenth activities being interrupted and halted by white landowners demanding that their laborers return to work. However, it seems most allowed their workers the day off and some even made donations of food and money. For decades these annual celebrations flourished, growing continuously with each passing year. In Booker T. Washington Park, as many as 20,000 African Americans once flowed through during the course of a week, making the celebration one of the state’s largest. Juneteenth Celebrations Decline Economic and cultural forces provided for a decline in Juneteenth activities and participants beginning in the early 1900’s. Classroom and textbook education in lieu of traditional home and family-taught practices stifled the interest of the youth due to less emphasis and detail on the activities of former slaves. Classroom text books proclaimed Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 as the date signaling the ending of slavery – and little or nothing on the impact of General Granger’s arrival on June 19th. The Depression forced many people off the farms and into the cities to find work. In these urban environments, employers were less eager to grant leaves to celebrate this date. Thus, unless June 19th fell on a weekend or holiday, there were very few participants available. July 4th was the already established Independence holiday and a rise in patriotism steered more toward this celebration. The Civil Rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s yielded both positive and negative results for the Juneteenth celebrations. While it pulled many of the African American youth away and into the struggle for racial equality, many linked these struggles to the historical struggles of their ancestors. This was evidenced by student demonstrators involved in the Atlanta civil rights campaign in the early 1960’s, whom wore Juneteenth freedom buttons. Again in 1968, Juneteenth received another strong resurgence through Poor Peoples March to Washington D.C.. Rev. Ralph Abernathy’s call for people of all races, creeds, economic levels and professions to come to Washington to show support for the poor. Many of these attendees returned home and initiated Juneteenth celebrations in areas previously absent of such activity. In fact, two of the largest Juneteenth celebrations founded after this March are now held in Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Texas Blazes the Trail On January 1, 1980, Juneteenth became an official state holiday through the efforts of Al Edwards, an African American state legislator. The successful passage of this bill marked Juneteenth as the first emancipation celebration granted official state recognition. Edwards has since actively sought to spread the observance of Juneteenth all across America. Juneteenth In Modern Times Today, Juneteenth is enjoying a phenomenal growth rate within communities and organizations throughout the country. Institutions such as the Smithsonian, the Henry Ford Museum and others have begun sponsoring Juneteenth-centered activities. In recent years, a number of local and national Juneteenth organizations have arisen to take their place along side older organizations – all with the mission to promote and cultivate knowledge and appreciation of African American history and culture. Juneteenth today, celebrates African American freedom and achievement, while encouraging continuous self-development and respect for all cultures. As it takes on a more national, symbolic and even global perspective, the events of 1865 in Texas are not forgotten, for all of the roots tie back to this fertile soil from which a national day of pride is growing. The future of Juneteenth looks bright as the number of cities and states creating Juneteenth committees continues to increase. Respect and appreciation for all of our differences grow out of exposure and working together. Getting involved and supporting Juneteenth celebrations creates new bonds of friendship and understanding among us. This indeed, brightens our future – and that is the Spirit of Juneteenth. ← Harlem Freedom and Justice Silent March on June 7, 2020 Social Distancing: 7 Ways to Protect Your Energy and Mental Health → For the Love of Our Children Percy Julian Contributions to the Field of Science March 14, 2017 October 2, 2020 The Positive Community Almost Half of 2020 MaCarthur Fellows are Black or Biracial	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line769
__label__wiki	0.547752	0.547752	Best DVD Players to Match Any Home Theater DVD players were introduced in the market in the 1990s. Producing twice the quality of a VHS player, a DVD player gives higher resolution, two-layer discs, and choices for widescreen or letterbox format viewing. Today, you can find a wide variety of the best DVD players in the market. The following DVD players are chosen for their notable features, pros, and minor drawbacks. Know more about what each DVD player has to offer, and determine which one best matches your preferences and home theater system. Best DVD Player: The Top Three Choices When buying a DVD player, you have to ask yourself: should you buy a DVD player or a Blu-ray player? Although DVD players can still convey the same digital signal to HDTVs, Blu-ray players can send richer signals, resulting in a higher resolution. Although they have differences, the DVD players below can perfectly match any home theater depending on the user’s personal preferences and budget. Each DVD player provides high-quality resolution, which upgrades the viewing and entertainment experience. 1. Panasonic DVD-S700EP-K DVD Player One important feature a DVD player must have is the ability to work with any television manufactured and positioned from any country. The Panasonic DVD-S700EP-K DVD Player has this best feature. The first thing to notice about the Panasonic DVD-S700EP-K DVD Player is its sleek black design with a dust-proof finish. It is thin and portable, measuring in at 8 by 12.2 by 1.5 inches. It weighs no more than three pounds. Moving it and assembling it on any home theater is easy and convenient. This DVD Player can play PAL and NTSC DVDs on any country around the world. It can also play different disc formats, such as DVD-R/DVD-R DL, DVD-RW, MP3, JPEG, Xvid, and SVCD. As a flexible DVD player, this device can project and up-convert signals up to 1080p, 108mHz, and 12bit DAC. When power interruption happens, this Panasonic DVD player can automatically resume playing. It can also perform CD ripping and alter the video signal of PAL content and output it into NTSC format. The Panasonic DVD-S700EP-K DVD Player has two-channel connectors and comes with a one-system pin jack. The output level of the audio connector is 2 Vrms, which is equivalent to 1kHz or 0 dB. Lightweight and saves space High-quality playback High-speed conversion Power resume feature Affordable and easy to set up No DVD progress display Inconsistent region 2. Sony UBP-X700 4K Blu-ray Player If you are looking for a 4K ultra-HD player that conveys excellent visual clarity, the Sony UBP-X700 4K Blu-ray Player is a good choice. Below, we will discuss the features that make this DVD player stand out among the rest. The Sony UBP-X700 4K Blu-ray Player can play almost any file and disc format. It allows the user to watch, listen to, and stream various high-definition media formats and streaming services. With the ability to produce a resolution that is four times higher than a conventional Blu-ray player, this Sony UBP-X700 4K Blu-ray Player can bring your entertainment experience to a higher level. It comes with AV technology connectors, such as HDMI, coaxial SPDIF, and Ethernet. Its HDR10 signal has up to 100 times the brightness of a standard signal but maintaining the profound and detailed blacks. It also features Dolby Vision, an HDR solution that contributes to the immersive scene, deeper darks, remarkable highlights, and vibrant colors. The Sony UBP-X700 4K Blu-ray Player is quite heavy and bulkier compared to standard DVD players. It weighs 4.1 pounds and has dimensions of 15 by 12 by 4 inches. With its detailed and organized menu and interface, this Blu-ray player is easy to use. You can easily find the menu or feature that you want. Sets immersive, high-detailed scenes Crisp images Advanced output ports Comes in a complete package Quite bulky and heavy 3. Samsung J5900RF Wi-Fi DVD Player One of the most advanced DVD players today is the Samsung J5900RF Wi-Fi DVD Player. It is equipped with wireless capability that allows the user to get the most out of modern tech. What are the other features that this Samsung DVD player offers? Let’s find out! With the built-in Wi-Fi capability of the Samsung J5900RF Wi-Fi DVD Player, you don’t need additional cables to connect to the wireless network. It comes in three styles: 2D built-in Wi-Fi, 2D without Wi-Fi, and 2D/3D with built-in Wi-Fi. The 2D without Wi-Fi player has integrated USD 2.0 port on the front so you can play different multimedia files. It can also convert NTSC to PAL DVD, which works on any television with HDMI connection. It also allows the user to stream multimedia content from any internet sources. This, obviously, doesn’t require any cable or wires. Meanwhile, the 2D/3D player with built-in WiFi makes it possible to stream from Youtube and Amazon with DTS-HD master audio and Dolby True HD content. The Samsung J5900RF Wi-Fi DVD Player is a region-free DVD player. No cables needed Convenient to use Can stream online multimedia content Works anywhere in the world No Mac/PC connection Requires region set-up for Blu-ray discs The viewing experience today really has come up to a higher level. With so many best DVD players to choose from, you have many options that can match your preferences and budget. To make the most from the high-definition TV, for example, it needs a DVD player that can play high-quality multimedia format. Even though some users want the most advanced DVD player, sometimes it comes with a cost. The Samsung J5900RF Wi-Fi DVD Player has integrated wireless technology that allows you to stream multimedia content from Netflix, Youtube, and other online sources without the need for wires or cables. However, it is quite more expensive than standard DVD players. The Panasonic DVD-S700EP-K DVD Player is an affordable DVD player that can play high-definition multimedia formats from discs and other devices. It also has other awesome capabilities, such as power resume, 1080p up-conversion, and region compatibility worldwide. All of these combined is the reason why we chose it as the best among the best. Best Home Theater Tower Speakers from Well-Known Brands Best In Wall Speakers Home Theater with Space-Saving Design	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line773
__label__wiki	0.940137	0.940137	Home More News Economy & Money Romney supports automatic hikes in minimum wage Romney supports automatic hikes in minimum wage By DAVID ESPO Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney renewed his support Wednesday for automatic increases in the federal minimum wage to keep pace with inflation, a position sharply at odds with traditional GOP business allies, conservatives and the party’s senior lawmakers. “I haven’t changed my thoughts on that,” the former Massachusetts governor told reporters aboard his chartered campaign plane, referring to a stand he has held for a decade. He did not say if he would ask Congress to approve the change if he wins the White House this fall. Congress first enacted federal minimum wage legislation in 1938 and has raised it sporadically in the years since. The last increase, approved in 2007, took effect in three installments and reached $7.25 an hour for covered workers effective July 24, 2009. It has never been allowed to rise automatically, as Romney envisions. Romney’s chief rival for the nomination, Newt Gingrich, criticized Romney for the stance, pointing to previous periods of hyperinflation and saying it would end up costing way too much money. “That would be a very dangerous idea,” Gingrich said. Romney also drew criticism from the anti-tax Club for Growth. “Indexing the minimum wage would be an absolute job killer,” the group’s president, Chris Chocola, said in a statement. He called the proposal “anti-growth.” Organized labor generally supports increases in the minimum wage, and Romney’s position could give him cross-over appeal among blue-collar Democrats in a general election campaign. Republicans have generally opposed attempts to raise it, although in 1996, the GOP-controlled Congress passed an election-year increase that included a package of tax cuts for business and a subminimum wage to apply to new, younger employees. At the time lawmakers were considering the 2007 legislation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce registered its disapproval. “Any minimum wage increase will significantly affect the bottom line of the nation’s small business owners,” said Bruce Josten, the executive vice president for government affairs at the organization, which says it represents more than 3 million businesses and organizations across the country. A spokesman for the organization declined to comment on Romney’s statement. The National Federation of Independent Business says on its website that it opposes any increase in the current federal minimum wage.”Mandatory wage increases not only hurt small businesses, but their employees as well,” the group says. “It has not been proven to reduce poverty or narrow the income gap and puts a stranglehold on America’s top job creators: small businesses.” A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, Michael Steel, said Congress’ top Republican “is following the presidential campaign but has not been commenting on the individual candidates’ specific proposals.” Boehner opposed the most recent increase that passed Congress. An aide to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Romney’s statement. As a candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002, Romney said he supported minimum wage increases in line with inflation. Five years ago, he said he liked the “idea of getting the political debate out and I like the idea of not having the huge jumps as we do now.” Economy,Hikes,Inflation,Jobs,Minimum Wage,Mitt Romney Meat plant workers to Trump: Employees aren’t going to show up	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line778
__label__wiki	0.738656	0.738656	All News Stories Reader Polls Opinions Weekly Podcast About Us November 9th: The Great Boston Fire, Donald Trump Is Declared a Winner of Presidential Race and Other Events of the Date Press {{ keys }} + D to make this page bookmarked. 4:40 am November 9, 2018 A number of important events have taken place on November 9th in U.S. history. Here is our take on the most interesting and valuable of them. 1780 – American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Fishdam Ford During this battle (that took place in the late period of the American Revolutionary War) the Brits made an attempt to defeat the Americans in a surprise attack near the modern day town of Carlisle, South Carolina. They were commanded by Major James Wemyss, and against them were a camp of Patriot militia under the command of local Brigadier General Thomas Sumter. Everything happened at around 1 a.m. on November 9, 1780, as the Brits ran into the attack, but eventually failed. Their commander, Wemyss, was wounded and later captured in the course of the battle, since the security of Sumter’s camp was good enough to repel this attack. Many historians have come to the agreement that Wemyss also failed, because he didn’t wait until dawn to start the attack. Another reason was that there were only about 250 soldiers from the attacking side, and no less than 525 – on the defending, so the British defeat was really humiliating as they lost about 20 men killed and many more captured. 1872 – The Great Boston Fire One of the most costly fires in the U.S. history started at around 7:20 p.m. in the basement of a commercial warehouse at Summer Street in Boston, Massachusetts. The fire was really strong, demolishing no less than 776 buildings in Boston’s downtown, many of which were located in the financial district. Such a nightmare caused about $ 73.5 million dollars in damage. Converting it to the modern exchange rates – this is over $1 billion dollars! It was a good thing that despite such devastation, most of the Boston inhabitants managed to escape the fire, and the overall number of people killed by it never exceeded 13, including 2 firemen, yet, no less than 100,000 locals were bystanders watching the financial district of their hometown dies in a fire. Among the notable buildings destroyed by fire were the newspapers The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald, a jewelry store Shreve, Crump & Low, which was relocated from its original workshop to 225 Washington Street after the fire, as well as the building were Carter's Ink Company was. 2016 – Donald Trump is declared the winner of the Presidential campaign This is something Democrats still can’t accept, but already – this is a part of American history. Exactly two years ago Donald Trump was declared the winner of the Presidential campaign, beating his main opponent, Hillary Clinton. That Presidential election was expected to be quite boring, as the vast majority of social polls gave Hillary a victory with a huge margin, yet, it never happened, as Trump managed to gain electoral votes in a number of important swing-states, such as Florida, and defeated his opponent in some traditional Democratic strongholds, such as Pennsylvania, leaving the Democratic Party in a complete state of shock. And even despite losing the popular vote by almost 3 million, Trump managed to win the Electoral College Vote with a remarkable result of 304 against 227. What happened after that, and who was blamed for it – is a completely different story. These are the most notable events in U.S. history that occurred on November 9th, at least in our view. Author: USA Really Jan 15, 2021 9:10 am 703 Roger Stone’s wife was hospitalized after being attacked by a leftist Woman who suffered convulsions after taking Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine being screened for permanent neurological damage Trump ordered to declassify Obamagate intelligence documents FBI prepares to fend off protests at 50 Capitols Main All News Most Popular Opinions Reader Polls Stories Politics Social Issues This Day in History Crimes and Calamity Economy and Business Interview Video About us For press, advertising and other business questions pr@usareally.com Copyright © 2021 USA Really. All rights reserved.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line779
__label__wiki	0.574203	0.574203	Tin tức \| 2Sao \| Tintuconline \| Infonet \| ICTNews \| Multimedia \| Tuyển dụng Sci-tech & Environment VN & World Maritime Sovereignty Your VIETNAM Vietnam reiterates commitment to common efforts against terrorism Vietnam re-affirmed its commitment to joining common efforts of the international community in the fight against terrorism at a virtual open debate of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on January 12. At the debate on the 20th anniversary of Resolution 1373 on counter-terrorism, chaired by the Foreign Minister of Tunisia, the UNSC adopted a presidential statement on combating international terrorism. Speakers pointed out that over the last 20 years, terrorism risks around the globe have kept growing, international terrorist groups have ceaselessly sought new operating methods, stepped up using cyber space and information technology, and colluded with trans-national crimes. UN Under-Secretary-General for Counter-Terrorism Vladimir Voronkov urged countries to reiterate their commitment to international solidarity against terrorism via international cooperation and capacity enhancement, deal with root causes of terrorism, strengthen the capacity of combating violent extremism, and engage the youth, women, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in common efforts. He affirmed that the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism pledges to reinforce cooperation with the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), as well as other agencies and organisations, in this regard. Michèle Coninsx, UN Assistant Secretary-General and CTED Executive Director, stressed that the CTED pledges to promote monitoring the implementation of UNSC resolutions on the basis of a human rights-based approach. She also recommended anti-terrorism policies and laws in countries align with legal regulations and ensure human rights. UNSC member states voiced support for the council to focus on preventing violence and extremism and promoting a culture of peace and dialogue. They underlined the importance of international and regional cooperation and the involvement of the entire society, including NGOs, in efforts against international terrorism. They requested that counter-terrorism measures must be in conformity with the UN Charter and international law, and not take advantage of the terrorism combat to serve other purposes. Addressing the debate, Minister Counsellor Nguyen Phuong Tra, deputy head of the Vietnamese mission to the UN, said since Resolution 1373 was issued in 2001, the UNSC has promoted an institutional framework for combating global terrorism in various areas, and the terrorism fight has reaped significant outcomes. She pointed out the necessity to promote a comprehensive approach based on the UN Charter that should focus on preventing and eradicating conflict, eliminating conditions for terrorism, and boosting communities’ immunity from violent extremism and terrorism propaganda. Solidarity and vigilance against terrorism risks will create the international community’s common strength in the face of risks and new developments of terrorism, according to Tra. Resolution 1373 was adopted unanimously by the UN in 2001, following the tragedy of September 11 in the US. It imposes legal obligations on UN member states to fight against global terrorism and criminalises the financing of terrorists. It also features content about freezing terrorism-related accounts and funds, as well as about information sharing and international cooperation. Under this resolution, the Counter-Terrorism Committee was set up with representatives from 15 UNSC member states. It is supported by the CTED that came into being in 2004. The UNSC has adopted nearly 20 resolutions and dozens of presidential statements on counter-terrorism so far./.VNA Vietnam calls for stronger cooperation against terrorism Vietnam condemns terrorism in any form, and calls on all countries to strengthen cooperation, share information on border management and control all risks of terrorist attacks and financing, Vietnam ready to cooperate in combating terrorism: diplomat Vietnam is ready to join other UN member states and sides involved in fighting terrorism and organised crime for peace and stability regionally and globally, stated Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Minh Vu. Press centre for 13th National Party Congress to open on January 22 POLITICSicon 13/01/2021 A press centre for the 13th National Party Congress is to be opened at the National Convention Centre in Hanoi on January 22. NA Standing Committee’s 52nd session wraps up The final working day of the 52nd session of the National Assembly (NA)’s Standing Committee, under the chair of NA Vice Chairman Uong Chu Luu, concluded on January 12, Vietnam, India strengthen defence ties Deputy Defence Minister Sen. Lieut. Gen. Nguyen Chi Vinh and Indian Defence Secretary Ajay Kumar co-chaired the 13th Vietnam-India defence policy dialogue at deputy ministerial level which was held on January 12 via videoconference. Naval troops prepare on land for dangers of the sea MARITIME SOVEREIGNTYicon 12/01/2021 Soldiers in Brigade No.167 of Naval Region 2 undergo hard on-land physical training to make them stronger and adaptable to the harsh working conditions at sea. Vietnam condemns attacks on civilians in West Africa, Sahel A Vietnamese representative strongly condemned attacks on innocent civilians in West Africa and the Sahel while attending the United Nations Security Council’s online conference on January 11. Greater efforts needed to firmly protect sea and islands sovereignty: Official Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Pham Binh Minh has asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) to keep a close watch on, Vietnam hands over Chairmanhip of ASEAN Committee in Bern to Philippines The Vietnamese Embassy in the Switzerland, as Chair of the ASEAN Committee in Bern (ACB), has hosted the fifth meeting of the committee in 2020 Armed forces hold rehearsal ahead of 13th National Party Congress Relevant forces have embarked on the task of ensuring security and safety for the upcoming 13th National Party Congress which is scheduled to be held from January 25 to February 2 in Hanoi. NA Standing Committee opens 52nd sitting The National Assembly (NA)’s Standing Committee convened the 52nd session on November 11 under the chair of NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan. Vietnam - China Boundary Delimitation Agreement in the Gulf of Tonkin The Gulf of Tonkin abuts both Vietnam and China and covers an area of 126,250 square kilometres. Russian media highlights Vietnam’s preparation for 13th Party congress VIETNAM & WORLDicon 11/01/2021 Russian media have recently spotlighted Vietnam’s preparation for the 13th national congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), as well as the country’s achievements in political, social and economic areas and external affairs. Forces ready to ensure safety for 13th National Party Congress Relevant forces have embarked on the task of ensuring security and safety for the upcoming 13th National Party Congress which is scheduled to open on January 25. Production, business activities in HCMC remain effective Mr. Nguyen Thanh Phong, Chairman of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, assessed that the proportion of domestic revenue in the total budget collection in the period from 2016 to 2020 had increased from 62.1 percent to 71.45 percent. International economic integration - a bright spot in Vietnam’s foreign affairs in 2020 On the occasion of the New Year, Permanent Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son granted the media an interview on the results of Vietnam’s international economic integration in 2020 and orientations for the new period. Int’l economic integration a bright spot in Vietnam’s external affairs: Deputy FM International economic integration was a bright spot in Vietnam’s external affairs activities in 2020, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son has said. Vietnam, China hold new round of talks on sea-related issues Vietnam and China held the 14th round of negotiations of the working group on the sea area beyond the mouth of the Gulf of Tonkin Vietnamese Ambassador to US talks with Congressman Vietnamese Ambassador to the US Ha Kim Ngoc has held a phone talk with Congressman Ted Yoho, Vietnam prioritising enhanced cooperation between UN, regional organisations As an active member of ASEAN and the UN Security Council (UNSC), Vietnam will continue to give priority to strengthening cooperation between the UN and regional organisations, especially in preventing conflict, Vietnam to reinforce Coast Guard from now to 2030 The Vietnam Coast Guard now holds an important position in Vietnam’s overall maritime strategy. Vietnam, Cambodia beef up defence cooperation Vietnam and Cambodia have agreed to intensify defence cooperation in 2021, with the focus on stepping up border checks and patrols to prevent illegal entry and exit so as to contribute to each country’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. . Latest news The beauty of Tram Pagoda Early peach blossoms on Hanoi streets Politics Business Society Entertainment & Sports Travel Sci-tech & Environment Photo Feature Video Vietnam & World Maritime Sovereignty Your Vietnam Leave your comment on an article OR QUICK LOGIN VIETNAMNET ACCOUNT Account Name or Password is incorrect! Save Logged Information Have you account ? Register now.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line783
__label__wiki	0.661699	0.661699	SOLUNA’S RULES OF THE GAME Imagine this: 8 dancers performing a symphony to music conducted by a classical orchestra set on a background of classical bust sculptures. Sounds a bit archaic, right? Now imagine the dancers (with choreography by Jonah Bokaer) dressed in baby pink union suits, shorts, and hoodies performing to music composed by Pharrell Williams and the busts being contemporary versions of basketballs, hands, and faces created for collision by artist Daniel Arsham. That’s exactly what the audience of SOLUNA 2016 grand opening experienced last night (May 17) in Dallas, TX. SOLUNA, a festival dedicated to the cross-pollination of art, dance, film, performance, music, and new media inaugurated last year (2015) by the Dallas Symphony, had the honor of being the first in the world to show the piece by the three masters Arsham, Bokaer, and Williams. And while the audience was lucky enough to experiencing two previous performances by Bokaer (one of which was a beautiful solo involving a large roll of paper backdrop performed by himself) it was without a doubt the final show that filled the Winspear Opera House in downtown Dallas. While the music didn’t have the same energy as we have come to expect from Oscar-nominated Williams, it still contained some parts of the style he’s become famous for. Like the beat–felt throughout the performance–which worked as a catalyst for the shifts in speed and mood in the choreography by New York-native Jonah Bokaer. The dramatic strings also played into the dance; layers of clothes (designed by Chris Stamp / Stampd) was removed to what sounded like the music of an impending murder (think Hollywood blockbuster Scream) until two dancers (male), topless, performed a full hi-speed/slow-mo fight at the center of stage. The six remaining performers were seated around the battling pair with Arsham created clay busts in hand. The busts, which could also be seen exploding in slow-mo collisions in the film playing in the background, changed direction from looking directly at the brawl to looking away. Complete with basketballs, streetwear, and heavy beats, the performance was clearly inspired by hip-hop culture. At the end of the energy-filled performance, the audience gave the creators a standing applause. Daniel Arsham, Jonah Bokaer, and conductor David Campbell took to their bow on stage after Arsham and Bokaer each broke one of the clay busts onto the floor as the final finish of the one-night only show. If you missed it (we suspect many people did) do not despair, the show is said to go on tour this November. Stand by for more information…	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line789
__label__cc	0.504192	0.495808	Large Beguinage Around 1560 the beguinage outside the city walls was destroyed. The beguines re-established themselves inside the city walls, where the Large Beguinage grew up. They bought up existing buildings and built new dwellings, which explains why the Large Beguinage is rather different in character from beguinages in other cities. Because of its typical Flemish character and unique architecture, the Large Beguinage was declared a UNESCO world heritage site. The little houses are listed. Kindly respect the privacy of the residents as you stroll along the quiet, picturesque streets of the beguinages. Beguinages were small towns within a town. They had their own bakery, brewery, nursing home, church and bleaching fields. Beguinages were founded in the time of the crusades. Many of the men who left on a crusade never returned, which resulted in a surplus of women: widows, orphans and women who failed to find a suitable husband. Going and living in a convent was one solution, but many convents only took aristocratic or well-to-do women. Women who didn't enter a convent for whatever reason, went to live together and together were able to sustain themselves. The main difference with convents was that the beguines did not take the life-long vows of poverty, obedience and chastity. So they were not tied to the beguinage for life, though most did live out their life there. Initially the church treated them as heretics, but gradually they were accepted on condition that they led a devout life. This was how beguinages in Flanders originated. A beguinage was headed up by a Grand Mistress, who was assisted in the organization and coordination of daily life by mistresses. Rich, usually aristocratic beguines would build their own house or buy one in the beguinage. Less well-off beguines rented a room from these homeowners and took charge of the housekeeping. Beguines with no possessions were taken into small convents, usually founded by benefactors, to guarantee that prayers were said for the occupants or their deceased family member. Beguines in the convents had to work for their living, which is one reason lace-making became one of the most important activities in the seventeenth century. So the beguinage played a crucial role in Mechelen's lace industry. more information for groups and schools Hoviusstraat 16, Mechelen @ visit@mechelen.be	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line790
__label__cc	0.647357	0.352643	A Behind-the-Scenes Examination of the Kitchener Mental Health Court: The Diversion of Persons with Mental Disorders LerouxThesis.pdf (1.147Mb) Leroux, Carlie Luciana In this thesis I investigate how the Canadian criminal justice system handles persons with mental disorders who come into conflict with the law. Through an in-depth examination of the Kitchener Mental Health Court this research explores the legal concept of diversion. Diversion is a voluntary option for individuals accused of minor offences. Its main objective is to function as a positive intervention. Offenders who participate in diversionary programs avoid a criminal record but are still held accountable for their criminal behavior. Diversion programs lessen the burden on the criminal justice system by decreasing the volume of caseloads in the courts via diverting individuals away from incarceration through alternative measures. The goal of this study is to uncover the processes involved in diverting offenders away from incarceration and into appropriate mental health treatment. Two theoretical frameworks applicable to mental health courts include the medical model and therapeutic jurisprudence. The thesis explores the philosophies of mental health courts, the principles of sentencing, and the role of community support agencies in the location and provision of mental health treatment. This research includes a six-month observational study of the Kitchener Mental Health Court setting and five in-depth interviews with the Crown prosecutor, defense attorney, Canadian Mental Health Association Court Coordinator, Salvation Army representative, and a mother of one of the accused. The findings from this research suggest that mental health courts strongly adhere to the treatment ideology contained in the medical model and therapeutic jurisprudence. The Kitchener Mental Health Court demonstrates this through its empathetic, treatment-oriented approach towards offenders, language, and commitment to locate appropriate health care. This research also reveals the crucial role community support agencies play in directing individuals towards the necessary health care. But most especially, the evidence points to the role community support agencies play as key facilitators in the legal processes of mental health courts. Sociology and Legal Studies Carlie Luciana Leroux (2008). A Behind-the-Scenes Examination of the Kitchener Mental Health Court: The Diversion of Persons with Mental Disorders. UWSpace. http://hdl.handle.net/10012/3892	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line796
__label__wiki	0.887084	0.887084	allmediascotland...Your key to the media > Media Releases > Mansell Enjoys Bright Quarter in Education Sector Mansell Enjoys Bright Quarter in Education Sector By Mackenziepr in · February 27, 2012 · No comments The Scottish division of leading construction company Mansell, which is headquartered in Aberdeen, has enjoyed a bright period within the education sector during the last quarter, securing contracts worth around £9million. The company has been awarded a number of education projects, including a contract worth £7.3million to carry out work on Balgarthno Road in Dundee. Mansell’s Tayside unit will construct a shared school building on the site, on behalf of Dundee City Council. The project will provide a replacement school for St Clement’s Primary School and a new school, which is to be created by merging the city’s Charleston and Lochee primaries. The facility at the site will also include a nursery and a Social Work Child and Family unit. Work on the new facility is being carried out adjacent to St Clement’s current site, which will remain fully operational throughout the construction period. To ensure no disruption to the school’s operations, the project will comprise several distinct stages, including the construction of the new building, the demolition of the existing school and the completion of a new car park and football pitch. Mansell’s Elgin office has also secured a £1million contract with Moray Council to carry out work at Forres Academy. The project will see the company remove existing hutted accommodation at the site and construct a new two storey extension, which will house classrooms, offices, stores, toilet blocks and communal areas. Meanwhile the company’s Aberdeen team will carry out upgrade works at Peterhead Academy after being awarded a contract, worth around £550,000, from Aberdeenshire Council. These latest contract wins cap an extremely positive period for Mansell in the Scottish education sector. The firm successfully relocated Westhill Library to the town’s primary school in a £1million project, which Mansell completed three weeks ahead of schedule. The company also recently completed a three phase project at Kemnay Academy which consisted of the refurbishment and internal alterations to classrooms, art and technical areas. Mansell’s divisional managing director for Scotland, George Hood, said: “We are delighted to have secured these three projects, which once again cement our unrivalled reputation within the education sector for carrying out projects to an exceptional standard. “We’ve enjoyed a bright start to 2012, with work being awarded across all of our Scottish business units, and we look forward to delivering each of the projects successfully.” Mansell is a construction partner of choice with national capability and regional delivery to the community. Through various procurement models with both public and private sector customers, the company develops long-term sustainable relationships in specific market sectors, including affordable housing, education, health, defence, airports, commercial and interiors, culture and heritage. For further information about Mansell and all of its services, please call the Aberdeen office on 01224 717 700 or visit www.constructingcommunities.com Issued on behalf of Mansell by Mackenzie PR. For further information contact Laura McCombie or Paul Beaton on 01224 581700 or email laura@mackenziepr.co.uk Contact: Laura McCombie Email: laura@mackenziepr.co.uk Website: http://www.mackenziepr.co.uk	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line797
__label__wiki	0.972114	0.972114	Supporters and Grantors John Templeton Foundation Grant The Helmsley Charitable Trust Grant Media Moderators Bridging Science and Faith Inflammation Think Tank Michael R. Yeaman, PhD Professor and Chief of Molecular Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine Director, Institute for Infection & Immunity, Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA and Chair, Medical Sciences, Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation Professor and Chief of Molecular Medicine, UCLA School of Medicine; Director, Institute for Infection & Immunity, Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA; and Chair, Medical Sciences, Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation Dr. Michael Yeaman is professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, chief of the Division of Molecular Medicine and vice chair of the Department of Medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. He is also director of the Institute for Infection and Immunity at the Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation. His groundbreaking workhas translated to design and development of novel agents to address antibiotic-resistant infections and autoimmune diseases. He pioneered convergent immunity to engineer the first cross-kingdom vaccines that protect against lethal health care-associated infections such as MRSA, Candida auris and XDR Gram-negative pathogens. He founded NovaDigm Therapeutics, Inc. and Metacin, Inc. among other entrepreneurial ventures. Dr. Yeaman serves as the Guthy-Jackson Charitable Foundation Medical Chair, which drove successful Phase III clinical trials of the first U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved treatments for the rare autoimmune disease, neuromyelitis optica. Dr. Yeaman has published over 225 high-impact papers and serves on the editorial boards of premier journals. He has earned continuous U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Department of Defense research support for three decades. He holds 27 issued U.S. patents, and has received the NIH Innovation Award, the Weitzman Memorial Research Award, Alexander Research Award and National Research Service Award. On a parallel note, Dr. Yeaman is a member of the American Society of Composers and Performers. His original works appear in films, documentaries and performances acclaimed by the Los Angeles Times. His music is available on iTunes®, Spotify® and other leading platforms, and expressed in the Pandora® Music Genome. Dr. Yeaman is a pioneer in applying music and art to medicine, focusing on palliative care and therapeutic neuroplasticity. © 2020 Vatican Conference 2021 PO Box 5298, New York, NY 10185	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line799
__label__wiki	0.670931	0.670931	The Warwick Economics Summit Blog Reflections from the EU Council Summit: Why migration may be the biggest issue in the EU’s history The bicycle theory is popular in Brussels. It holds that European integration either moves forward or crashes, and it is proving to be an alarmingly precise description of the current health of the EU project. In 2015, a continent that was emerging from its worst post-war economic crisis and already divided around the notion of austerity was hit by an unexpected wave of immigration from Northern Africa and the Middle East. This wave, despite being considerably limited compared to Turkey’s or Lebanon’s situations, had few precedents in the region’s recent history. Looking at sheer numbers is not enough to understand the political reaction to this phenomenon. Migration is a profoundly emotional topic that, in the last few years, has amplified fears for the future of employment and resentment over the decreased standard of living in most countries. Such anxiety has represented a fertile ground for nationalist and xenophobic discourses which are now threatening to halt a decades-long integration process. Given these premises, at the European Council Summit held in Brussels on 28th-29th June, the issue of immigration dominated talks, shadowing other pivotal issues, including Brexit negotiations, defence, and eurozone reform. Expectations for this gathering were high, yet outcomes quite low on substance. The key conflict was, and remains, over Dublin III, the EU Regulation on migration currently in force, which allocates the entire responsibility of processing the asylum applications and of protecting asylum seekers to the country of the migrant’s first arrival. On one side, Italy leads Southern states in their demand for a more solidarity-driven approach and closer cooperation involving all countries in the challenge. Northern leaders, on their side, lament a poor application of the regulation which allows migrants to enter their territory through the so-called “secondary movements”, breaching the Dublin rules and creating unease among the domestic electorate. Limiting this is now a key priority for Merkel’s government, under pressure by the Bavarian CSU, her coalition partners in Bavaria, and also for Eastern countries who are traditionally opposed to any form of relocation and are led by Hungary. A police officer patrols the wall erected by Hungary at the Hungarian-Serbian border Conclusions, reached after hours of negotiations to overcome Italy’s vetoes on the draft, were immediately hailed as a significant step forward but, in fact, fell short of bringing meaningful progress, many observers admit. The agreed guidelines remained vague enough for leaders to sell them on their domestic political marketplaces as a national victory. Italy obtained a declaration that migration is a challenge “for Europe as a whole”, not just for countries of arrival. However, the conclusion only opened up the possibility for non-frontier states – on a voluntary basis – to set up centres to process asylum applications. On the grounds that secondary movements threaten the integrity of the Schengen area, the principal responsibility for the first country of arrival was reaffirmed and all discussions on a reform of the Dublin regulation were postponed, to the relief of the Eastern bloc. All participants seemed to agree on the necessity to strengthen external border controls by allocating more funds to Frontex (the European Border and Coast Guard Agency) and expanding its mandate. The decision to raise the EU Trust Fund for Africa by a symbolic sum of € 500M shows, instead, a complete lack of long-term vision on the issue. Finally, for the first time, leaders called upon the Commission and the Council of Ministers to explore the option of regional “disembarkation platforms”, reception centres in third countries designed to process asylum applications outside the Union. Such a proposal, however, may not only prove morally opaque – it outsources the problem in weak conflict-ridden non-EU countries lacking the means to face these flows – but also highly unfeasible, due to the immediate negative reaction by North African countries initially imagined as potential partners, such as Libya and Tunisia. It’s clear that the agreed points fall largely short of the bold but necessary steps to establish a long-term, effective migration plan, ensuring dignity and opportunities for migrants. Solving such momentous issues requires strong cooperation and trust among EU member states. However, the current EU set-up requires unanimity in the Council for the most central issues, and the widespread post-crisis frustration in the electorate has prevented the development of a new reform momentum in Europe. The consequent failure to react to global challenges and to deliver to the public have further reduced voters’ willingness to accept a transfer of sovereignty to Brussels, which manifested itself in the electoral rise of nationalist and openly anti-EU movements, as argued by WES 2018 speaker M.Monti with regards to Italy. As these parties gained visibility and credibility, they prevented any attempt to reach a comprehensive agreement to tackle present issues on an EU-level, bringing the integration process almost to a halt. The EU, as a bicycle, needs to move forward to sustain itself. Once it slows down, it runs the serious risk of crashing to the ground. Now it needs to change pace, either as a whole or within a multi-speed framework. Giovanni Pierdomenico N.B. This article reflects the author’s opinions only. https://carnegieeurope.eu/2018/04/03/eu-remains-unprepared-for-next-migration-crisis-pub-75965 https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-fails-on-migration-yet-again/ https://www.ft.com/content/2872b844-73e7-11e8-aa31-31da4279a601 http://time.com/5326429/eu-migration-deal-breakthrough-summit-brussels-merkel/ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/european-proposals-outsource-asylum-centres-condemned-180627165710147.html https://www.ft.com/content/f0c243cc-8685-11e8-96565ec55929 https://www.ft.com/content/da574302-802d-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d https://www.ft.com/content/2a898f06-7b88-11e8-bc55-50daf11b720d http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2018/06/29/20180628-euco-conclusions-final/ Published by warwickeconomicssummitblog View all posts by warwickeconomicssummitblog EU, EU Council summit, hungarian wall, hungary border, macron, merkel, migration The outcome of the Mexican elections and why it matters The ‘sharing economy’: Is it too good to be true? 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__label__wiki	0.787353	0.787353	Home Blog April 2009 April 11, 2009 April 11, 2009:A monologue and an excerpt from a book regarding The Wall The monologue leads and an excerpt from my memoirs in occupied territory follows Volume 56, Number 7 · April 30, 2009 Wall: A Monologue By David Hare All right. Let's be serious, let's think about this. Please, please: consider the state of affairs, consider the desperation, consider the depth of the despair. A country has reached a point at which 84 percent of its people are in favor of building a wall along its borders. Have you ever known anything of which 84 percent of people were in favor? And yet there it is, over four fifths of a nation—can you imagine that figure?—saying something completely bizarre. The Berlin Wall was built to keep people in. This one, they say, is being built to keep people out. You might call this an extraordinary state of affairs. Hardly a normal state of affairs. And that's the word you hear all the time in the Middle East. "Normal." The Palestinians ask, "When will we have a normal life?" And so do the Israelis. Indeed, the Israeli state was founded in 1948 with the principal ambition of being normal, of being a normal place like any other. The Palestinians call the foundation of the Israeli state the nakbeh: the disaster. And now sixty years later Israel believes itself, in the frequently expressed view of the majority, in need of a wall. Except, of course, they don't call it a wall. They call it a fence. It's one of those things, there seem to be so many, don't there?—I'm thinking of abortion, or armed revolt—where the words you use—pro-life/pro-choice, terrorist/freedom fighter—tell the world which way you think. Words become flags, they announce which side you're on. In this case, literally. The Israelis call it the gader ha'harfrada, which in Hebrew means "separation fence." The Palestinians don't call it that. Not at all. They call it jidar al-fasl al-'unsun, which in Arabic means "racial segregation wall." The Economic Crisis and How to Deal with It OK, let's go coolly into this, shall we? If I use one word or the other, forgive me, it does not imply I am partisan. I have acquaintances on both sides of the fence and on both sides of the wall. "I hate the wall," say my Israeli friends. "I regret it." "I'm ashamed of the wall." "I drive for miles so that I don't have to see it. But it works. 80 percent of terrorist attacks against Israel have stopped. Have been stopped. Am I not meant to be pleased about that?" Very well. I shall seek to describe the history of the wall. On June 1, 2001, nine months into the second intifada, a Palestinian suicide bomber named Saeed Hotari crossed into Israel from the West Bank, and exploded himself at the entrance to the Dolphinarium discotheque on the beach in Tel Aviv, killing twenty-one civilians, most of them high school students. A further 132 people were injured. In response to the massacre, a grassroots movement grew up all over Israel calling itself Fence for Life. They argued, as Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin had argued ten years earlier, that the only way of protecting the country from infiltration by terrorists was by sealing itself off from the Palestinian territories, by removing the points of friction between the two communities. But separation would not be a purely military tactic. No, before he was murdered by a fellow Israeli, Rabin had been arguing something much more radical. "We have to decide on separation as a philosophy." There it is. Not just a wall. A wall would be a fact. But this wall is a philosophy, what one observer has called "a political code for shutting up shop." Construction began in 2002. The original plan was that the fence should stretch a full 486 miles, the entire length of Israel's eastern border. The current estimate for its completion is some-time around the end of 2010. Varying in width between 30 and 150 meters, this $2 billion combination of trenches, electronic fences, ditches, watchtowers, concrete slabs, checkpoints, patrol roads, and razor coil is priced at around $2 million per kilometer. Some seventy-five acres of greenhouses and twenty-three miles of irrigation pipes have already been destroyed on the Palestinian side. More than 3,700 acres of Palestinian land have been confiscated, some of it so that the wall may run yards away from Palestinian hamlets and villages. Already, 102,000 trees have been cut down to clear its path. It is, says an Israeli friend, an acknowledgment of failure. "History has not followed the course we might have wished." Another way of putting it, later the same evening, after a few drinks in one of the big beachside hotels that are beginning to make the Bauhaus quarter of Tel Aviv look like Florida: "You do have to ask yourself: I'm not sure Ben-Gurion would be thrilled." From the start the exact route has been controversial. The most obvious path for it to have followed would have been along the international border, established in 1949 between Israel and Jordan, and known to all parties as the Green Line. But in fact, 85 percent of its intended route is inside the West Bank. The fence snakes and coils, departing eastward from the Green Line in places by just two hundred meters, but in other places by as much as twenty-two kilometers where it goes inland to collect up and protect Israeli settlements established far inside the occupied territory. Sometimes it takes in fertile Palestinian agricultural land and water wells, leaving Palestinian farmers without access to their own fields. Some 140,200 Israeli settlers will be living between the fence and the Green Line. 93,000 Palestinians will be caught on the wrong side of the wall. For that reason the fence is seen by its opponents not as what it claims to be—a security measure—but more as a land grab, the delineation of a de facto claim, an attempt, like the steady expansion of the Israeli-controlled parts of Jerusalem, to do what is known as "change the facts on the ground." At the outset of the campaign, supporters of Fence for Life insisted that the wall should be a barrier, not a border. It was not to be used as a bargaining tactic in any future negotiation for a final status agreement. But even Israelis have found this intention hard to credit. Before he left office, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admitted that had he survived in the job he would have sought to set Israeli permanent borders by 2010—and that the border "would run along or close to the barrier." Even the most ardent supporters of the fence admit that it is, like the blockade of Gaza, a source of huge inconvenience to Palestinians. But they argue, in the words of one defender, that "the deaths of Israelis caused by terror are permanent and irreversible, whereas the hardships faced by the Palestinians are temporary and reversible." The International Court of Justice in The Hague had a different view. On July 9, 2004, it ruled 14–1 that the construction of a wall being built by Israel, the occupying power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory...[is] contrary to international law. Israel is under an obligation...to cease forthwith the works of construction,...to dismantle forthwith the structures therein situated,...to make reparation for all the damage caused by the construction of the wall.... Professor Sari Nusseibeh of Al-Quds University puts it most pithily: It's like sticking someone in a cage and then when he starts screaming, as any normal person would, using his violent temper as justification for putting him in the cage in the first place. The wall is the perfect crime because it creates the violence it was ostensibly built to prevent. To give you an idea what it's like, one morning I'm setting out from Ramallah. Ramallah houses the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank—as opposed to Hamas, which was elected to govern Gaza in 2006. Ramallah is a government town, and like all government towns—like Washington, D.C., like Canberra—a bit bland, a bit boring. Today I'm setting out with a couple of friends: one is from London, the other, to whom the car belongs, along with the crucial license plate, is Palestinian. The evening before, in a suburb of Jerusalem, I've been taking tea with an Israeli intellectual who outlines what he regards as the defining paradox of Israel: to the world it seems powerful and aggressive, yet to itself it seems weak and frail. Israel, he says, has no real confidence in its own survival. "Israelis have a very fragile sense of the future," he says. It's incredible but the country itself still feels provisional. Of what other state can this be said? I notice when I am in Britain that you plan for 2038, you say there will be this railway or that airport. But no Israeli plans so far ahead without feeling a pang in his heart which asks whether we shall be here at all. We look so strong from the outside, we have such a large army, so many nuclear weapons, we're so certain in our expansion, and yet from the inside it doesn't feel like that. We feel our being is not guaranteed. You might say we have imported from the Diaspora the Jewish disease—a sense of rootlessness, an ability to adapt and make do, but not to settle. After sixty years, Israel is not yet a home. I'm thinking of his words next day—secure but insecure, strong but uncertain—as the three of us come to a roadblock on a road that runs inside the Palestinian part of the West Bank, not far from Jerusalem. It's a dusty spot, featureless, in the middle of nowhere—or would be featureless if it weren't for the series of high concrete slabs on our left-hand side. The wall. Although the road doesn't run through the wall, we are forced to stop. We join a long line of cars which we are told has been here for fifteen minutes. The drivers have turned their engines off, and they sit on the roofs or the hoods, smoking cigarettes and talking. Yes, this is what happens every day. A daily event. For those who go back and forth between towns in the West Bank more than once daily, a more-than-once daily event. The soldiers are letting only one side go through at a time. So we sit for a further twenty minutes, cars coming at us from the opposite direction, and then very slowly, insolently, the Israelis, carrying machine guns, move to our side of the road, and for no reason, begin to let us through. I say "for no reason" but probably there is a reason. And nobody imagines it has anything to do with security—since the road doesn't go to Israel itself, and no one shows any interest in the cars themselves. After all, the road stretches empty in either direction, and the checkpoint is not short-staffed. Why, then, are Israeli soldiers wasting time by holding back one line of traffic which they could perfectly well let through, while they permit the flow of another? Why are they doing this? The answer seems clear. They are doing it because they can. To those waiting in line the implicit message is: "If we choose to delay you, we shall. We have the right to delay you. We have the right to render your life meaningless." Inevitably, as we drive on, delayed, I'm still thinking back to the famous writer in the suburb of Jerusalem, the gorgeous evening light, the tea, the home-baked sweet biscuits, the profound leafy calm of his home. "We look strong but we feel weak." Is that the reason, then, for the harassment, for the needless harassment, for the pointless insistence that daily life be as frustrating as possible? For what the Palestinians call their collective punishment? How, you wonder, are the Palestinians to know that the Israelis feel weak, when all they can see is the Israelis acting strong? When Tony Blair was appointed Middle East envoy in June 2007 there were 521 Israeli checkpoints on the West Bank. Today there are 699. Another thing my Israeli friend said: "The occupation degrades them. But it also degrades us." "We need a wall because we want a normal life," says one lot. "Our life will never be normal for as long as there's a wall," says the other. That's how it is, or that's how it seems to me. Israeli prime ministers come in as hawks, promising security crackdowns and military buildups. They leave office convinced that the occupation is unsustainable, that the cost of occupying another people forever cannot be borne. "A new generation of Israelis," I am told everywhere, "has grown up. They're more cosmopolitan. They travel the world. Yes, they're committed to Israel, emotionally they're committed to its survival, but on the other hand they want a good reason for living here rather than in California. If we can't give them one, they'll go elsewhere." The socialist idealism in which Israel was founded is long gone. In its place, a hardheaded practicality. But if it's hardheaded practicality you want, if it's beaches and machine guns, you can find those anywhere in the world. What will make the young choose to live in Israel? Sure, the religious-minded know the answer to that question, even the putting of the question offends them, but do the secular? It's the same on the other side, fear of a rising fundamentalism forcing open-minded Palestinians toward an accommodation they were once less ready to make. In conversation, Palestinians in the West Bank don't quite have the easy generosity the Israelis have; after all, the occupied never do, do they? It's a different tone. But even so. The rise of Hamas has affected everyone. Its ascendancy in Gaza is as much in reaction to the corruption of the PLO as to any positive enthusiasm for its methods. So—like good British socialists who never spoke ill of the Soviet Union in front of strangers—many Palestinians don't talk much about Hamas. It's disloyal. But few people on the West Bank are exactly defending them either. One evening not long ago we'd been at a party in Ramallah. A guest told me about a Hamas torture technique against citizens of Gaza suspected of being informants: The victim is shown a wall on which a staircase is drawn, and at the top is a drawing of a bicycle. The victim is told to go and get the bicycle. He says he can't get the bicycle because it's a drawing. He is then told if he doesn't bring the bicycle downstairs he will be beaten. "I can't get it. It's a drawing." All right, what does that prove? I'm asking myself, as we drive on. Hamas isn't very nice. You wouldn't be nice if you lived under permanent siege. But the ingenuity chills me. It's so thought out, so intellectual even, to ask someone to go get a drawing. Is this what we're dealing with? So much thought put into a simple means of torture? I need to know the answer because right now we're heading for Nablus. But we can't go along the tarmac road because the Israelis control access. Soldiers have already turned us away a couple of times, so each time we set off in new directions, winding back, climbing, always in search of the one illicit route, unguarded, that takes you into the back of the city. And all the time, at the top of every hill, it seems, there's yet another Israeli settlement. Again, from yesterday, I recall the exasperation of the Israeli writer: "There are only a quarter of a million settlers," he said. "They're nothing. They're the size of an average Israeli town. And 75 percent of them aren't there out of any religious conviction. They're there because they're paid to be. The housing is cheap and the schooling is good. Pay them some more and they'll leave. And yet," he says bitterly, "for forty years the national debate has been centered around the fate of these few people. It's time we moved on." It was said with a wave of the hand as if "Oh forget about the settlers, they'll be dealt with." But in fact, it isn't till you travel on the West Bank, it isn't till you look, it isn't till you see where the settlers are—literally all around you—that you think, "I'm not sure this is quite as simple as people say." Because, you see, sometimes you look up to that hilltop, and then the next one, and then the one beyond that, and there aren't even houses, just trailers, the trailers arriving to plant a new community, and then no sooner planted than they move on to plant another. They're called settlements, but in fact they're plantations. And that's what I feel in Jerusalem as well. Jerusalem used to be the spiritual capital—after all, that's what the argument was about. You could feel it, on every street corner, you could feel the history, but now with the hideous wall and the overbuilding and desecration of the landscape—I mean, what is going on? Aren't they destroying the very quality for which the city was meant to be precious? Aren't they killing the thing they love? Or is that my problem? Am I just a decadent Westerner who can't help thinking spirituality must have something to do with beauty? Jerusalem used to be beautiful. Now it isn't. As far as I'm concerned, Jerusalem is spoiled—How can it not be spoiled? It has a great concrete wall beside it—but then Jerusalem was never intended for me. It was intended for believers. So—look again, look to the hills, and you can see why the Palestinians consider the settlements not a religious phenomenon but a network of control. Because that's what they look like. Watching over us. And another thing, by the way, we're lost. There's a certain amount of Palestinian macho going on, on my right, my friend boasting "I know the way." Actually, he doesn't. So a tall man, pencil-thin, with a mustache and a cigarette, a kind of Oriental George Orwell, has got out of his Volkswagen. "You want to get into Nablus?" he says, roaring with laughter at our uselessness, as if he encounters this problem five times a day. "I'll get you into Nablus. Follow me." And off he goes, cheery, farting petrol fumes, the camaraderie of the road, the camaraderie of occupation, the impossibility of daily life turned into survivors' humor. Across a few unmarked tracks, then we turn a corner, and shit! It's Nablus. A forty-minute journey has taken three hours, but it's still Nablus. Nablus, the town of Joseph's tomb and Jacob's well; a city with 180,000 residents, surrounded by six Israeli checkpoints, fourteen Jewish settlements, and twenty-six settlement outposts which are illegal even under Israeli law. Nablus, the city that everyone says will be the crucial testing ground for the future of the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank: once a home to the Fatah-based al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, but now with a mayor, Adly Yaish, a graduate of Liverpool University, who, though not a member of Hamas, nevertheless ran on their ticket and got 73 percent of the vote in 2005. Since then he has spent fifteen months of his term as mayor in Israeli jails, without ever being charged with anything. Nine times Israeli judges have ordered his release. Nablus, a trading center which is no longer allowed to trade because—problem for a trading center—nobody's allowed to go there. Here we are, passing through gray stone arches into the countless alleys of the old covered market. This could be Marrakech: row upon row of raw meat, and fresh fruit, and flies and umbrellas and clothes and perfumes and spices, and dogs wandering, and children, and bubbling pans of kanafeh, of which the locals are famously proud: layers of Nabulsi cheese boiled with sugar, dyed dayglo-orange and scattered with crushed pistachios. Too rich for my blood. Even the smell sticks my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Up to 80 percent of the citizens of this town are unemployed. So there are few customers, and the prices are half what they are in Jerusalem. In the corner, a biblical hammam, up a short alley, nothing but steam and stones. Oh yes, I'm happy here, this is the kind of place that makes me happy. You can lose yourself. Now we've come upon what seems to be the most famous café, at the center of the market, looking like one of the greenhouses at Kew. Before renovation, of course. Flat-planed walls of cracked glass and rotting timber, giving out onto a sunny courtyard. The Sheikh Qasim Café used to be the fashionable place, the hub, where everyone went. Now with just five of its four hundred wooden chairs occupied, it looks like a film set, a stage play, maybe at the Glasgow Citizens, peeling paint, the wild romanticism of abandonment and decay. Unless something happens soon, unless the Israelis relax their grip, unless peace comes to the Middle East, the soil will reclaim this place. We order Turkish coffee. Then I turn. On the wall, in this decaying spot, the only new thing: a bright gleaming poster of Saddam Hussein. It's one of those moments. I know as soon as I look I'm never going to forget. How do you react to that? If you were going to choose a hero, could you choose a worse? If you were going to choose a future, could you so completely misconceive it? If you were going to choose a leader to take you precisely nowhere, could you do better than Saddam Hussein? My mind flashes back to Cherie Blair, who once fell into one of those stupid media rows for saying that if you deny the young hope, no wonder they blow themselves up. You can understand it, she said, when you come to Palestine. Maybe, but could she "understand" this? You choose as your poster boy someone who has done the world, and the Arab world above all, nothing but harm. The master of mass graves and untold massacres. I turn to my companion. "What is this?" I ask. "My enemy's enemy is my friend? Is that what this is about? It's as dumb as that?" He shrugs, embarrassed. "Well, Saddam stood up to the Americans didn't he?" And is that the only reason? He shrugs again. "We hated Saddam Hussein. Like everyone else. We despised him. We couldn't stand him. Until he stood up to the Americans." "But he didn't believe anything you believe." They bring the coffee. Who's the idiot here? Them or me? I think of myself as less naive than Cherie Blair. But am I? Really? At least now I know why the wall's gone up. The Israelis want to separate themselves from people who display posters of Saddam Hussein. Who can blame them? Or—hold on, the old conundrum—do they display posters of Saddam Hussein because somebody just put up a wall? Now we're driving back. We come to the checkpoint. The Israeli soldier is predictably furious. "How did you get in? You're not allowed in. You know you're not allowed in." Us smug, as if it were all in the British TV police show Dixon of Dock Green and sorry, officer. Big grins. "We found a way in." But actually that's the point, isn't it? We found a way in. That's the point the Israelis don't want to understand. Even Professor Neill Lochery of London University, a friend of Israel, the author, for goodness' sake, of Why Blame Israel?, has described the security fence as a white elephant. "Already," he says, "the wall belongs to a bygone era." Because before it was even finished, before the $2 billion had even been spent, Israeli's enemies had switched tactics. They had moved on from suicide bombing to missiles, to firing Qassam rockets, which could, if deployed in the West Bank as they have been in Gaza, sail oblivious way up high above the wall, fueled by nothing but sugar and potassium nitrate. Future fights, says Lochery, will be in the sky. In other words, build a block, people go around it, or in this case over it. In the kernel of an idea lies that idea's incipient obsolescence. No single move traps the king. It's a nice road. We're going back to Ramallah on what's called the VIP road, because zooming away with white faces and two British passports we've been mistaken for settlers. So we have priority. We have a lovely empty road to ourselves. We can see the parallel road, the road for Palestinians, just fifty yards away, running alongside. It's at a standstill. On that road the poor bastards have had to stop again for what looks like most of the afternoon. But us? We sail through. My Palestinian friend lights a cigarette. "Wherever you go, if you want to travel, there will be seventeen-year-old soldiers, Russians, Ethiopians, telling you how to live in your country. I'm old, so I put up with the humiliation, I absorb it." He drags on his cigarette, his face shading now. "But young people can't absorb it. They won't." Coming into Ramallah now. Raja Shehadeh, a lawyer who lives here, says that it is Ramallah's greatest good fortune not to be mentioned in the Bible. For that reason Ramallah is left alone, of no interest to fanatics, because its religious significance is precisely nothing. Nothing divine happened in Ramallah. What a stroke of luck for any town that wants to survive! Not to be named in any Holy Book! And along the cement wall, as we enter the town, is the blossoming graffiti. Oh yes, there's a parallel here and it's being made with aerosols and poster paints, so that every visitor will be forced to think "Ah! Berlin!" The wall may be obsolete for Professor Lochery, but for the inhabitants of the West Bank, it's all too real, blocking out the sun, blocking out the view, forbidding passage. There are people here on the West Bank who have not seen a body of water—lake nor sea—for fifteen years. The wittiest graffiti by far, in enormous capitals, the instruction scrawled across six cement blocks, just the letters CTL ALT DEL. As if at the press of three computer keys, the wall might disappear. Not a wall, just a drawing of a wall. "It's no fun fighting strangers," says one Palestinian acquaintance. "If you're going to fight, fight family. It's much more fun." And it's true, Jews and Arabs are family, they remind you of each other, the children of Abraham, they remind each other of each other: same vitality, same wit, same land. "You can tell a weak government by its eagerness to resort to strong measures," said Benjamin Disraeli, Britain's only Jewish prime minister. "If we do not find the path to honest cooperation and honest negotiations with the Arabs, then we have learned nothing from over 2,000 years of suffering and we deserve the fate that will befall us" is what Albert Einstein said. And now I'm sitting having tea in the al-Kasaba cinema in Ramallah. It's the only working cinema on the West Bank. Mostly it shows Egyptian comedies. It's run by George Ibrahim, who's laughing, as he usually is. "At the moment we are all enjoying jokes about the Western economy going to pieces because we can laugh and say, 'It won't affect us because Palestine doesn't have an economy....'" His friend the playwright Salman Tamer joins in. "What is so shocking about Israel is that these days it doesn't even have a protest movement. In the old days, there were peaceniks on the streets and long-haired students. Now they have almost no peace movement at all. What can you say? A country which loses its hippies is in deep trouble." George drinks his tea and smiles. "The wall is not around us. It's around them." And next day I'm in Jerusalem talking with David Grossman, the Israeli novelist whose son Yuri was killed on the last day of the Lebanon war. His house is still charged with grief. Of course at the foundation of the state there was a tremendous sense of purpose, of building something together. But we squandered our chance to make the state permanent in 1967. Instead of using the conquered territories as leverage in negotiation, instead we became addicted to occupation. When a people have suffered as much as we have it's not a bad feeling to be masters for once. And we became addicted to that feeling, like a narcotic. Now we have terrible trouble imagining any other reality than the one we live in. You become habituated, you cannot believe there is another possible way of life. And so effectively you become a victim of the situation. And here, again, is the central paradox, the idea of Israel was that we should cease to be victims. Instead we hand our fate over to the security people, we allow the army to run the country, because we lack a political class with a vision beyond the military. Survival becomes our only aim. We are living in order to survive, not in order to live. I want to begin to live. I want some gates in the wall. David Hare is a playwright and screenwriter. Among his plays are Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Vertical Hour, and Gethsemane. “Wall” is a slightly shortened version of a monologue first performed by the author on March 12, 2009, at the Royal Court Theatre in London. (April 2009) http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22611 Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory Chapter 4: Carol’s Tomb In February 2003, Carol and her family of fourteen whose three story home and first floor business, adjacent to Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem were informed by the Palestinian Authority that The Wall would soon be coming to their neighborhood. The family had moved into their comfortable dwelling in 1967, and would spend hours in their back yard garden with a view of open green space and watch pilgrims and tourists visit Rachel’s Tomb and welcome them into their gift shop. The family is now encircled on three sides by 25-30 feet high slabs of concrete which have imprisoned them from the rest of the Little Town of Bethlehem: which is Occupied Territory. For months the family helplessly observed the preparation work all around them, and then one week before Christmas 2005, Carol’s children went to school and came home to discover that every view from every window was of the concrete monster. Palestinians like Carol are imprisoned on the Israeli side of the wall and the once economically thriving and vibrant main street in Bethlehem is now a ghost town for stores and restaurants have been abandoned. Rachel’s tomb and Carol’s tomb are divided by the concrete barrier which is topped by guard towers and patrolled by soldiers in battle gear. Carol’s home is less than 500 yards inside Bethlehem, and it had been the closest shop to Rachel’s Tomb. Not long ago, multitudes of pilgrims and tourists would shop there, but today only the curious venture down the concrete walled pathway. According to the Israeli government The Wall which has been deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in The Hague is for the security of Jewish worshipers at the shrine they revere as the Tomb of Rachel. Rachel was the wife of the biblical patriarch Jacob, who was the first to be named “Israel” for having wrestled and struggled with The Divine being. On May 14, 1948 The Declaration of the establishment of Israel affirmed: “One the day of the termination of the British mandate and on the strength of the United Nations General Assembly declare The State of Israel will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel: it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion it will guarantee freedom of religion [and] conscience and will be faithful to the Charter of the United Nations.” On February 21, 2003, Raanan Gissin, Spokesmen for Ariel Sharon was interviewed regarding The Wall which imprisoned Carol and her family, and he claimed, “The main purpose here is not to annex that land, but to provide security [and to ensure] freedom of access and freedom of religion.” “Peace, Peace, Peace, they say, when there is no peace.” Jeremiah 8:11 The Wall does not follow the Green Line so even the claims of security are nullified, for The Wall that imprisons Carol and her family divides Palestinians from Palestinians as it eviscerates their economy. Only Jews have freedom of access and religion, for Palestinian civilians are denied access to the holy sites. The concrete wall and electrified fence has hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on the Israeli side, effectively undermining one of the stated purposes which is the policy of Hafrada, which is Hebrew for separation, and in actuality is: apartheid. Dr. Jad Issac, the director general of the Applied Research Institute examined a satellite photograph of the area and stated, “Bethlehem is the Bethlehem ghetto now…rather than seeking to ensure freedom of religion, Israel was pushing Bethlehem’s Christian Palestinians to pack up and leave. About 360 Palestinians would be left on the Israeli side and once they get rid of the Christians, then they will label the rest as terrorists.” Dr. Shmuel Berkovitz, an expert on Jerusalem and Jewish holy places, said The Wall effectively annexed Rachel’s Tomb to Jerusalem from Bethlehem “as a matter of technical separation, without an official declaration. Right now, you can’t see any romantic place there; you can see it only as a military position.” Rachel’s Tomb is a small stone building with a dome, which was built during the Ottoman rule, but is now completely enclosed by the fortifications, built in 1996 and 1997. Carol told me that, “Six years ago when the Israeli army blocked the main street in Bethlehem we hoped it would be temporary. We could not imagine anyone could block another human being and isolate them like they have done to us. A week before last Christmas my children went to school and when they returned they were faced with the concrete wall in front of them. They cried and cried and wanted to know how could such a thing be done to them? We are living in a tomb, we are buried alive. My children suffer and their mother and father can do nothing. “In another ten years there will be no more Christians in Bethlehem if things do not change soon. Everyone is leaving, we need work, and we need to feed our children. Jesus was born here but we are dying. My children suffer, they are angry and shout because nobody comes to visit us anymore and the children must stay inside after school. “We use to enjoy being out in our garden watching the people, the trees, the cars that would pass by, but now we only see concrete walls. Our lives have been stolen! Do Americans understand what happens to children when they are buried alive? We need a solution fast so that our children can live like American children! We want human rights! When Hillary Clinton visited Jerusalem and said the wall was not against the Palestinian people, she killed us too! Christians who do not care kill us too! “My family use to go to Haifa on the weekends, we use to live a peaceful and comfortable life. But now our business is bankrupt and we are in prison for being Palestinians.”	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line804
__label__cc	0.641795	0.358205	UH Librarian Chairs TDL Dataverse Group The TDL Dataverse Implementation Working Group will implement Dataverse to establish a statewide repository for storing and providing access to research data. Santi Thompson, head of Digital Repository Services at the University of Houston Libraries, was recently selected as chair of the Texas Digital Library (TDL) Dataverse Implementation Working Group, a new consortial team whose charge is to pilot test, assess, and launch a repository for research data archiving and management. The group was formed at the recommendation of the TDL Data Management Working Group, who investigated solutions for improving access and reuse of research data in response to the 2013 mandate from the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, which calls for researchers to make the results of federally funded research publicly accessible. The Data Management Working Group chose Dataverse as the best facilitator of the discovery of research data and its associated metadata. Dataverse is a free and open source software platform for publishing, citing and preserving research data, developed by the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. The Dataverse Implementation Working Group will implement Dataverse to establish a statewide repository for storing and providing access to research data. The group’s tasks are to provide recommendations on sustainable funding models; technical and metadata configuration; outreach, workflows and training programs; and policy and governance. “Once implemented, Dataverse will offer researchers throughout Texas a dedicated space to archive their research and to share it with their colleagues and the broader public,” Thompson said. “It will also establish the foundation for helping researchers fulfill important mandates from grant funding agencies as well as promote their unique research in new and exciting ways.” The TDL is a consortium of higher education institutions in Texas that provides shared services in support of research and teaching. It began in 2005 as a partnership between four of the state’s largest Association of Research Libraries (ARL) universities: Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, the University of Houston, and the University of Texas at Austin. It has extended membership in the consortium to any of the state’s institutions of higher learning and now represents large and small institutions from every region of the state. Posted on October 23rd, 2015 by Esmeralda Fisher and filed under Announcements \| Comments Off on UH Librarian Chairs TDL Dataverse Group	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line805
__label__wiki	0.689429	0.689429	“Anarchism” from Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, by John Clark Published on October 23, 2012 in Theory The anarchist tradition has been sharply divided in its relationship to religion, spirituality and nature. On the one hand, the mainstream of Western anarchism has in general been atheist, anti-religious and anti-clerical, and has looked upon religion as a supernaturalist negation of the natural world. On the other hand, there is a long history of anarchistic thought and practice having strong spiritual or religious dimensions, and very often these have taken the form of nature spirituality. The following discussion will examine first the more familiar anti-religious perspective of modern Western anarchism, then various anarchist tendencies across history that have held a spiritual view of reality, and finally, some contemporary anarchist views that exhibit both standpoints. Almost all the major European classical anarchist theorists opposed religion and defended a secularist, scientific and sometimes positivistic view of nature against what they saw as religious obscurantism and other-worldliness. Max Stirner (18061856), the major individualist anarchist theorist, dismissed religion as a belief in illusory spooks that undermined the individuality and self-determination of the individual. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (18091865), the first important social anarchist theorist, stated that the concept of God was contradictory to rational thought and to human freedom, and that social progress is proportional to the degree to which the concept is eliminated. The anarchist anti-religious viewpoint is perhaps most widely associated with political theorist and revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin (18131876), who proclaimed, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him (Bakunin 1970: 7980). For Bakunin, religion denigrates human nature and the world, and is a means of oppressing humanity. In his view, it is a negation of nature, since it exalts a supernatural and transcendent reality and devalues the material and natural. He claims that there is an objective naturalistic basis for religion: it arises essentially out of the human beings feeling of absolute dependence on an eternal and omnipotent nature and out of primitive fear of its awe-inspiring powers. He contends that it begins with the attribution of this power to fetishes and ends with its concentration in an all-powerful God, which he sees as the reversal and magnification of the human image itself. Religion is thus essentially a misunderstanding of nature. The system of social domination makes use of this confusion to keep people in a state of subjection and submissiveness through the alliance between the coercive power of the state and the ideological power of the Church. The large anarchist movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in general shared the atheism and anti-clericalism of its theoretical founders. The Bakuninists of the First International (International Working Mens Association, 18641876) fought to make the workers movement officially anti-religious, and the large anarcho-syndicalist movements in southern Europe and Latin America defined themselves in part through their strong opposition to a generally reactionary and hierarchical Church and clergy. The Spanish Revolution (19361939), the most important event in the history of the anarchist movement, was marked by fierce opposition to the Church, to the extent of the desecration and burning of churches and harsh treatment of clergy. The Spanish anarchists largely shared Bakunins view that religion was based on a denial of the natural world. Yet a kind of nature spirituality emerged even within their milieu. This tendency was expressed in a cult of the natural, the romanticizing of nature, and practices such as health-consciousness, nudism and vegetarianism. In this regard, the movement was influenced by the anarchist philosopher-geographer Elisιe Reclus (18301905), who developed a non-theistic but holistic and spiritual view of nature, advocated animal rights, and wrote of the sublime and inspirational qualities of the natural world. When one turns to the positive relationship between anarchism and spirituality, one finds a wealth of evidence in many cultures of the world. Some have found one of the earliest anarchist philosophies of nature and human nature in the ancient Chinese classic, the Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu (ca. fourth century B.C.E). Daoism is the philosophy of the tao, or way, a term that refers both to the source of all being, and to the path of self-realization of all beings when they are allowed to act freely and spontaneously according to their nature. Lao Tzu presents a vision of nature and human society as an organic unity-in-diversity in which the uniqueness and creative activity of each part of the whole are valued. The natural world is seen as a dynamic balance (symbolized through the complementary polarities of yin and yang) that produces order and harmony when not disrupted by human aggression and domination. Lao Tzu describes this natural harmony in poetic terms: Heaven and Earth unite to drip sweet dew. Without the command of men, it drips evenly over all (Lao Tzu 1963: 156). Coercive and authoritarian social institutions are shown to destroy natural balance and the generosity of nature and produce disaster not only for the surrounding natural world, but also within human society itself. The ideal society is depicted as a decentralized, egalitarian community in which all value the Three Treasures of compassion, simplicity, and humility. Lao Tzu was a harsh critic of the violent, hierarchical society of his own day, and laments the injustices and inequities that are created in human society by the pursuit of political and economic power. He declares that [t]he Way of Heaven reduces whatever is excessive and supplements whatever is insufficient. The Way of Man is different. It reduces the insufficient to offer to the excessive (Lao Tzu 1963: 174). For Lao Tzu, the pursuit of wealth, power and egoistic gratification must be rejected in favor of a way of life based on non-action or actionless action (wu-wei), by which is meant activity that is in accord with ones own Tao or way, but which respects the ways of all others. Despite these apparently anarchistic or libertarian tendencies in Lao Tzus thought, some have interpreted him as a defender of the traditional system of rule and even as an advocate of manipulation of the people for authoritarian purposes. For example, the eminent Chinese scholar D.C. Lau interprets the Tao te Ching as a rather eclectic collection of writings that has a primarily ethical rather than mystical or philosophical import, and which does not question the concept of political rule. In his view, passages concerning the sage or ruler apply to any follower of the Tao, but are also specific references to an enlightened and skillful ruler, in a quite literal sense. Social ecologists Murray Bookchin and Janet Biehl have contended that ancient Daoism is merely a form of regressive mysticism. They attacked the idea that the Tao te Ching has any anarchistic implications and contend that all references to rulership should be interpreted in an entirely literal sense. The second great ancient Taoist philosopher, Chuang Tzu, has sometimes been seen as even more radically anarchistic than Lao Tzu and equally ecological in outlook. Chuang Tzu warned against the impulse to eliminate chaos and impose order on the world, which in his view leads ultimately to great destruction. He took a perspectivist position on knowledge and truth, and emphasized, often through humorous or ironic anecdotes, the fact that each being has its own good and perceives reality from its own ultimately incomparable point of view. He rejected human-centered views of reality and the tendency to project human meanings and values onto the natural world. Though the specifically political implications of Chuang Tzus thought are far from clear, his Daoism has been interpreted as one of the most consistently anarchistic critiques of the domination of humanity and nature and of the egocentric and anthropocentric mentality that underlies domination. Some have also found a deeply anarchistic dimension in both ancient Buddhism and also in various schools in later Buddhist history. Original Buddhism as established by the founder Shakyamuni Buddha (ca. 563463 B.C.E.) came out of a questioning of both the social order (the caste system) and the ideological basis (the authority of the Vedic scriptures) of ancient India. It also rejected the idea that any authority, whether a person or written document, could lead one to truth, and that it must instead be reached through direct personal experience. The central Buddhist idea of non-attachment can be given an anarchistic interpretation. Although historical Buddhism has been to varying degrees influenced by inegalitarian social institutions, its goal of non-attachment can be seen as an attack on the foundation of political, economic and patriarchal domination in the desire to aggrandize an illusory ego-self. According to such an interpretation, the ideal of the sangha or spiritual community is seen as an anarchistic concept of association based on compassion and recognition of true need, rather than on economic and political power and coercive force. Similarly, Buddhist mindfulness, an awakened awareness of present experience, is seen as implying a sensitivity to the realities of nature and human experience, as opposed to appropriating and objectifying forms of consciousness. The Buddhist tradition is vast, and has been developed in many directions, but it is not difficult to discover in the Buddhist concepts of awakened mind, non-attachment, and compassion an implicit critique of material consumption and accumulation, coercive laws, and bureaucratic and technocratic forms of social organization. Nagarjuna (ca. second century) is often considered the most important Buddhist philosopher since Shakyamuni Buddha. Indeed, he can plausibly be interpreted as the most theoretically anarchistic thinker in the history of philosophy. His radically destructive or deconstructive dialectic reveals the contradictions in any formulation of truth or attribution of substantiality to any being. The only truth for Nagarjuna consists not in ideas or propositions, all of which lead to contradiction, but rather in the practice of universal compassion and non-attachment. His rejection of the imposition of dualistic and objectifying categories on an internally related and dependently arising reality can be seen as an affirmation of the non-objectifiable wholeness and self-creativity of being and nature. The anarchist tendencies in Buddhism were developed furthest and synthesized with certain aspects of Daoism in the Chinese Chan (meditation) School of Buddhism and in its Japanese version, Zen. Zen questions all authorities, including political, intellectual and spiritual ones, and insists on the absolute priority of direct personal experience. Lin-Chi (Rinzai) (d. 866) the founder of Chan, is known for his shocking admonition, Whether youre facing inward or facing outward, whatever you meet up with, just kill it! If you meet a Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet a patriarch, kill the patriarch! This iconoclastic maxim is a classic Zen statement of the radically anarchistic view that none of our concepts of substantial realities (including even our most exalted concepts) can capture the nature of an ever-changing reality that constantly surpasses all categories and preconceptions. Inherent in this outlook is a deep respect for the integrity of nature and a desire to allow nature to express itself without human domination. Zen painting and poetry (much in the tradition of Daoist art) are noted for their focus on nature and on the numinous power of things themselves. Anarchistic forms of spirituality have not been limited to Asian traditions, but have also emerged periodically through the history of Western religion. The Joachimite tendency in medieval Christianity is perhaps the most striking example. Joachim of Fiore spoke of the Third Age of world history, the Age of the Holy Spirit, which would supersede the rule of law and authority and usher in the reign of universal freedom and love. The Movement of the Free Spirit, which emerged out of the Joachimite and millenarian traditions, is often considered the most anarchistic tendency within medieval and early modern Christianity. The movement originated in the thirteenth century and spread widely across central and Western Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Its most radical tendencies rejected the established Church, the state, law, private property and marriage. Its social outlook was at times a rather curious combination of a radically anarchistic quest for freedom and an elitism that justified an instrumental view of non-members and of things in nature, and a ruthless destructiveness toward all who stood in its way. Nevertheless, it often strongly affirmed nature and the natural. The Adamite tendency in particular saw believers as existing in a natural, pre-fallen condition, and others spoke of exercising natural freedom and following natural desires. They practiced nudism and free love, held property in common, and waged relentless war against their surrounding enemies. The anarchistic interpretation of the Free Spirit is best known from Norman Cohns classic work, The Pursuit of the Millennium. The Free Spirit also plays an important role in anarchist theorist Fredy Perlmans critique of civilization, Against History, and Situationist Raoul Vaneigem devoted an entire book to the movement. A more recent expression of an anarchistic spirituality within the Christian tradition is the radical religious vision of Romantic poet William Blake (17571827). Blake stressed the sacredness of nature, its organic qualities, and the need for humane treatment of other beings. He was one of the most important early rebels against the mechanistic, objectivist, reductionist worldview that came out of Newtonian science. His rejection of the dominant mechanistic worldview is encapsulated in his well-known plea, may God us keep / From Single vision and Newtons sleep! (Blake 1988: 722). His attack on the patriarchal authoritarian God and a spiritually degraded world, and his creation of a new radically utopian mythology can be interpreted as an anarchistic critique of the state, early capitalism, and any ideology or social imaginary based on hierarchy, domination, and the repression of desire, the body, and nature. Although nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European anarchism was generally anti-religious, even there one finds a more overt religious tendency, primarily under the influence of the famous novelist and pacifist anarchist Leo Tolstoy (18281910). Tolstoys conception of God was not the naively anthropomorphic image that other anarchists attacked, but referred rather to the whole of reality and truth. Furthermore, he believed that the true essence of Christianity is found not in a transcendent Supreme Being or an afterlife with rewards and punishments, but rather in Jesus teaching of universal love. For Tolstoy, an acceptance of this teaching satisfies the human longing for meaning in purpose in life, and has far-reaching implications for ones relationship to both society and nature. First, it results in a dedication to complete nonviolence in society, including an absolute anarchistic rejection of participation in the state, which Tolstoy saw as the most monstrous form of organized violence and coercion. Furthermore, it requires a nonviolent stance toward the whole of nature, a refusal to inflict suffering on sentient beings, and a practice of ethical vegetarianism. Another important nineteenth-century literary figure in whose work anarchist themes intersect with a spirituality of nature is Henry David Thoreau (18171862). In his essay Civil Disobedience, Thoreau proclaimed the priority of individual conscience over political authority, asserting his view that that government is best which governs least and consequently that government is best which governs not at all. He refused to pay his taxes to the state on the anarchist secessionist principle that he could not recognize as his own government one that was also the slaves government. Although Thoreaus philosophical and religious perspective is usually associated with American Transcendentalism, it can also be seen as an anarchistic spirituality with affinities to aspects of Daoist, Buddhist and indigenous traditions. Thoreau is best known for his eloquent expression in Walden of such themes as the love of and communion with nature, the affirmation of life, compassion for all living beings, and the ills of a materialistic society that is alienated from the natural world and enslaved by its own possessions. His spirituality is perhaps best expressed in the essay on Walking, which contains his famous statement that in Wildness is the preservation of the world. Thoreau links wildness, freedom, sacredness, and the gospel according to this moment, an idea much in the spirit of Buddhist mindfulness. His concern for and celebration of the particularities of place link him to later bioregional thought, and contain an implicit critique of political and economis-tic conceptions of reality. The renowned anarchist geographer Peter Kropotkin has often been looked to as the major source of ecological ideas among the classical anarchist theorists. His concepts of the importance of mutual aid, spontaneity and diversity in both the natural world and in human society have been important in introducing ecological concepts into social thought. However, Kropotkin was in many ways carrying on the work of his predecessor, the nineteenth-century French geographer and revolutionary Elisιe Reclus, who had already developed a profoundly ecological philosophy and social theory. Reclus is one of the most important figures in the development of an anarchistic ecological philosophy and spirituality. Reclus came out of a tradition of radical Protestant religious dissent, his father having been a minister of a so-called free church that broke with the Reformed Church. Though he rejected theism, his anarchism can in some ways be seen as a continuation of his religious tradition. Central to his philosophy was a belief in universal love, which in his view must be extended to all human beings, to other sentient beings, and to nature as a whole. His deep respect for the natural world sometimes reaches a level of awe that verges on a kind of nature mysticism. For Reclus, social organization must be based on this love and solidarity, expressed through a voluntary commitment to the good of the community and the Earth itself. In such a system, each individual would be guided to the greatest degree possible by a free conscience rather than by coercion or centralized authority. Reclus outlook toward nature is at once scientific, moral, aesthetic, and spiritual. In his monumental 16,000-page New Universal Geography, and his magnum opus of social theory, Man and the Earth, he offers a holistic, evolutionary vision of humanity and nature. Like later ecological thinkers, Reclus finds a harmony and balance in nature, in addition to a tendency toward discord and imbalance. His investigation of the intimate relationship between humanity and the Earths regional and local particularities anticipates later bioregional thought. He emphasizes the moral and spiritual aspects of humanitys relationship to nature, condemns the growing devastation produced by industry and economic exploitation, and argues that whenever humanity degrades the natural world, it degrades itself. A vehement advocate of the humane treatment of animals and of ethical vegetarianism, Reclus wrote several widely reprinted pamphlets on these topics. An important though relatively neglected figure in early twentieth-century anarchist spirituality is the German political theorist and non-violent revolutionary Gustav Landauer (18701919). Landauer is best known as a martyr killed for his leadership in the Munich Council Republic of 1919 and as the mentor of the Jewish libertarian and communitarian religious philosopher Martin Buber (18781965). Landauers philosophy is rooted in German Romanticist thought and is often described as having mystical and pantheistic tendencies. His major concepts are Spirit (Geist), People (Volk), and Nation (Nation), and his central focus is on the place of the individual in the larger human community, in nature, and in a greater spiritual reality. Landauer associates Spirit with the search for wholeness and universality, and interprets it as an immanent, living reality, the underlying unity of all beings that encompasses both humanity and nature. For Landauer, the great conflict in history is between Spirit and the state. In his famous formulation, the state is above all a relationship between human beings and it can be replaced by creating new relationships based on cooperation rather than domination. Socialism, which is what he called the free, cooperative society, is not a utopian ideal in the future, but rather something that is already present in all cooperative, loving human relationships and which can expand to encompass the whole of society as more non-coercive, non-exploitative relationships are established. Landauer believed that the cooperative society would be achieved when people left the increasingly dominant corrupt and alienated urban society and returned to the land. The new society was to be based on village communities rooted in their natural regions, in which fair exchange would replace economic exploitation, and in which agriculture and industry would be integrated. Undoubtedly, one of the most important influences on modern anarchist spirituality throughout the world is Mohandas Gandhi (18691948), who is widely known for his principles of nonviolence, cooperation, decentralization, and local self-sufficiency. Gandhi summarized his religious outlook as the belief that God is Truth, or more accurately, that Truth is God, and that the way to this Truth is through love. He also states that God is the sum-total of all life (Gandhi 1963: 316). At the roots of Gandhian spirituality is the concept of ahimsa, which is often translated as nonviolence (paralleling the original Sanskrit), but is actually for Gandhi a more positive conception of replacing force and coercion with love and cooperation. Similarly, he is sometimes called an advocate of civil disobedience, but he defined his approach, satyagraha, as a more positive conception of nonviolent resistance to evil, including the injustices of the state. Although Gandhi did not absolutely reject all participation in the existing state, he rejected the state as a legitimate form of social organization, advocated its eventual elimination, and strongly opposed its increasing power. He warned against looking to the state to reduce exploitation, arguing that its concentrated power and vast coercive force necessarily does great harm and destroys individuality. In place of the centralized state, he proposed village autonomy or self-government, community self-reliance, and local production based on human-scale technologies, ideas that have been enormously influential on twentieth-century eco-anarchism. Gandhi was also a critic of Western medicine, which he saw as dependent on concentrated wealth and sophisticated technologies, and advocated instead nature cure in which the cheapest, simplest and most accessible treatments are used. For Gandhi, the principle of ahimsa was to be extended throughout the natural world. Humans should make an effort to avoid inflicting physical or mental injury to any living being to the greatest possible degree. Accordingly, Gandhi advocated ethical vegetarianism and had a deeply held belief that the Indian tradition of cow protection was of great moral and spiritual value. One of his most often-quoted statements is that the greatness and moral progress of a nation can be judged by its treatment of animals. Although his concern was often expressed in terms of the welfare of individual beings, he sometimes expressed more strongly ecological concepts, as when he warned of the dangers of human abuse of nature using the image of natures ledger book in which the debits and credits must always be equal. After Gandhis death, Sarvodaya, a movement based on his spiritual, ethical and political principles emerged. Vinoba Bhave (18951982), the leading figure in the movement for many years, taught absolute nonviolence, social organization based on universal love, decision making by consensus, the replacement of coercion by the recognition of moral authority, and the minimization and eventual abolition of state power. Vinobas social philosophy was fundamentally anarchist and communitarian. In pursuit of the movements goals he pursued a policy of asking landowners to donate land to the poor (Bhoodan, or gift of land) and of establishing village cooperative agriculture (Gramdan or village gift). Over a decade, Vinoba walked 25,000 miles across India and accepted eight million acres of Bhoodan land. The history of the Sarvodaya movement is recounted in Geoffrey Ostergaard and Melville Currells study, The Gentle Anarchists. Among contemporary thinkers, the celebrated poet and essayist Gary Snyder has probably had the greatest influence in linking anarchism, spirituality and nature. He has also been a major influence on the contemporary ecology movement in showing the ecological implications of Buddhist, Daoist and indigenous traditions. Snyder has connected the concepts of the wild, wild nature and wilderness with the Tao of ancient Chinese philosophy and the dharma of Buddhism. For Snyder, the concept of the wild implies a freedom and spontaneity that are found not only in undomesticated nature, but also in the imagination of the poet and in the mind of the spiritually attuned person. He expresses the anarchic nature of the Zen mind in his statement: the power of no-power; this is in the practice of Zen (Snyder 1980: 4). For Snyder, such concepts have farreaching political implications. By the early 1970s he had already outlined a bioregional anarchist position that would replace the state and its artificial political boundaries with a regionalism based on lived experience and a knowledge of the particularities of place. Snyder links the spirituality of place with reinhabitation, the development of an intimate acquaintance with ones locality and region, and the achievement of a larger sense of community that incorporates other life forms. Snyder finds the roots of such a social vision in the Neolithic community, with its emphasis on productive work, the sharing of goods, and the self-determination of local village communities. From the standpoint of such decentralized, egalitarian communities, the state, social hierarchy, and centralized power are not only illegitimate and oppressive, but also a source of disorder and destruction in both society and the natural world. The wisdom of traditional societies has been a widespread theme in contemporary anarchist thought. This is exemplified by a significant neo-primitivist current in ecological anarchism that has identified very strongly with many of the values and institutions of tribal societies. Its proponents argue that for 99 percent of human history human beings lived in stateless societies in which nature spirituality was central to their culture. The non-hierarchical, cooperative, symbiotic and ecological spiritualities of these societies have been taken as an inspiration for a future post-civilized anarchist society. A strong influence on this current is anarchist theorist Fredy Perlman (19341985), who in his influential work Against His-story, Against Leviathan depicts (in a kind of radicalized version of the Myth of the Machine of social critic Lewis Mumford [18951990]) the millennia-long history of the assault of the technological megamachine on humanity and the Earth. Perlman describes early tribal spirituality as a celebration of human existence and nature, and depicts the rise of the ancient despotism that destroyed these societies and replaced their spirituality with a repressive, patriarchal and authoritarian monotheism. He interprets the emergence of such spiritual movements as ancient Daoism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism as a rebellion against social hierarchy and the domination of nature, and describes the processes through which these spiritualities of freedom were transformed in religions of domination. He also outlines the history of anarchistic spiritual movements, including such striking examples as the Taoist Yellow Turbans, a revolutionary, egalitarian movement of the second century. Similar themes are developed by David Watson, a leading contemporary critic of the technological mega-machine. Watson contends in Against the Megamachine that in modern societies an aura of sacredness is concentrated in the ego, in the system of technology, and in economic and political power, whereas primal societies have seen the sacred as pervading the self, the community and the world of nature. Primal spirituality was, he argues, an integral part of a system of egalitarian, libertarian and ecological social values. Furthermore, the participating consciousness of primal peoples conceives of humans as inseparable from larger natural and transhuman realities. Thus, primal peoples have had an anarchistic, non-hierarchical view of both society and nature that constitutes a powerful critique of modern industrial society and offers inspiration for future non-dominating ecological communities. Ideas similar to those of Perlman and Watson inspire a rather large, vigorous and growing anarcho-primitivist or anti-civilization movement. The best-known theoretical spokesperson for this movement is John Zerzan, who presents a withering critique of civilization, industrialism, technology, the state, and even language and community. Anarcho-primitivist ideas often appear in such publications as Green Anarchy, Live Free or Die, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed and The Fifth Estate. Anarcho-primitivism plays an important role in the Earth Liberation Front, which practices sabotage in defense of nature, and in the much larger Earth First!, which is the most important direct action environmental organization. It is also a significant undercurrent in the anti-globalization movement. Anarcho-primitivists see an inextricable relationship between civilization and the domination of humanity and nature. One of their central themes is the inevitability of the collapse of industrial society, an event that is often looked forward to with anticipation. Primitivists value all that remains free from the domination of civilization, including remaining wilderness areas and autonomous, spontaneous human activity. They look to tribal traditions and hunter-gatherer economies for examples of an ecological sensibility, a balanced relationship to nature, and an ethos of sharing and generosity. However, they do not in general propose a simple reversion to such previous social formations, which are sometimes criticized for alienated social practices. Many primitivists find inspiration in various nature-affirming spiritual traditions as an alternative to the narrow technical rationality of civilization. These include the spirituality of tribal people, various forms of nature mysticism, a general reverence for life and nature, pantheism, and neo-paganism. Indeed, one finds a continuous and strong anarchist current in neo-paganism in general in both Britain and the United States in recent decades. In Britain there are important anarchist and neo-pagan tendencies within the large marginal subculture that centers around the anti-roads movement and defends sites that are of natural, cultural and spiritual significance. Both anti-roads activists and neo-pagans often form decentralized, non-hierarchical organizations practicing such anarchist principles as direct action and consensus decision making. Starhawk, one of the best-known neo-pagan theorists and writers, and an important figure in ecofeminism, has emphasized the connection between the nonviolent, egalitarian, cooperative, anti-patriarchal, anti-hierarchical, and nature-affirming values of anarchism and the pagan worldview and sensibility. The pioneering ecofeminist writer Susan Griffin has inspired thinking about these interconnections since her wide-ranging landmark work Woman and Nature, published in 1978. Even earlier, the well-known short-story writer and poet Grace Paley had incorporated feminist, anarchist and ecological themes in her works, which also expresses a deep but subtle spirituality of everyday life. Hakim Bey, one of the most widely read contemporary anarchist writers, has developed an ontological anarchism that finds inspiration in esoteric spiritual traditions of many cultures, including Islamic mysticism, sorcery, shamanism, alchemy, and primordial myths of chaos. Beys anarchic sensibility and spirituality encompass everything related to joy, eros, creativity, play, and the marvelous. His concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) as a sphere in which such realities can be experienced is one of the most influential ideas in contemporary anarchism and has stimulated interest in heretical, dissident and exotic anarchistic spiritualities. There has also been considerable theoretical discussion of anarchism, nature and spirituality in the context of debates within social ecology. Such well-known exponents of social ecology as Murray Bookchin and Janet Biehl have attacked spiritual ecologies as forms of irrational mysticism that often produce social passivity and sometimes are linked to reactionary or fascist politics. On the other hand, proponents of the value of spiritual ecologies (such as David Watson, John Clark and Peter Marshall) have argued for the importance to an anarchist social ecology of spiritual values that are ecological, holistic, communitarian and socially emancipatory. It has been argued that some social ecologists have uncritically adopted a modernist, Promethean, and naively rationalistic view of the self and its relationship to the world, and that spiritual ecologies derived from Asian philosophies and indigenous worldviews, among other sources, can contribute to a more critical, dialectical, and implicitly anarchistic view of selfhood and the place of humanity in nature. This brief survey is far from comprehensive, and a fuller account would encompass such topics as Quakerism and other forms of radical Protestantism, the Catholic Worker movement and other tendencies within the Catholic Left, the spirituality of anarchist intentional communities, and the many literary and artistic figures (including such notable examples as poet Allen Ginsberg and novelist Ursula LeGuin) who have had important insights relating to anarchism, spirituality and nature. However, from the examples discussed, it should be clear that anarchist thought and practice have encompassed a wide diversity of approaches to religion, spirituality, and nature. This multiplicity and divergence continues today. Many contemporary anarchists (especially in Europe and in organizations in the anarcho-syndicalist and anarcho-communist traditions) carry on the atheist, anti-religious, anti-clerical outlook of the classical anarchist movement. Others, including many of the young people who have been drawn to contemporary anarchism through direct action movements, have neither great interest in nor particular antipathy to religion and spirituality. However, an increasing number of political and cultural anarchists are developing an interest in spirituality, and many others have been drawn to anarchist political movements and social tendencies through an initial interest in anarchistic spirituality. Consequently, spirituality, and more particularly the nature-affirming spiritualities of Daoism, Buddhism, neo-Paganism, indigenous traditions, and various radical undercurrents within Western religion, play a significant role in anarchism today and can be expected to do so in the future. Bakunin, Michael. God and the State. New York: Dover, 1970. Blake, William. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. David V. Erdman, ed. New York: Doubleday, 1988. Chuang Tzu. Inner Chapters. New York: Vintage Books, 1974. Cohn, Norman. The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990 (1961). Clark, John and Camille Martin. Anarchy, Geography, Modernity: The Radical Social Thought of Elisιe Reclus. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2004. Gandhi, Mohandas. The Essential Gandhi. Louis Fischer, ed. New York: Random House, 1963. Landauer, Gustav. For Socialism. St. Louis: Telos Press, 1978. Lao Tzu, The Lao Tzu (Tao te Ching). In Wing-Tsit Chan, ed. A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963, 13976. Lau, D.C. Introduction to Tao te Ching. Harmondsworth, UK and New York: Penguin Books, 1963, 752. Lin-Chi. The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi. Boston and London: Shambhala, 1993. Marshall, Peter. Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. London: HarperCollins, 1992. Ostergaard, Geoffrey and Melville Currell. The Gentle Anarchists: A Study of the Leaders of the Sarvodaya Movement For Non-Violent Revolution in India. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973. Perlman, Fredy. Against His-story, Against Leviathan. Detroit: Black & Red, 1983. Purchase, Graham. Evolution and Revolution: An Introduction to the Life and Thought of Peter Kropotkin. Petersham, Australia: Jura Books, 1996. Snyder, Gary. The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964 1979. New York: New Dimensions, 1980. Starhawk. Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988. Vaneigem, Raoul. The Movement of the Free Spirit: General Considerations and Firsthand Testimony Concerning Some Brief Flowerings of Life in the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and, Incidentally, Our Own Time. New York: Zone Books, 1994. Watson, David. Against the Megamachine: Essays on Empire & Its Enemies. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia, 1998. See also: Bioregionalism; Bioregionalism and the North American Bioregional Congress; Blake, William; Buddhism; Daoism; Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front; Ellul, Jacques; Gandhi, Mohandas; Griffin, Susan; Kropotkin, Peter; Left Biocentrism; Le Guin, Ursula; Radical Environmentalism; Reclus, Elisιe; Snyder, Gary — and the Invention of Bioregional Spirituality and Politics; Social Ecology; Starhawk; Thoreau, Henry David. source:http://www.religionandnature.com/about.htm Tags: AnarchyculturespiritualityUncategorized Exercise: What Would an Anarchist Program Look Like? – Crimethinc Every campaign season, political parties publish platforms detailing their promises plank by plank. These platforms are Are Anarchists Socialists? by Wayne Price **Many people regard anarchism and socialism as contradictory programs. This is based on Premonitions: Fragments of a Culture of Revolt- an interview with AK Thompson AK Thompson’s newest book, Premonitions: Selected Essays on the Culture of Revolt, is focused on strategic and Previous Story Previous post: Σκουριές Χαλκιδικής: Το Νέο Κράτος Τρόμου. Απάνθρωπες μορφές καταστολής από την Ελληνική Αστυνομία Next Story Next post: Διεθνής Αλληλεγγύη για την Σωτηρία των Ινδιάνων της Βραζιλίας! Υπογράψτε την Διακήρυξη! 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__label__wiki	0.839946	0.839946	Home NCAA Women Stanford’s Humphreys turns “positive energy” into winning role for Cardinal Stanford’s Humphreys turns “positive energy” into winning role for Cardinal Stanford senior Kelsey Humphreys set for the Cardinal earlier this season but now is a DS/Stanford photo “ … as much as I wanted to be upset about it, I couldn’t. “I love this sport. I love this team. And it’s always something that’s going to make me happy. So I had a new role to fill.” In sports, like life, things simply don’t go as planned. No one knows that better than Stanford senior Kelsey Humphreys, who has become the poster child for rolling with the punches and staying a good teammate. And last Saturday in Madison, Wisconsin, it all paid off in one great evening for Humphreys and her Cardinal teammates as they advanced to the NCAA Division I Volleyball Championship and will play Minnesota in Thursday’s national semifinals. It was a match in which Stanford upset the home team 18-25, 24-26, 25-21, 25-21, 15-9 and while Humphreys’ stat line might not seem like much, there was a lot more to it than meets the eye. She is a serving and defensive specialist who goes in for 6-foot-8 right side Merete Lutz. Against Wisconsin, Humphreys had two assists, an ace, four digs and her first block of the season, but more on that later. “When you watched her this weekend she had remarkable positive energy,” coach John Dunning said. “Always does.” Stanford heads into Thursday 25-7 and winners of eight in a row and 14 of 15. But there was a time a couple of months ago when Stanford, a team relying heavily on four freshmen, was trying to figure it out. The Cardinal lost to visiting Arizona on October 14 to fall to 10-5 overall and 4-3 in the Pac-12 and looked nothing like a team that would challenge for the national championship. But it was during that match when coach John Dunning switched to a 5-1, turning his offense over to freshman Jenna Gray. That meant that Humphreys was no longer going to set. And understand that she had waited three years for the chance, all that time waiting for Madi Bugg to graduate, and finally this season got the job. She was big time coming out of Corona del Mar High School in Newport Beach, Calif. But as a freshman, Humphreys played in just 17 sets. Kelsey Humphreys “I knew I was coming into Stanford behind a really great and experienced setter. I played with and across the net from her in club and at USA tryouts, so that was something I was aware of when I committed. I wanted to a part of the Stanford volleyball program and to play for these coaches and to play for a program that has so much history and to play with people who would make me better every day and who would challenge me. “I knew that I was going to have to fight and I was going to have to work hard every day in practice and I don’t regret any of that.” Her sophomore year, 2014, Stanford made it all the way to the national semifinals, losing to eventual-champion Penn State in the semifinals. “I just wanted to find a way onto the court and to be able to contribute any way I could. That meant working on my defense in practice every single day and getting a tougher serve. And I got on the court.” That season Humphreys got to set some and often served and played defense. In the match against Penn State she played in all four sets and had an ace and four digs. “I think that more so than making me grow as a player, I grew as a person going from the position of being the starter and being on the court all the time to playing a different role on a team,” Humphreys said. “And I grew into that role and eventually earned my way onto the court in a different capacity and was able to contribute. And I think that’s something I got through playing club, but also from my parents. “They always made it of utmost importance to remain humble and to appreciate where you are and never give up. Something my mom has always said to me is that there’s always going to be someone better than you, so you have to continue to train and work hard every single day.” So that’s what she did, working hard as a server and DS in 2015 playing in early every set, all the while knowing that if things went well in 2016, she’d finally get to set. This might be a good time to mention that her parents, especially her mom, are not just any volleyball parents. Her dad, Brad, played football at Stanford. And her mom, the former Wendy Rush, is one of the greatest volleyball players in Stanford history. She was a four-time All-American setter from 1984-87, took the Cardinal to the final four all four years, is in the Stanford Athletic Hall of Fame, and played on the national team for a couple of years. “What’s unique about my mom’s and my relationship is that there was no pressure for me to play volleyball,” Kelsey said. “That was my decision. There was no pressure to go to Stanford. That was also my decision. And this entire season all she can keep saying is, ‘I’m so proud of you.’ And that affirmation has been a big thing for me because I know how amazing of a player she was. I see her (plaque) in my locker room every day. Four-time All-American.”’ From the outside looking in, you had to imagine that made it even harder not to set and be a DS. “Through it all, she was a great teammate and a great person on the bench in games,” Dunning said. Kelsey Humphreys setting against Minnesota earlier this season at Stanford/Stanford photo And so 2016 began with so many unknowns for Stanford, starting with a highly touted freshman class that included 6-foot-6 outside Kathryn Plummer, 6-6 middle Audriana Fitzmorris, another setter in Jenna Gray, and libero Morgan Hentz. There was also the return of the team’s only other senior, All-American middle Inky Ajanaku, who missed all of 2015 recovering from a knee injury. And the unknowns continued as the season began, as sophomore All-American Hayley Hodson got hurt and left school and yet another freshman, 6-2 Michaela Keefe who replaced her, was injured and lost for the season. And Stanford, which early on beat among others Minnesota and Penn State, struggled. “Kelsey worked hard to play this year and the best thing to do to start the season was include her in our setting and we had a chance to be very good that way,” Dunning said. “But then we didn’t have the same personnel to make that work. “We had to make a change and we did it in the middle of a match. We did it without practicing it and I’m not a person to make changes without practicing. So for us to change it during a middle of a match was hard on her because there was no way to prep for it. But we weren’t playing well enough. “It wasn’t her fault, it was the sum of things.” After losing to Arizona, the next night Stanford swept Arizona State. Then it lost to UCLA the next time out before starting the aforementioned streak. Kelsey Humphreys of Stanford serves against Washington State. Photo Credit: Ed Chan, VBshots.com In between was a team meeting with an explanation. “I met with her after the team meeting and she could barely talk to me,” Dunning said. She was angry, frustrated, knew what it meant, didn’t want to go through that again. This was a kid who had been a really good teammate and openly cheering for everyone all the time. It was hard.” Dunning paused. “It broke my heart. It was brutal. And there was really nothing that we could talk about.” Dunning recalled Humphreys saying to him that he had no idea how she felt. “And I told her, ‘Kelsey, actually I do. I had this happen as an athlete, I have daughters who had it happen. I’ve coached a lot of people where this happened. It doesn’t mean I know exactly how you feel, but I do know. And there’s nothing that I can say that will help except that we need you and it’s going to be different.’ “She walked away and I didn’t blame her.” Humphreys basically thinks she gave herself a kick in the butt. “It came down to my own decision on how I was gonna finish out my career with the program and how I wanted to be remembered as a teammate.” Dunning also credited Ajanaku for counseling Humphreys. “We care about her and I care about her,” Dunning said. “Everybody knew it was going to be hard. And nobody holds it against you when you’re angry.” “Working for three years to get into that spot and then not getting it at the end was heartbreaking at first,” Humphreys admitted. “And it took me a few days. And then I walked into practice that Monday after the lineup change and was still not very happy and as soon as I got on the court with my teammates, as much as I wanted to be upset about it, I couldn’t. “I love this sport. I love this team. And it’s always something that’s going to make me happy. So I had a new role to fill. I was playing the same amount of rotations as I was before. Three rotations and going in for our opposite, I just had a different focus. And in the end, as much as I want to set and as much as I want to be in for six rotations, I am an athlete and I am a competitor and I want to win. And we’re winning. For my team, this is what’s best and that’s really all I have to keep thinking about. It’s really paying off.” To wit, this season Humphreys, who will graduate in June with a degree in science technology and society, which she described as a combination of art, design and business, has played in all 121 sets. She has 209 digs — second only to Hentz — and 14 aces. She also has one kill, which came on a dig that went back over the net and fell to the floor. And there’s that one block, but not yet. First those freshmen. “They are such a gift. I mean, they are the biggest goofballs I have ever met,” Humphreys said. “They really bring so much energy and really lighten the mood off the court and on the court, they have this maturity that I have not seen or played with before as freshmen. It was so unexpected, but I am so thankful every day that I get to play with these girls.” Against Wisconsin, for example, Ajanaku, the old lady of the team, was spectacular as she led with 20 kills, hitting .447, and 11 blocks, two solo. But Plummer had 12 kills and 10 digs, Gray had 57 assists and six blocks, one solo, Fitzmorris had 10 kills and hit .333 and some of Hentz’s 30 digs were phenomenal. “This season has been a roller coaster,” Ajanaku said. “We’ve had to go through a lot, and I’ve had to go through a lot, and I think that’s kind of what bonded our team is that we were learning to trust ourselves at the same time I was ready to trust myself again. And we were kind of on that same path together with the freshmen.” And now they’re in the national semifinals. “Every year you want to go to the final four, but for your senior year it feels that much more special,” Humphreys said. “And we’ve been here once before and we’re ready to take it for our senior year. Everyone else on the team keeps saying they want to do it for us, but I say no, we’re doing it for everyone. We’re doing it for each other.” OK, time for the block. Stanford lost those first two sets against Wisconsin, won the third, and Humphreys started in the back row to start the fourth set. On the side out Lutz was to go in for Humphreys. But Lutz was really involved in the bench celebration of the point, a kill by Gray. “We side out right away and I’m waiting on the 10-foot line and it’s so loud in this gym and I’m screaming her name and she has just no idea. And I’m looking at the ref yelling, ‘Sub! Sub! Sub!’ but then the whistle blows and I run over to the net.” At which point Humphreys told Ajanaku and Plummer she would get to the right side. Plummer told her stay left and it wasn’t lost on Wisconsin All-American setter Lauren Carlini. Understand that Humphreys is 6 feet tall with pretty good hops. “All I could think about was what John had been telling the left-side blockers the entire time, get outside of her jump in and that’s exactly what I did. And I got the block and just flipped out.” She was laughing just recounting the story. “Honestly, it shocked me. How many times does the person forget to sub in and the DS is blocking front row and I ended up blocking on the left. I’d never blocked on that side in my life.” “It was the only time I’ve taken someone out right after getting a stuff block,” Dunning said. “The whole team was going nuts,” Humphreys said. “The coaches were going nuts. And I subbed and I was still freaking out for three or four points. The elite eight, I’m in the front row and I get a stuff block. It’s my first block of the year. It was pretty incredible and in that moment for my team, it was the start of the fourth game and we knew were fighting for it and weren’t going to give it up.” Which was way better than what could have been had she decided to mail it in after losing her setting spot two months ago. She heard from plenty of people who told her she deserved better. “And at times I kind of bought into that and then I shut off those voices in my head because this is bigger than one player on the court.” It was time for a stern look in the mirror. “I kind of slapped myself in the face and said, ‘All right, let’s go. Time to get better at something new if you’re going to contribute in a different way.’ And I really took ownership of that and never looked back.” No, she won’t be an All-American like her mom. But what a great ending to a career. “Even my mom joked, ‘I would not have handled it like this.’ “Every day she tells me how proud she is,” Humphreys said. “And after (we won Saturday), I think she was was more excited than some of the girls on the team.” Humphreys laughed. “As a player at Stanford she was in four final fours and went to three national championships (matches) and never won, so she keeps telling me to bring one home for the family.” Hayley Hodson Lauren Carlini women's college volleyball Kathryn Plummer Inky Ajanaku Jenna Gray Morgan Hentz Michaela Keefe VBM college volleyball Merete Lutz NCAA women's volleyball D1 volleyball Madi Bugg Wendy Rush Previous articleAVP 2017: Hello Hermosa and Austin, goodbye to Cincinnati, New Orleans Next articleDani Rygelski: A journey through Saint Louis volleyball DJArmstrong December 13, 2016 at 4:56 am Great article, with a valuable lesson for all athletes! Dan Campbell December 15, 2016 at 5:15 pm What a wonderful article. I was a huge Madi Bugg fan and thought Kelsey would be this year’s setter but wasn’t following the team that closely. Then the last few weeks I started following and was amazed at the contributions of the Four Freshmen. And now after reading this story, I have so much respect for Kelsey. I believe sports can lead to life lessons, but so much of that is lost in younger generations who are all about me and not team. But for this young lady to get over the frustrations and become as good a teammate as any athlete can have is an amazing story. What she learned through this ordeal and how she handled it should carry over to many future successes in life for her. Too often the terms hero and role model are used for athletes that really haven’t earned them. Kelsey Humphreys definitely has earned the right to be called role model and ideal teammate. Thanks to Lee Feinswog for an outstanding article! A Big Year for Stanford WVB « glennaustin.com May 9, 2017 at 12:33 pm […] Still, the decision to switch the setting plan didn’t come without a cost and by all accounts it didn’t go well at first as Humphreys would later tell Volleyball Magazine. […] Conference Carolinas preview: Mount Olive, Barton, King top poll, but coaches expect balance Conference Carolinas, which gets one of the five automatic bids to the NCAA men's volleyball tournament, is poised to have its most competitive year... NCAA volleyball notes: FDU adds men, ACC schedule trickles in, WAC takes 4 SLC... Fairleigh Dickinson is adding men's volleyball for the 2021-22 school year and in doing so will be the 24th Division I school playing the...	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line807
__label__cc	0.626065	0.373935	Who is Your Lawyer? Commentary on Intangible Assets, Fair Use and Parody Mobile Blog Index Mobile Contact Bang! Bang! You’ve Been Upgraded If you’ve been following along, you know that over the last week I’ve been involved in heuristic analysis of what shaped the modern world. Although my method has been rather less scientific than that approved of by the academy — indeed, a bit scattered and whimsical, even — I challenge you to find a more compelling list of discoveries than those enumerated herein. Thus, without further ado, I give you my penultimate list of discoveries that shaped the ancient world and spurred us on to our current magnificence. If you aren’t a Luddite, you may appreciate a few of these. 1. The circulation of blood. Each person has a certain amount of blood (based primarily on size) circulating throughout his body in one fixed direction. This fact was first discovered in the 12th century by the Arab doctor Ibn al-Nafis. Remarkably, the knowledge was lost by careless pre-internet humans and only rediscovered by the English physician William Harvey in the 17th-century. This revolution was set forth in an exquisitely written 70-pagemonograph entitled “Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis etSanguinis in Animalibus” or “Anatomical Essay on the Motionof the Heart and Blood in Animals” commonly referredto as “De Motu Cordis” or simply “De Motu.” It was publishedin 1628 when Harvey was a mere lad of 50. 2. Microorganisms. In the late 1600s, when microscopes were new, Dutch lens maker Antoni van Leeuwenhoek scraped some plaque off his own teeth and looked at it through a microscope. As one might expect with the benefit of 400 years of hindsight, it was crawling with animalcules. Less than two centuries later, knowledge of this invisible universe enabled Louis Pasteur to construct his germ theory of disease, which in turn enabled doctors to conquer polio, typhoid, measles, small pox, and a whole host of other diseases that had plagued the world since Babylonian times. 3. Electricity and magnetism. Stay with me here on this one, all you non-techies. Read it twice, and then read it backwards to see if it’s secretly an anagram (hint: it’s not). Ørsted’s discovery in 1821 that a magnetic field existed around all sides of a wire carrying an electric current indicated that there was a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism. Moreover, the interaction seemed different from gravitational and electrostatic forces, the two forces of nature then known. The force on the compass needle did not direct it to or away from the current-carrying wire, but acted at right angles to it. Ørsted’s slightly obscure words were that “the electric conflict acts in a revolving manner.” The force also depended on the direction of the current, for if the flow was reversed, then the force did too. The phenomenon was investigated further by Ampère, who discovered that two parallel current-carrying wires exerted a force upon each other: two wires conducting currents in the same direction are attracted to each other, while wires containing currents in opposite directions are forced apart. The interaction is mediated by the magnetic field each current produces and forms the basis for the international definition of the ampere. 4. The electric motor. Ørsted’s recondite musings on his discovery were extremely important, as the relationship between magnetic fields and currents led to Michael Faraday’s invention of the electric motor in 1821. Faraday’s homopolar motor consisted of a permanent magnet sitting in a pool of mercury. A current was passed through a wire suspended from a pivot above the magnet and dipped into the mercury. The magnet exerted a tangential force on the wire, making it circle around the magnet for as long as the current was maintained. The electric motor, of course, led to the invention of the automobile, which led to the asphalting-over of half the known world, killing a remarkable number of indigenous species with very little in the way of bad publicity prior to the enactment of the EPA. Now we can drive wherever we like, but we are prohibited from building a new house half a mile away because the Blue Spotted Butterfly has been spotted there twice this decade. 5. Genes. Not Lucky, nor Levis, and certainly not your old childhood Wranglers. I’m referring to the scientific code, what the head of the Human Genome Project called The Language of God. Despite hints from Pavlov and Mendel, it wasn’t until 1953 that Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of DNA, a molecule shaped like a twisted ladder and contained in every cell. DNA manipulation is already changing the world in ways that you only notice subliminally — Monsanto has genetically modified corn to resist disease, the Koreans have cloned a sheep (and perhaps a human), and now you have the option of selecting the sex of your child (“I’ll take that spermatozoa over there, Doctor. The big one.”). Soon, with the aide of stem cell therapy, we may be able to conquer diseases and genetic flaws that we have been unable to even think of approaching using traditional techniques of Western medicine. With any luck, in the next 10 years all of these inventions will be combined into a fantastic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang automobile of the future that will cure what ails you as you race through Biarritz with a horde of angry agents of SMERSH hot on your heels. (You did remember that Ian Fleming wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, didn’t you?). Think Tesla on steroids, with a stem cell injector that adds charm, wit and insouciance on demand — and makes a mean martini to boot. Robert Scott Lawrence I am a commercial litigator and intellectual property lawyer in Orange County. Although my practice encompasses a wide variety of business disputes, I have a particular fondness for, and am prone to wax philosophical on, the subjects of copyright and trademark infringement in music, literature, art, and film. by Robert Scott Lawrence In Your Face® Historical Applets Copyright by Who Is Your Lawyer, 2010 - 2019	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line810
__label__wiki	0.939554	0.939554	Top 52 Tracey Ullman Quotes “An M.P. once suggested I be put in the Tower of London for saying derogatory things about the royals. There’s no First Amendment in my country.” ― Tracey Ullman “The working classes in England were always sentimental, and the Irish and Scots and Welsh. The upper-class English are the stiff-upper-lipped ones. And the middle class. They’re the ones who are crippled emotionally because they can’t move up, and they’re desperate not to move down.” “I don’t see myself as a stand-up comic doing cynical, mean-spirited or disrespectful stuff. I’m very aware that I don’t like to disrespect people too much.” “I’ve always been a misfit.” “As you get older, you realize it’s work. It’s that fine line between love and companionship. But passionate love? I’d love to know how to make that last.” “As I get older, I just prefer to knit.” “Every character I do is based on someone I know.” “I don’t get very involved in the L.A. scene. When you do get invited out, you are expected to be on all the time. It’s just wearying.” “I hate clowns.” “I hope I never get so hard up I have to do advertisements. I’ve gotten ridiculous offers.” “I like going to France, because no one knows who I am.” “I like infomercials.” “I love John Waters. There’s stuff in it that’s beyond the boundaries of my taste, but his movies have always been like that.” “I loved the late Gilda Radner. I love Carol Burnett and Lily Tomlin.” “I never wanted to do political satire because it seems too surface to me.” “I think serial monogamy says it all.” “I used to dress up and impersonate our next-door neighbor, Miss Cox. She wore rubber boots, a wool hat, and her nose always dripped.” “I wish I could believe that one person could make a difference.” “I worked with Paul McCartney for a while and saw what it does to you to be treated like a god for twenty years.” “I’m as famous as I want to be.” “I’m not a crazy, party-going sort of person.” “I’m still that little girl who lisped and sat in the back of the car and threw vegetables at the back of her head when we drove home from the market. That never goes.” “I’m usually put off by performers when they get political.” “I’ve never looked ahead very much in my life. I’ve never had any grand plan from the outset. I had no burning ambition to do what I do.” “It makes you more open, it gives you perspective, having a child.” “It’s funny – if you impersonate somebody, they have no idea it’s them.” “It’s sometimes shocking to find out what people really believe in.” “It’s the poignancy and sadness in things that gets to me.” “My influences were Peter Sellers and the great British character actors.” “The show I did in England catered to a broad range of people. I like that. I don’t want nouveau cult status, though I know we’ve got that sort of audience in the states.” “There are different types of love, and my love for my child is like me and my mum. We’ve gone through a lot of rocky patches, but we never stop loving.” “Why does everyone think the future is space helmets, silver foil, and talking like computers, like a bad episode of Star Trek?” “Work is important to me. I want to do things for principle, not just for the sake of doing them.” “You become so encapsulated in this world of being a star. People listen to what you say, you have this voice, it becomes unreal and you become far removed from the people you came from.” “I became an American in 2006. It got me thinking about what is my America and what’s my perception of America.” “I’m fascinated by Bollywood.” “I’ve always gotten a positive reaction to doing African-American characters.” “I’m sick of environmentalism.” “I just love to impersonate people, and I impersonate people because I find them fascinating.” “I’ve always had to create my own markets and I’ve always been at a juncture in my career.” “I just want to do good work.” “I’m not a film snob.” “It’s like a woman’s birthright to knit. It’s primal. It’s timeless. You don’t need electricity to knit. You can do it with a candle, girls!” “There’s nothing I won’t attempt.” “I never worked with a dialogue coach before, but I’d hate it if an American did a British accent and didn’t do it well. It would be insulting.” “My mum would like to see me on the cover of ‘Good Housekeeping’ demonstrating children’s toys with some nice lipstick on.” “Great pressure is put on kids who don’t have dads to get out and make money, and make life easier for everybody. It was always, ‘Hurry up, grow up, make money, there’s no man to do it for us.’” “I love documentaries, I like observing real people.” “A lot of stand-up comedy is embarrassing: too many idiots doing it in orange neckties against brick walls. I find most sitcoms embarrassing, too, because they seem so forced.” “I grew up with Jilly and Tamsin driving Volvos. But I wasn’t one of them… I always felt more comfortable with Cockney and working-class people. My heroes were the Beatles and people like Michael Caine.” “There were no examples of girls like myself becoming successful actresses. To be an actress in England was a serious, upper-middle class girl’s profession. I just thought I would never be accepted unless I pretended to become somebody I wasn’t.” “I like being the odd one out in L.A. Because if you conform, you become something you hate. I love being the odd one out. It’s not about ‘Look at me! Look at me!’ It’s about really becoming someone else.” Quotes You Will Also Love: Top 17 Inbee Park Quotes WHQWorld is one of the largest Quotes website curated from all over the world covering every possible categories and famous people. All the sayings and quotes are copyrighted to respective authors and WHQWorld is just a curator here to distribute them with the world. Top 74 Josh Allen Quotes of 2021 Top 6 Eli Whitney Quotes Top 100 Ryuichi Sakamoto Quotes of 2021 Top 100 KRS-One Quotes of 2021 Top 42 J.I.D Quotes Top 100 YG Quotes Copyright © 2021 WHQ World	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line811
__label__wiki	0.955589	0.955589	KZN drug rehab centre to reopen during lockdown after legal threat Drug rehabilitation centres in SA, which were forced to close during the lockdown, have now been authorised to accept new patients on referral by a social worker. The regulation change by social development minister Lindiwe Zulu, gazetted on Tuesday, followed a threat of legal action by at least one centre, The Cedars, a private facility in Scottburgh, KwaZulu-Natal, which argued that the ban on new patients, other than through a court order, was a direct contradiction of disaster regulations allowing people to access medical attention. In a letter to Zulu, Cedars attorney Bianca Larratt said Cedars admits and treats between 350 and 400 patients a year. “At the time of the lockdown, five patients were admitted. Since the lockdown, it has received about three inquiries per day from people suffering from drug and alcohol dependence, some of them chronic cases,” she said. Larratt said the lockdown was affecting addicts who could no longer get their “drug of choice”, including alcohol, which could result in an increase in social problems and crime. “Those chronically addicted to street drugs such as heroin and crack cocaine require medical supervision to detox. Going ‘cold turkey’ can be fatal. A chronic heroin addict, for example, whose body is reliant on four to five hits a day, if suddenly cut off from the drug can experience cardiac arrest and seizures.” The centre employs doctors, nurses and addiction counsellors, who are all essential workers, she said. “Lockdown protocols have been implemented and swab testing will be conducted on all new patients.” Larratt told TimesLIVE that after receiving the letter of demand last week, the department’s legal adviser had advised that the regulations were in the process of being amended. Cedars owner Andre Redinger said they were “pacing intakes”, testing all newcomers and placing them initially in isolation. “We expect to receive up to 10 patients over the next seven days. This is an increase over the norm because of the backlog and because active addicts have had no or limited access to their drug of choice, and this has led to a dramatic increase in calls for help,” he said. Full article: https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2020-04-08-kzn-drug-rehab-centre-to-reopen-during-lockdown-after-legal-threat/	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line812
__label__wiki	0.938225	0.938225	Sculpture Victorious 25 Feb — 25 May 2015 at the Tate Britain in London, United Kingdom Sir William Reynolds-Stephens, A Royal Game 1906-11, Bronze, wood and stone © Tate, Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1911 Sculpture Victorious will be the first major exhibition devoted to the innovative and compelling sculpture produced during Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901). It will show how sculpture featured in all aspects of Victorian politics, empire and industry and includes major Victorian sculptors like Francis Chantrey and Alfred Gilbert, alongside lesser-known artists such as Mary Watts and William Reynolds-Stephens. The exhibition opens on 25 February at Tate Britain. The Victorian period was a Golden Age for British sculpture. The country had a monarch and a Consort who commissioned and encouraged sculptors, and the State, long a bystander in the encouragement of arts, commissioned a range of sculpture and decoration to ornament the new Houses of Parliament. New scientific technologies such as electrotyping were developed, and sculptors collaborated with manufacturers to create ever more elaborate silverwork, jewellery, and ceramic ornament. The grand public events, most famously The Great Exhibition of 1851 provided spectacular opportunities to showcase these productions, and demonstrate new developments in the carving of traditional materials such as wood or marble. Throughout the period sculptors allied technical novelty to iconographic innovation, finding new subjects and compositions inspired by antiquity and the nation’s past to create works that would have startled their predecessors. These works still have the capacity to surprise us today. George Frampton's life-size Dame Alice Owen 1897 in marble, alabaster, bronze, paint and gilding will be shown alongside finely-wrought silver and exquisitely-detailed electrotypes, such as James Sherwood Westmacott’s electroplated Baron Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester 1854. The latter has been removed from the House of Lords for the very first time for this exhibition. Highlights include three pieces of jewellery from The Devonshire Parure 1856 made for Lady Granville, the 6th Duke of Devonshire's niece, to wear when she represented Queen Victoria at the coronation of Tsar Alexander II in Moscow; one of a unique pairing of large, coloured earthenware elephants manufactured for the 1889 Paris Exposition; and a Bishop’s pastoral staff in gilt metal, semi-precious stones, and enamels that is still in use today. Other significant loans include George Gilbert Scott’s model for the tomb of Philippa of Hainault in Westminster Abbey (1850-1), and Rafaelle Monti’s breathtaking Veiled Vestal. Frederic Leighton’s An Athlete Wrestling with a Python 1877, Sir Hamo Thornycroft's Teucer 1881 and Hylas Surprised by the Naiades exh.1837 by John Gibson from Tate’s collection are also included. Sculpture Victorious has been organised in collaboration with the Yale Center for British Art. It is curated at Tate by Greg Sullivan, Curator British Art 1750 – 1830 with Hannah Lyons, Assistant Curator British Art 1850 - 1915 and Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, Assistant Curator British Art 1850 - 1915. The show was devised, and curated at Yale, by Martina Droth, Associate Director of Research and Curator of Sculpture at the Center, Jason Edwards, Professor of History of Art at the University of York and Michael Hatt, Professor of History of Art at the University of Warwick. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, published by the Center in association with Yale University Press. Tate Modern's mission is to increase the public’s enjoyment and understanding of British art from the sixteenth century to the present day and of international modern and contemporary art. Museum profile Harry Bates, Pandora exhibited 1891, Marble, ivory and bronze on marble base © Tate, Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1891 Thomas Longmore and John Hénk, Elephant 1889, Lead and tin glazed earthenware (majolica) © Thomas Goode & Co. Ltd., London Frederic, Lord Leighton, An Athlete Wrestling with a Python 1877, Bronze © Tate, Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1911 More from Tate Britain 20 May — 31 Aug 2020 4 Mar — 25 May 2020 12 Nov 2019 — 4 May 2020 British Baroque 4 Feb — 19 Apr 2020 More in London, United Kingdom Kara Chin. You Will Knead 24 Jan 2021 — 5 Apr 2020 at Vitrine Luiz Zerbini: Fire 26 Jan — 1 Apr 2021 at Stephen Friedman Gallery Forging The Self 5 Nov 2020 — 12 Feb 2021 at The Koppel Project Hive New Port, New City Permanent event at Museum of London Docklands More in United Kingdom Grayson Perry. The Pre-Therapy Years 6 Feb — 16 May 2021 at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich Bill Brandt & Henry Moore 20 Nov 2020 — 7 Mar 2021 at Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich Love, Art, Loss 15 Aug 2020 — 1 Oct 2021 at Stanley Spencer Gallery in Cookham The 25 for 25 Collection Permanent event at The Quilters' Guild Collection in York	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line818
__label__cc	0.550601	0.449399	The Simpsons - Season 32 Set in Springfield, the average American town, the show focuses on the antics and everyday adventures of the Simpson family; Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie, as well as a virtual cast of thousands. Since the beginning, the series has been a pop culture icon, attracting hundreds of celebrities to guest star. The show has also made name for itself in its fearless satirical take on politics, media and American life in general. Actor: Dan Castellaneta, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith Director: James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, Sam Simon Trailer: The Simpsons - Season 32	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line819
__label__wiki	0.973901	0.973901	Gio & Jones ‘He’s not going to like this sht at all’: Documentary shines new light on Tiger Woods’ life Tiger Woods always wanted us to believe that he was just like the rest of us. “We’re all the same; we’re all human,” Woods told CNN Sport in 2006. And yet, in the same breath, he understood just how different he really was. Asked in the same interview where he could go in the world and not be recognized, he said: “Underwater! That’s why I like diving.” The world’s most famous golfer, one of the most iconic athletes of our lifetime, has never been comfortable with fame; he’s endured an almost total lack of privacy from when he was young. In 2019, with bitterness in his voice, he told CNN Sport: “I don’t like it. I never have liked it.” So, he’s probably not going to like HBO’s new two-part documentary which puts the trajectory of his extraordinary life story under the microscope. Woods’ agent didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment. One of the contributors, the Woods family friend Joe Grohman, agonized before sharing one particularly sensitive detail, saying: “He’s not going to like this sht at all.” READ: Tiger Woods and son Charlie capture hearts and minds during PNC Championship ‘He’s flawed’ Many will be familiar with the broad strokes of the Woods story: the prophecy of greatness, the ruthless dominance and global stardom, the beautiful family, the spectacular and humiliating fall from grace and the Hollywood comeback of epic proportions. But how many people understand the nuance and the complexity of the man? The fine details that shaped the arc of his journey. Just how did Woods happen? One of the co-directors, Matthew Heineman, told CNN Sport that trying to understand Woods presented the kind of challenge that filmmakers crave. “Like all of us, he’s human; he’s flawed,” said Heineman. “And unlike all of us, his life has played out in the public eye in a way that probably no one else’s life has. Tiger is an incredibly complex person; we want to really embrace that nuance and that complexity.” READ: How Dustin Johnson’s speedy approach could help golf’s pace of play Both triumphant and inspirational, it’s also tragic and painful. Very few of the characters leave Woods’ orbit unscathed , according to the filmmakers. More often than not, they are scarred and discarded, and the viewer will feel sympathy for many of them — even, at times, Woods himself. “I mean, you can’t help but feel for a guy,” says co-director Matthew Hamachek, “who was thrust into the national spotlight at the age of two.” Hamachek and Heineman believe that the crux of this story is the relationship between a father and his son. “Earl has this vision for what his son was going to become,” Hamachek added. “It wasn’t just about golf.” The Mike Douglas television show appearance when Woods was just two is now iconic, but it was far from his only encounter with the media as a toddler. In one particularly awkward TV interview shown in the film, he unwittingly broke the tension by responding to the question “Do you like playing golf?” with the answer: “I want to go poo-poo.” Testimony from one of his early teachers, Maureen Decker, affirms that a young Woods wanted to try other sports, but his father wouldn’t allow it. READ: Norman delivers graphic account of dealing with Covid-19 symptoms “The world is ready for a non-White golfer to be successful. I have availed Tiger of this, and he takes that responsibility seriously,” Earl declared. Earl’s vision was that his son would be much more than just a golfer The film opens with a speech he gave at the Haskins Collegiate Award banquet in 1996, when Earl told the audience: “He will transcend this game and bring to the world a humanitarianism which has never been known before. “The world will be a better place to live in, by virtue of his existence and his presence.” Speaking almost in a whisper and without any attempt to underplay his grandiosity, Earl concludes: “This is my treasure; please accept it and use it wisely.” Woods’ father died in 2006 at the age of 74 after a lengthy battle against cancer. READ: When check hit bank account, she first thought ‘illegal activity’ after $675,000 win ‘Creating this robot’ The filmmakers told CNN Sport that Woods’ representatives said the golfer declined — twice — to be interviewed for the documentary citing a prior commitment to another media company. Woods’ agent didn’t immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment about the documentary. Nonetheless the producers were keen to hear his voice and perspective throughout, and there was no shortage of archived interview material to draw from. In one clip, Woods dismissed his father’s expectations, saying: “That’s just my Dad speaking, a proud father.” But Earl was preaching to the world that his son would be little short of the second coming and, once he turned professional, his sponsors were only too happy to continue the sermon. As Hamachek observed: “It seemed like his entire life people were putting expectations and projecting what they wanted him to be onto Tiger.” The film presents a narrative that Earl and Kultida — the 15-time major winner’s Mom — raised an automaton capable of handling intense pressure on the golf course, with a ruthless drive for success. But it seems that they also created an environment which stunted his emotional growth, resulting in an imperfect human. At the height of his powers, Woods seemed to find comfort watching morning cartoons with a bowl of cereal. READ: Michelle Wie West’s retirement thoughts changed by having a baby girl Some of the most revealing testimony is provided by his first girlfriend Dina Parr, who says she could see where it was all heading. “I felt like their plans were creating this robot. There was all this preparation for golf, but he had no life skills. He had not been prepared for life. And I was probably the only person around that really kept him in check.” Parr says that their relationship ended abruptly when she received a cold and business-like termination letter from Woods, who “never wanted to see or hear” from her again. “I know this is sudden and a surprise, but it is in my opinion much warranted,” wrote the golfer. Parr was devastated; she said they had been in love and were happy together: “It was like a death, the Tiger that I had known had died. His sweetness was stolen from him.” Woods had learned golf from his father; he’d learned how to be tough from him, too. Famously, Earl was a green beret in the US military, operating behind enemy lines during two harrowing tours of duty in the horrific Vietnam War. “My dad was always the person who would plant seeds and give me encouragement but also would say things that would fester inside me that wouldn’t come to fruition for a while,” Woods told USA Today in 2017. “He was very worldly and deep in his thinking. My mom was the enforcer. My dad may have been in the Special Forces, but I was never afraid of him. My mom’s still here, and I’m still deathly afraid of her. She’s a very tough, tough old lady, very demanding. She was the hand, she was the one, I love her so much, but she was tough.” READ: After ‘life-changing’ major win, Collin Morikawa says fame won’t change him At the age of 13, according to the documentary, Tiger had apparently been taught to hypnotize himself, to tune out extraneous noise. As Woods’ own life subsequently spiraled out of control, the details of the story become a little more sordid. Some conservative viewers may find themselves clutching their pearls by the time he’s cheating on his wife, Elin, with reckless abandon in a church parking lot. It was a pattern of self-destructive behavior that presented the film’s directors with another challenge — how much should be revealed? Hamachek and Heineman say they were reluctant to overly sensationalize the details, but nor could they underplay the relevance of them. They say they recognized that Woods’ children might one day see the film, so every decision in the edit suite was handled with a great deal of care. “It wasn’t going to be TMZ, and it also wasn’t going to be a puff piece,” said Hamachek. Heineman added: “This is really a psychological portrait of the man through these interviews, and there are details in the show that touch on things that I wouldn’t necessarily want to have revealed about myself. But that is his story and we couldn’t shy away from that.” Through the insight of Woods’ first love Parr and two family friends, Pete McDaniel and Grohman, the film claims to explain the making of the man. READ: After making history, Danish golfer is a star on the rise But it’s through the original testimony of Rachel Uchitel, speaking on camera for the first time, that we see what that man became. Uchitel , who became a public figure as a result of her relationship with Tiger, sheds new light on a man who was seemingly trying to escape from the pressure of it all, and she found herself in the eye of the storm when their cover was blown. As a teenager, Parr’s relationship with Woods was ended with a letter; Uchitel says her termination was crafted by a lawyer. His longtime caddie Steve Williams also discovered that friendship with Woods can be revoked at a moment’s notice and there is no going back. And yet, there doesn’t seem to be any resentment from those who say they were cast aside. “I think one of the most interesting psychological things is how unbelievably protective they still are,” says Heineman. “There wasn’t anger; there wasn’t bitterness. It was still so much love for this man, even though he might have hurt them deeply.” Asked what they think the moral of Woods’ story might be, the directors struggle to identify it; because he is such a complex character, he can’t be “put in a box.” READ: When Seve ‘swashbuckled’ his way to magnificent Masters title But Hamachek believes that no one has been merely a spectator of his golf or will be a disinterested viewer of this film; everyone has been more involved than that. “We sort of played a role in cheering him on when he was on the rise, and a lot of people in the public took a great deal of glee in his downfall. “And then we’re right back there to cheer him on in the comeback. One of the things that I found fascinating about this story is how the public at large is sort of culpable in his story as well.” “We all projected ourselves onto this man,” says Heineman. “We wanted him to be this perfect poster boy for breaking through and breaking barriers and doing many things, and so when that didn’t happen, our own expectations were broken and our own views of ourselves and our own visions were broken. “I hope that in watching the show, you can at least feel like you’re in his shoes, [feeling] what that pressure and what that spotlight really feels like.” READ: Is golf set for a new era of dominance after Johnson’s record-breaking Masters win? Just weeks before the film’s release, Woods was back in the news. Or, more pertinently, his 11-year-old son Charlie was in the news — playing golf in public for the first time. Charlie’s greenside presence, when his Dad won the 2019 Masters to complete his most extraordinary comeback, represented the completion of the father-son arc. Charlie’s emergence as a young, exceptional golfing talent in his own right marks a generational shift and the start of a new chapter. Visit CNN.com/sport for more news, features, and videos “It’s quite interesting seeing Charlie and Tiger out there playing together,” says Heineman. “What has he learned as a human being? What has he learned as a father? Because he was taught many lessons by Earl, some of which obviously benefited him greatly, and I think some of which obviously hurt him greatly.” The 15-time major winner would appear to have learned something else from his father, how to protect the privacy of his children. Whilst Charlie wowed us all with his prodigious talent, he was not made available for interview. This young man can thank his father for that, but it’s a lesson his Dad was made to learn the hard way. Violence at Capitol and beyond reignites a debate over America’s long-held defense of extremist speech	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line820
__label__wiki	0.812153	0.812153	Rapper YFN Lucci facing murder charges after shooting in Atlanta Rapper YFN Lucci is wanted in Atlanta on multiple charges — including murder — in connection with fatal shooting last month, Atlanta police said Tuesday. Officers responding to calls of a person shot around 5:20 p.m. on December 10, found James Adams, 28, lying in the street with a gunshot wound to his face, the police incident report states. Adams was taken to a local hospital where he died. A short time later, a second victim, Kevin Wright, 32, arrived at an area fire station by private vehicle with a gunshot wound to his abdomen, the report states. Homicide investigators determined the two shootings were likely related. Three suspects were named in the investigation, including 29-year-old YFN Lucci, whose real name is Rayshawn Bennett, police said. CNN was unable to reach Lucci or his representatives for comment. He is wanted on charges of felony murder, aggravated assault, participation in street gang activity and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The other two suspects were caught, police said. An award of up to $5,000 is being offered through Crime Stoppers for the rapper’s arrest and prosecution. YFN Lucci is an Atlanta-native who is known for his 2017 hit “Everyday We Lit” and 2020’s “Wet. (She got That …).”	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line821
__label__wiki	0.731769	0.731769	Sandra Bland, Black Women, and Texas Law Enforcement By Tyina Steptoe July 13, 2018 Comments Off on Sandra Bland, Black Women, and Texas Law Enforcement This post is part of our online forum in honor of Sandra Bland, coinciding with the third anniversary of her death. The forum includes historical and contemporary perspectives–and creative pieces–on Black women’s susceptibility to state-sanctioned violence. (Photo: Johnny Silvercloud, Flickr) I first heard the name Sandra Bland during the summer of 2015. On July 10 of that year, Texas state trooper Brian Encinia pulled Bland over. She was leaving Prairie View A&M University, where she had just signed papers to accept a new job. Although a Chicago native, Bland was not new to Texas. She had graduated from Prairie View A&M in 2009. Founded in 1876 to educate former slaves, Prairie View is approximately fifty miles northwest of Houston in a town that is largely Black. Encinia stopped Bland that day because he said she didn’t signal before changing lanes, but the situation quickly escalated. The transcript of Bland’s arrest provides an account of what happened next. When Encinia asked Bland to put out her cigarette, she responded, “I’m in my car. Why do I have to put out my cigarette?” Bland continued to challenge Encinia when he told her to step out of the car. “I don’t have to step on out,” Bland replied. As Encinia continued to demand that she leave her vehicle, Bland continued to assert, “You don’t have the right to do that.” Encinia then drew his taser and commanded, “Get out of the car! I will light you up! Get out!” After Bland left the vehicle, he placed her under arrest. She was eventually taken to Waller County Jail. Three days later, Bland was found dead in her cell, with suicide listed as the official cause of death. As I watched the footage and read the transcript of the encounter, I kept thinking of the similarities between Sandra Bland and Sara Travers, a Black woman who had her own nightmarish run-in with a Texas law enforcement official a century earlier. The encounter between Travers and two Houston police officers led to an open rebellion in the summer of 1917. Sara Travers lived in the San Felipe district, the Black-majority section of Houston’s Fourth Ward. Established in 1865 as “Freedman’s Town” in the months following the Civil War, the neighborhood was an early center of political and cultural life for Black Houston in the early twentieth century. But the residents of the San Felipe district faced a constant white presence in the form of law enforcement officials. Lee Sparks and Rufus Daniel were two of the most notorious police officers. Sparks had lived in Houston for around five years after moving to the city from nearby Fort Bend County, and he had earned a reputation for violence and abusive language during his time on the force. He typically referred to the residents of the San Felipe district as “ngers,” which was one reason they thought of him as a “brutal bully.” On the morning of August 23, Sparks and Daniels saw two young Black men shooting craps in an alley, so they chased them through the neighborhood while firing shots from their guns. Sparks thought one of the men had taken refuge in a nearby home, so he burst into the front door of the residence and found Sara Travers ironing. Sparks asked, “Did you see a nger jumping over that yard?” Travers answered that she had not. While Sparks searched her house, Travers told her neighbor she thought the officers “were shooting at crap-shooters.” Sparks overheard the conversation between the two Black women and called them “God damn nger bitches.” He then retorted, “I’m from Fort Bend and we don’t allow ngers to talk back to us. We generally whip them down there.” He slapped Travers, causing her to scream so loudly that Officer Daniels also entered the house. Sparks instructed, “Take her and give her ninety days on the Pea Farm ‘cause she’s one of these biggity nger women.” Travers later recalled that she was barely dressed when the officers led her outside. She was barefoot, and wore only an “old dress-skirt and a pair panties and a ol’ raggedy waist.” The commotion involving Travers and the policemen attracted a crowd that included a Black soldier stationed at Camp Logan, Private Alonzo Edwards. When Edwards tried to negotiate for Travers’s release, Sparks pistol-whipped the soldier and had him sent to jail along with Travers. “I beat that nger until his heart got right,” Sparks boasted. “He was a good nger when I got through with him.” Later that afternoon, another Black soldier, Corporal Charles Baltimore, confronted Sparks and Daniels to inquire about the arrests. Sparks retorted, “I don’t report to no ngers,” and then beat Corporal Baltimore to the ground. Baltimore tried to escape by running into an empty house, but Sparks pursued him while firing from his six-shooter. Baltimore also wound up in jail that afternoon, along with Travers and Private Edwards. When they heard news of the events in the San Felipe district, soldiers at Camp Logan began to plot revenge. At 8:30 p.m., a group of soldiers ignored the commands of their white officer, raided the ammunition tent, and left camp. They specifically sought out police officers as they marched through the city. Officer Rufus Daniels was one of the twenty people who died that night, struck by soldiers’ bullets. The original instigator of the violence, Lee Sparks, survived the night. He sat at home due to a twenty-four-hour suspension following his activities that morning. In the aftermath of their rebellion in Houston, soldiers accused of mutiny and murder stood trial at three separate courts-martial. The military eventually executed nineteen members of the Twenty-fourth Infantry, and forty-one soldiers received life sentences. The violence of August 23, 1917 spurred local activism in Houston, and the issue of gender was central to Black protest. For example, writers for the Black-owned Houston Informer used the newspaper to highlight the problem in local neighborhoods. Editorials often focused on the effects of violence on Black women. Drawing on local memory of Sara Travers’s altercation with law enforcement, a 1923 editorial in the Informer reminded readers, “Two local police officers were taking advantage of a defenseless and helpless colored woman and were placing her under arrest attired only her house garments – she was virtually nude and even not properly dressed to come out on her front porch.” Their activism made police brutality a gendered concern. Nearly a century later, a different confrontation between a Black woman and a Texas law enforcement official reminded me of the legacies of the Houston rebellion. The circumstances of Sandra Bland’s arrest felt eerily similar. Lee Sparks called Sara Travers “biggity” in 1917. Like Travers, Bland also dared to question a police officer’s actions, and her defiance against Brian Encinia irritated him. At the end of the dash cam footage of the traffic stop, he radioed to a superior that, “She wouldn’t even look at me. She was looking straight ahead, mad. You know.” Although separated by almost one hundred years, Sparks and Encinia used similar allegations of inappropriate comportment to justify the arrests of Black women. During the summer of 2015, a panel on CNN erupted when a former New York City detective said of Bland, “she was arrogant from the beginning, very dismissive of the officer” as justification for her arrest. As Texas-based columnist Tara Trower Doolittle wrote, “At the end of the day, regardless of how the forensic investigation turns out, Sandra Bland is dead because she was an uppity Black woman who did not know her place in East Texas.” Other commentators echoed this sentiment. Ebony magazine said that Bland’s cause of death was “being an uppity Black woman.” The three women of color who turned the hashtag #Blacklivesmatter into a grassroots movement have also worked to address the issue of police violence against Black women. Alicia Garza said in May 2015, “Black women are actually more prone to be abused by a police officer than by anybody else.” Just two months after making that statement, the arrest and death of Sandra Bland served as a reminder of a longer history of confrontation between law enforcement officials and Black women. A century after two police officers sent Sara Travers to jail, the accusation of “arrogance” can still be used to justify arresting a Black woman in the United States. ← Previous : Sandra Bland and Assata Shakur: Imagining Liberation from Persecution Reflections on Sandra Bland on the 3rd Anniversary of Her Death : Next → Tyina Steptoe Tyina Steptoe is an associate professor of history at the University of Arizona. Her work focuses on race, gender, and popular culture in the United States. She is the author of the award-winning book, 'Houston Bound: Culture and Color in a Jim Crow City' (University of California Press, 2016. She is currently working on a project that examines race and sexuality in rhythm and blues music. Follow her on Twitter @TyinaSteptoe.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line822
__label__wiki	0.572201	0.572201	At Home With the Atom Hard as it may be for us to grasp from our vantage point in the 21st century, in the 1950s and early 60s atomic weaponry was cool. Sure this was due, in part, to our arch-enemies of the time -- "da' Commies" -- having A-bombs and H-bombs of their own, which our nuclear bombs would surely protect us from. Somehow. But more than that, people generally thought of atomic energy as the doorway to a wonderous new future, despite its being so good at blowing things up. Everything was going to be nuclear powered in days to come, even the family car. As a kid I lived down the road from Arco, Idaho and many a time drove past the sign at the city limits boasting that they were "the first atomic powered city!" It wasn't just the atom's potential to generate energy, though. Under "Operation Plowshare" (you know, "They shall beat their swords into plowshares..."), H-bomb explosions were tested for excavating new harbors, mining, stimulating the flow of natural gas, widening the Panama Canal or building a new canal through Nicaragua. Click here for a list of all the blasts and the many projects that were planned. The atom was magic! Back then Americans liked Ike and tended to trust the government, including its custodianship of our nuclear energy in all its forms. We got comfortable with the atom and looked forward to the future it promised. We even bought our kids uranium to play with! All of which may help to explain why these five guys and a cameraman volunteered (except for the cameraman) to stand directly under a small nuclear explosion to see what would happen. They apparently survived but according to this Atlas Obscura article, no one knows what became of them. Who did this? Pleonic at Wednesday, March 29, 2017	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line823
__label__cc	0.733441	0.266559	Home » DOE sponsors 'Focus on Innovation' booths at COP21 DOE sponsors 'Focus on Innovation' booths at COP21 12/02/15 11:48 AM By Jodi Delapaz WASHINGTON, Dec. 2, 2015 - The Department of Energy (DOE) will sponsor several booths at the La Galerie center during the Conference of Parties 21st annual meeting (COP-21), which is also being called the international climate conference, in Paris. The booths will showcase leading-edge technologies that have been helped by DOE’s national labs, applied energy programs, the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) and other commitments to research and development. DOE creates institute aimed at reducing recycling costs DOE to test new tech aimed at producing more energy, less fuel DOE grants $6.5 million for seven hydropower projects Technologies include: A 3D-printed Electric Vehicle (EV) Shelby Cobra from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. A hydropower turbine designed for “low-head” areas like canals, rivers, and other lower-flow areas from Natel Energy. A 3-D printed model of the Transient Test Reactor, a one-of-a-kind testing facility at the Idaho National Lab that will support advanced reactor development. A solar concentrating PVMirror solar system, designed by Arizona State University, which combines photovoltaic (PV) solar system with concentrated solar in one unit. A small modular reactor designed by NuScale, in Oregon, that demonstrates the advanced nuclear energy technologies being developed to provide clean energy options.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line824
__label__wiki	0.782978	0.782978	Home » Agri-Pulse Daybreak for April 4, 2016 Agri-Pulse Daybreak for April 4, 2016 04/08/16 12:31 PM By Philip Brasher WASHINGTON, April 4, 2016 - The Senate returns from its two-week Easter recess today to take up a bill that could benefit biotech companies. It's not GMO labeling legislation but rather a bill that would allow companies to file claims in federal courts against people who the firms believe have stolen trade secrets. Bethany Shively, a spokeswoman for the American Seed Trade Association, says the bipartisan Defend Trade Secrets Act would put “trade secrets on par with other forms of intellectual property – like patent, trademark, or copyright protection. For a wide range of industries - seed included - trade secrets are what give companies their competitive edge.” She says the legislation, which the Senate will vote on this afternoon, would allow for much quicker resolution of disputes. A similar bill has been introduced in the House, but the Judiciary Committee has yet to do anything with it. There has been little sign of progress so far on the GMO labeling issue. But Randy Russell, who has led the industry lobbying for legislation to preempt state labeling laws, says that “clearly there is growing pressure for the Senate to find a compromise.” Since the preemption bill stalled in the Senate on March 16, four major food companies have announced plans to begin labeling their products in compliance with the Vermont labeling law, which takes effect July 1. Starting this morning, we’d like to capture what you are seeing when Daybreak arrives in your inbox each morning. Daybreak will be featuring a photo from one of our readers each week. Whether you are in the nation’s capital or Iowa, California, Texas, Georgia or Hawaii, we would like to share your Daybreak photos with the rest of our readers. Send your photos to philip@agri-pulse.com. This first photo comes from Lynn Tjeerdsma, a senior policy adviser to Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who captured this view from his balcony overlooking the Potomac River. Renegotiating trade Trump's first priority. Donald Trump’s latest eye-opening pronouncements are that the nation faces a “massive recession” and he can erase the entire federal debt of $19 trillion in eight years. But he also said in an interview with the Washington Post that he would use his first three months in office to do something slightly more doable - renegotiating trade policy with Mexico, China, Japan and - as he put it — “all of these countries that are just absolutely destroying us.” Trump also emphasized that U.S. trade policy played a key role in his decision to run for president. “I felt that we were doing some of the worst trade deals ever,” Trump said. Agri-Pulse Daybreak for May 4, 2016 Agri-Pulse Daybreak for April 29, 2016 Trump doesn’t appear to have any intention of pivoting away from the trade issue or backing off his opposition to NAFTA or the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Pediatricians, rice growers welcome arsenic limit. The American Academy of Pediatrics has joined the rice industry in endorsing the Food and Drug Administration’s proposed new limit on the amount of inorganic arsenic that can be in rice. The cap of 100 parts per billion is higher than some consumer activists wanted. But the pediatricians group said manufacturers of infant cereals should act without delay to comply with the new limit. Gerber Products, which controls about 80 percent of the market for infant rice cereal, already meets the limit, according to USA Rice Federation. Further decline in land prices seen. Farmland values could be down as much as 18 percent this year – down from their peak in 2013 - because of continued declines in commodity prices, according to a quarterly analysis of the farm economy by MetLife Investment Management. The report says that commodity prices should turn the corner by the end of the year and likely prevent the drop in land values from being any steeper. The reason the analysts don’t expect commodity prices going lower is that they expect a La Niña later this year to produce drier weather through the major grain producing regions in North and South America. That would serve to depress crop yields in Brazil and Argentina as well as the United States. Corn futures tumbled 20 cents a bushel after USDA projected on Thursday that producers would plant 93.6 million acres of corn this week, a 6 percent jump over 2015. Brazil boosts biodiesel mandate. Brazil is raising its biodiesel mandate from the current 7 percent to 10 percent by 2019, USDA reports. Legislation that was recently signed into law also will require testing on the feasibility of increasing the mandate to 15 percent. The mandate was originally set at 2 percent in 2008. Brazil used about 1.1 billion gallons of biodiesel last year, compared to 2.2 billion gallons in the United States. He said it. “If EPA feels like it’s not really a land grab, then why did they ever put it forward”—Kendal Frasier, CEO of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, in an Agri-Pulse Open Mic interview on the Obama administration’s “waters of the U.S.” rule. Philip Brasher	cc/2021-04/en_head_0022.json.gz/line825

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