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__label__wiki	0.600506	0.600506	THE NEW EDITION OF GIORGIO ARMANI FILMS OF CITY FRAMES: TECH SAVVY AND INTERACTIVE Film of City Frames, the initiative promoted by Giorgio Armani in collaboration with Luxottica and Rai Cinema, comes this year in its third edition. The project gives young emerging filmmakers the opportunity to test their authorial skills in an international context, bringing on stage frames of their world focused through their camera and the eyewear of the collection “Frames of Life”. Video of YWpotEPvFa8 Always keen to appeal to new generations and interested in the opportunities offered by new digital technology, Giorgio Armani chose to present the third edition of Films of City Frames at the heart of South by Southwest Conference and Festivals (Austin, Texas), one of the most innovative arenas for visual creativity which combines film, music and new interactive technologies. Five emerging filmmakers presented their work on this cutting-edge stage: five short films in which Frames of Life eyewear are the main instruments through which they observe reality, capture emotions and experience new adventures, highlighting the variety of points of views and contacts between people, beyond geographical boundaries and cultural diversity. During the event, visitors could experience an immersive setting. By entering a “dome” temporarily built at the center of the festival, they could access to content related to the short films on 360° screens, and discover backstage information about crews as well as about the featured eyewear styles through ten giant, interactive touch screens. Thanks to digital technology, this year Films of City Frames has been able to reach an international audience with new momentum. To encourage interaction to take place also outside the “dome”, a chatbot guide (a computer program that simulates conversation with human users) was launched within a special installation created by Giorgio Armani. It has allowed visitors to explore content in real time and participate in a competition to win Giorgio Armani sunglasses, first through an online quiz based on the short films screened and then with a selfie taken on the spot. The chatbot was also available on Armani’s Facebook page, enabling users to interact with Films of City Frames content even if they were not located in Austin. The film schools involved this year were the Prague Film School (Prague, Czech Republic), the Beijing Film Academy (Beijing, China), the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Ludwigsburg, Germany), the Tisch School of Film and Television (Tel Aviv, Israel) and Emerson College (Boston, USA). The exceptional mentor for this edition was British actor Dev Patel, who became famous throughout the world for his lead role in “Slumdog Millionaire” and was nominated for an Oscar in 2017 for his supporting role in “Lion.” Visit Giorgio Armani website Visit Films of City Frames website Follow Giorgio Armani on Facebook Follow Giorgio Armani on Twitter Follow Giorgio Armani on Instagram Follow Giorgio Armani on Pinterest Follow Giorgio Armani on Youtube Frames of Life 2016: Different Eyes, Different Lives Talents of great. Beauty Published on Apr 06 2017	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1514
__label__wiki	0.981495	0.981495	Frederic Bourdillon Frederic Bourdillon was born to a Jewish family in Grass, France, in March 1991. He played on the French youth team and at an early age joined INSEP, France's national sporting institute where stars such as Tony Parker, Boris Diao and Evan Fournier were also trained. He started his professional career with Antibes, won the French Cup with Chalon and also moved to Etouille Charleville and Rueil before returning to Antibes. In September 2017, Bourdillon signed with Maccabi Haifa and later continued the season with Hapoel Eilat. In June 2018, he signed a new contract in the southern city and last season helped it reach the Israeli Final Four, where he and his teammates lost to Maccabi in the semi-finals. Last October, Bourdillon signed with Maccabi Rishon Lezion on a two-month contract with an extension option. The team was pleased with the guard and in January granted him a one-and-a-half-year contract extension, but the season's pause due to the Corona epidemic also left him at home and away from the basketball court. Last season with Eilat Bourdillon played 32 games, averaged 24.1 minutes per night and provided 8.7 points (57% for 2pt, 40% for 3pt) along with 2.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.1 steals. This season with Rishon he contributed 7.2 points, 2.1 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.5 assists in 24.9 minutes per game. Euroleague Israel League Israeli Cup League Cup Winner League Elijah Bryant Scottie Wilbekin Quincy Acy Angelo Caloiaro Othello Hunter Sandy Cohen III Omri Casspi Deni Avdija Amit Aharoni Tyler Dorsey John DiBartolomeo Dori Sahar Harel Rinski Yonatan Atias Amar'e Stoudemire Yovel Zoosman	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1515
__label__wiki	0.558633	0.558633	This Just In - Top Chef Masters! I had read that there is going to be a new Top Chef show called Top Chef Masters, but I hadn't seen any details until now...and I'm going to share them with you. Sounds a lot like the regular Top Chef, but with "world-renowned chefs." NEW YORK – February 11, 2009 – As previously announced and on the heels of the highest rated season yet for the Emmy and James Beard Award-winning No. 1 food show on cable, "Top Chef," comes the spin-off "Top Chef Masters," produced by the Magical Elves with consulting producer Tom Colicchio. Food journalist Kelly Choi will serve as the series' host, and renowned restaurant critic Gael Green, culinary expert James Oseland and food critic Jay Rayner will serve as judges. The show will feature 24 world-renowned chefs competing against each other in a series of weekly challenges, as only one chef will make it to the finals to compete for the title of "Top Chef Master" and a prize for the charity of their choice. "Top Chef lovers rejoice, Bravo and the Magical Elves are teaming up again to bring more of what our fans love most, fabulous food and tasty competition – and this time we're adding world-renowned chefs competing against each other to the menu," said Frances Berwick, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Bravo Media. Kelly Choi, food journalist and creator, producer and host of NYC TV's weekly restaurant show, "Eat Out NY," will host this highly competitive spin-off uniting some of the brightest stars in the world of food, showcasing the often cutthroat world of the culinary arts. A former model, Choi recently finished her book called "The 20 Most Delicious Dishes in New York," which is set to hit stores in spring of 2009. Joining the judges' panel is Gael Green, New York Magazine's famed restaurant critic for over 40 years, a best-selling author and co-founder of Citymeals-on-Wheels, which provides food to the homebound elderly. Along with Green is James Oseland, culinary expert and Editor-in-Chief of Saveur magazine, and British journalist, writer and broadcaster Jay Rayner, who will also serve as regular judges for the series. Each episode of "Top Chef Masters" holds two challenges for the chefs. The first is a twist on the classic quickfire challenge which tests their basic abilities and the second is a more involved elimination challenge designed to test the versatility and invention of the chefs as they take on unique culinary trials such as working with unusual and exotic foods or catering for a range of demanding clients. The food will be tasted and evaluated by the judges and a wide range of tasters for whom the challenge is aimed, whether it is patrons at a five-star restaurant or a room full of hungry kids – the food has to appeal to the diner as well as the critics if the chef is to survive. Labels: Top Chef, Top Chef Masters Sotto Sopra Restaurant said... Yeh!!!! Kit Pollard said... It'll be really interesting to see what they do about time limits. Also whether or not the cheftestants succumb to the standard reality TV drama. God, I hope they do. Um, No Thanks Thoughts on Top Chef by Toby Young Oohh...Harsh, Casey! Boobs and Burgers Interview with Stefan Top Chef New York Finale Craft Steak Marcoisms Top Chef Finale Previews! Top Chef Contest! Top Chef New York Episode Thirteen, AKA Finale Par... Vote for Top Chef! Fondue and Tarte Tatin Where's the Recap? From the Horse's Mouth Hamburger? Menu Misspellings Missing Gail? "Dangerous" Chocolate Cake Top Chef New York Episode Twelve Chicken + Waffles Poll Results - Your Choice for Top Three Restaurant Week - Lunch at Germano's Talk About Indigestion Top Chef New York Episode Eleven Super Bowl Supper Coming Up on Top Chef...	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1516
__label__wiki	0.977128	0.977128	`Project Runway` back, new MBC drama on the way Published : Mar 29, 2010 - 23:25 Updated : Mar 29, 2010 - 23:25 <**1> On Style`s "Project Runway Korea 2" and a brand new MBC weekend series, "Dandelion Family," are hitting the small screen this Saturday. Last February, cable channel On Style brought audiences a local version of the hit fashion reality show "Project Runway." According to a press release, the first season nabbed top viewer ratings for its timeslot. The show, whose format was purchased from Project Runway`s international distributor FremantleMedia, featured 14 contestants. The top three finalists sent their designs down a spring fashion show catwalk in the hopes of winning an Elle Korea spread, a top class sedan, and 50 million won ($36,191). Season 2 promises to stay true to the show`s format. Every week, contestants will complete to determine who will get to stay another week. The top three finalists will work on their collections for approximately three months before showcasing their work during Seoul Fashion Week this spring. Season one model-cum-emcee Lee Sora and fellow judges ANDY & DEBB head designer Kim Seok-won and Elle Korea editor-in-chief Shin Yoo-jin will be returning, along with season one mentor, Hongik University Department of Textile Art and Fashion Design professor Kan Ho-sup. Though the basic format will remain the same, some changes have been instituted. According to a press release, 15, not 14, contestants will be competing for the top prize. The award money has been bumped up to 70 million won ($60, 743), a significant increase from last year`s 50 million won. Furthermore, the Seoul Metropolitan Government will be acting as co-organizer and the Seoul Business Agency (Seoul Fashion Center) as co-supervisor. The primary factor, however, that will determine the success or failure of the second season lies in the contestants and their designs. Judging from the previews that have been airing on On Style, the new group of designers promises to be even more entertaining than the last bunch. But will their designs be better? "Project Runway Korea 2" airs Saturday at midnight on On Style. language="JavaScript"src="/khjs/banner/article_340.js"> For the three major broadcast networks, weekend programming tends to involve family dramas. MBC`s latest addition is no exception to the rule. Titled "Dandelion Family," the new series charts the lives of three very different sisters; from the eldest (played by "A Man and A Woman" actress Song Seon-mi), who boasts a picture perfect marriage, on the outside at least, to the second eldest (played by singer and actress Maya), the one who never could quite live up to her older sister, and ends up pregnant and married to her college sweetheart, against her mother`s wishes. The youngest, played by "No Limit" and reality show "Just Married" actress Lee Yoon-ji, unlike her wedded siblings, does not want to enter into the institute of marriage. When asked to compare her role as Hye-won to herself at a press conference last week, actress Lee said: "I think that her desire to avoid marriage, I think that is different from my own personality. I want to get married." "In this project my character is also a perfectionist," Lee referenced her past roles in "No Limit" and "Just Married." "But I think you will get to see how I end up stabbing my own father in the back with Jae-ha (her character`s love interest)." "Coffee Prince" actor Kim Dong-wook will be taking on the role of Jae-ha, a character who does not buy into the practice of marriage but must get hitched if he wants to receive his inheritance in advance. Actor Kim and the cast and crew of "Dandelion Family" face some stiff competition with the hit KBS series, "Three Brothers." According to news reports, viewer ratings for "Three Brothers" are now well into the 30th percentile. When asked about the rival KBS drama, director Lim Tae-woo answered: "We have met a very powerful enemy." At a round table interview during the press conference, Kim Dong-wook, Lee Yoon-ji, Maya and co-star Jung Woo fielded one last question. A reporter asked them what ratings they expect or hope to bring in. Kim Dong-wook quipped: "Oh, we shouldn`t have fielded that last question." Co-star Maya stepped up and said: "This drama`s greatest weapon lies in its ability to get people to relate to it. Like the director said, if we follow the script and act accordingly then we can tug at (our audience`s) heartstrings." "Dandelion Family" first airs on MBC at 7:55 p.m. on Saturday. (oh_jean@heraldcorp.com) By Jean Oh Koreans defend kimchi, ssam against China	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1519
__label__wiki	0.948155	0.948155	RCEP trade pact expected to support Hallyu expansion By Song Seung-hyun Leaders and trade ministers of 15 Asia-Pacific nations posing for a virtual group photo during the 4th Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Summit (Yonhap) The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism expects the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which South Korean President Moon Jae-in signed Sunday with his counterparts from 14 partner countries, to set the stage for the expansion of Hallyu. “We expect this deal to improve the environment for the expansion of Hallyu content in member countries and also provide legal grounds for (cultural content) exporters,” Culture Minister Park Yang-woo said in a statement. Park also added that the ministry would continue to actively participate in bilateral and multilateral FTA negotiations in the future. The RCEP involves 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as well as South Korea, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The Culture Ministry said the RCEP would lower trade barriers in the game, audiovisual and tourism markets in Japan and Southeast Asian countries, which account for 70 percent of the export market for Korean content creators. The ministry pointed to the gaming industry as an example of a market that is likely to benefit from this deal, saying it removes uncertainties stemming from changing import policies in countries such as Japan, the Philippines and Malaysia. According to the deal, Japan agreed to fully open all of its cultural services markets, except for the audiovisual post-production and broadcasting sectors. The Philippines agreed to remove all barriers to foreign investment in its gaming industry, while also allowing up to 51 percent foreign capital in the animation, music and TV production sectors. Malaysia agreed to open up the internet and mobile gaming industry, and Thailand will increase its foreign capital limit to 49 percent for the music production industry. For the tourism industry, the ministry said, all the trade barriers in Japan and Myanmar have been removed under the RCEP. The deal also set regional norms for copyright protection in countries that have not signed the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty or the Performances and Phonograms Treaty, the Culture Ministry added. By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heraldcorp.com)	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1520
__label__wiki	0.688692	0.688692	In Defence of October Socialism and War On the Eve of 1917 Alexander Shlyapnikov 1917 The February Revolution of 1917 Russia before 1917 Scandinavia and England Scandinavia and America Back to Petersburg The Journey to Tornio was pure relaxation. Early autumn is so beautiful among the lakes and forests, the gentle hills and plains. I got to the frontier just before dawn. On the instructions of the gendarme I crossed to the far side of the Tornio-ioki river, stayed the night there, leaving my things at the gendarme’s guard-post, and in the morning when passage over the border was permitted, accompanied by the good wishes and kind assistance of the gendarmes, walked across the long wooden bridge to the Swedish frontier settlement of Haparanda. At that time the railway had been laid only as far as Karunki, some thirty kilometres north of Haparanda. With the launching of hostilities in the west all contact with abroad began to be made across this border. In the towns along both sides of the frontier hotels had already appeared, but communications between Haparanda and Karunki were maintained by an enterprising motorist. The region was on a war footing, and assiduous agitation was being conducted in favour of Sweden’s entry into the war against Russia. The attitude towards myself, as a “Frenchman”, was trusting, but Russians were somewhat feared and suspected of being spies. Waiting for the train at the border, I spent several hours in the hotel chatting to some Swedish officers. They were engaged in strengthening their frontier against an expected Russian invasion. All the officers were ecstatic about the victories of the German forces. They were quite carried away by German tactics, weaponry and the general organization of their army. They had an extremely vague notion of Russia but had no doubts about the future defeat of her army. The route from Karunki to Stockholm lay first through impassable, unpopulated marshland and forests and between mountains and ravines. Many troops were in the area, hastily building barracks. At Boden, a fortified region of northern Sweden, surveillance of passing foreigners had been mounted and they were not allowed to travel outside the town. Not far from the town there were mines. Along the line we passed many special wagons loaded with ore. It was all heading for Lulea, a Swedish port on the Gulf of Bothnia where it was loaded on to German vessels and sent to the blast furnaces. The industrial and underground workers in this district backed the left wing of the Swedish party, the “young socialists”. In many towns they had their own social-democratic newspapers and buildings which accommodated social clubs, canteens and workers’ organizations. At Stockholm I was met by the emigrants I had known from Berlin, such as Kollontai and others. The large colony of Russian Mensheviks from Berlin had moved to Stockholm. They included Y. Larin (M. Lurie), the Levin brothers, Uritsky, Seydler and others. There were a few emigrants from Russia, but they were mainly soldiers and sailors from the Finland garrison who had fled following the celebrated Sveaborg rising of 1906. In Stockholm there was a common organization of Menshevik and Bolshevik social democrats, which had been joined by all the Russians who had moved out of the belligerent countries. Among the Mensheviks the position of international socialism had been adopted by Kollontai, Uritsky and the printer N. Gordon (a Bundist). The emigrant workers were all on the side of the minority of Swedish social democracy and consequently joined the Stockholm group of Bolshevik social democrats. Immediately upon arrival in Sweden I set about carrying out my assignments. I established contact with the foreign section of the Central Committee, sent the reply to Vandervelde’s telegram on to the central organ, Sotsial-Demokrat, and wrote to Lenin and Zinoviev, briefing them on the state of affairs in Russia. I wrote up several reports which were included in our Sotsial-Demokrat and other newspapers abroad. I received information and directives for forwarding to Russia from the Central Committee. Parts of my letter to the Central Committee were published in the central organ in the form of reports on a number of issues. The war caught us in a period of struggle. Mobilization was announced when proletarian blood had still not been washed off the streets. We greeted the declaration of war with secret hopes for the mighty power of German social democracy, from which we awaited the initiative for an active struggle against the war. The Russian press and refugees most kindly kept us informed on the course of the “negotiations” and the conduct of the Germans. Each report was more horrifying than the one before. It was unbelievable that the German social democrats could fall so low as to march hand in hand with Kaiserism ... even if in the name of the “struggle against Russian tsarism”. Such support the Russian revolution neither sought nor wished for. Throughout the city, and throughout Russia too, the news was spread about that Wilhelm was counting chiefly upon a Russian revolution. The behaviour of the Germans, or rather their betrayal of the international solidarity of workers, and the decision of the Stuttgart Congress and also the whole situation deprived us of the possibility of coming out actively against the war during the first week of mobilization. Democracy reacted to the question of the war differently from the proletariat. The views of democracy were fairly accurately expressed by the Trudovik group. And this viewpoint was shared by certain “Marxist” intellectuals too. We, Petersburg workers, are all the while trying, and, despite the difficult conditions, succeeding in maintaining an internationalist standpoint. A nationalist approach to the question cannot find sympathy in our circles. We can think of one thing only: the necessity of a “government of the proletariat” and an authoritative voice against the war which might be able to break through the thick skull of German reformism. Arrests are taking place over the struggle against the war. About a month ago a proclamation was put out with an appeal for an armed struggle against the war. Afterwards, eighty people were arrested. Some were accused of composing it. They are all in custody. Sotsial-Demokrat, no.33, 1/11/14. The liquidationist intelligentsia have been strongly infected by jingo patriotic tendencies. Many of them did not wish to hear of any war. But at the very point when we were terrorized by the military machine they were the first to “adjust” to the demands of the hour and hold collections for benevolent societies jointly with the factory managements. But this was unsuccessful with workers. We on the Vyborg bank opposed this with a demand for state support for the families of those who had left for the war. We decided moreover to organize collections in aid of “war victims” having in mind aid for the families of comrades who had gone off to the war and aid for unemployed and convicts. But all this could be done only where we were able to take matters into our own hands and not surrender our resources to the “societies”. At certain works (Neva Mechanical, Neva Stearin, Obukhov and Semenov) there were percentage deductions. These are run by the management and workers. Beyond the Neva Gate money is going to the local orphanage which is a great shame. Thanks to the activity of our worker comrades the liquidationists are not having any success. Even bellicose-minded liquidationists quickly soften their tone when they run into their workers. The “liberation of the Slavs” is meeting very little success with workers. Many wish in secret for the victory of the French, British and Belgians but would be content with their own country’s defeat. It must be noted that the confused situation which is being thus further confused by all and sundry has had a very serious effect upon workers. Accounts and tales about German atrocities even if qualified are given a certain credit by workers as there used to be German foremen and engineers and others in many firms who enjoyed the reputation of boors. Chauvinism cannot be sensed in working-class circles and will not, I think, take root in spite of the “work” of the venal press. In the provinces the mood is less clearly defined but there is much grief and poverty. The war is tolerated but unpopular. Sotsial-Demokrat, no.35, 12/12/14. I think you received my letters after the Petersburg barricades with the detailed description of the state of affairs. I shall not dwell on the individual peripeteia of that struggle which cost us some 1,000 arrests. A few days or perhaps a week prior to the declaration of war all the guardsmen and other forces returned from their camps to Petersburg. We thought at first that this was for the “maintenance of order” but then we sensed the spectre of an approaching war. The majority of factories and plants were closed. The syndicate of industrialists had decided to punish us with a “nice little lock-out” until about 22 to 25 July. But the advent of mobilization prompted the government to demand that manufacturers reopen their plants to placate the workers and this was done from 16 and 17 July. Many workers were on the verge of dispersing to their homes on the outskirts and only learned of the start back some time later. Mobilization was announced on the night of Saturday 19th with the call to report to local police stations at 6 o’clock next morning. When we arrived at the factories we could see that at least forty per cent of the male workforce was absent. Without changing they went out into the streets of the Vyborg bank singing revolutionary songs and shouting: “Down with the war!” All the Bolshoi Sampsonievski Prospekt was overflowing with people who had left their work. There was the weeping of women and the wail of lamentation at the assembly points. Sometimes the voices of individual women shouted through their tears “Down!” but most just wept ... The war had caught us organized workers unawares. On the very first day of mobilization a proclamation was hastily written and hectographed which said that the culprit for the war was the predatory politics of capitalism. It pointed out that the German, Austrian, French and British workers had always fought and are still fighting against the war into which Russian workers and peasants had been dragged by tsarism which had suffered a reverse in its Far Eastern adventure and wished to regain ground in the Near East. It pointed out that the Russian government was lying when it said it was marching to free the Slavs as, within its own country, it kept the people in complete slavery. The leaflet ended with an appeal for a struggle for the democratic republic and a declaration of war on the war. The leaflet was to have been printed but the equipment was seized. During the first days after mobilization the centre of Petersburg was swamped with officially-inspired patriotic demonstrations against which we had to conduct a struggle by trying to turn them from “patriotic” to “red”. This involved a few clashes. At a time when the city had taken on the look of a military camp we could have undertaken something bold but we had no decisions from the organization for that. We would not of course have been sure of success as we could have been isolated, for all means of communication had been placed under military control and there was no contact with the rest of the country. And when later a Petersburg Committee leaflet came out with a call to stock arms and fight actively we found ourselves greatly weakened for any sort of political action because of the departure of the reservists. We keenly felt the impact of the wartime terror in the shape of the “state of war”. Reservists working in the metalworking industries have been released from military service in cases where they worked in enterprises fulfilling government contracts. That applied to nearly all Petersburg’s metallurgical and engineering industry. But this sector of the Petersburg working class was still under military conscription and so was governed by military regulations. Once they “adjusted” to the state of war the mood became more buoyant and people started to think and work towards resurrecting their ailing organizations. The German social democrats’ betrayal had at first a depressing effect upon the general mood. The fact was that although we had all been internationally-minded we did not have any opportunity to draw on any facts of the internationalism of workers in Austria and Germany in our propaganda. Their behaviour untied the hands of the diffident elements and the Russian opportunists and knocked the ground from under the feet of us Bolshevik workers. The news of our Paris Bolsheviks going off in the army, the “cosy chats” by that old man of Geneva, Plekhanov, and the situation as a whole also casts quite a gloomy shadow across our heads. The individual nationalists decided to “support” the government in the hope of obtaining perks or indulgences. The (bourgeois) Jews offered prayers for victory in the synagogues and in Petersburg marched with the Tsar’s portrait; they joined up as volunteers and, in Odessa, fell upon the necks of the Pelicanovites. All this is utterly repulsive and false. As before, the Jews are harassed and there has been no “appeal” from the Tsar to them. All is also patriotic among the Armenians while among Ukrainians there is discontent over the “liberation” of Galicia. The Young Turks’ party had made a proposal to the Georgians to stay neutral in the event of Russia declaring war and promised autonomy for them and the Transcaucasian region in exchange but the Georgian social democrats declined to negotiate. The Germans had offered Finland to Sweden and yet promised their services to the Finns tf they took a stand against Russia. But the congress of Finnish social democracy resolved to win improvements in Finland’s condition through joint efforts with the Russian revolutionary people and decided to fight against the sectional interests of a part of the Swedish bourgeoisie. I got in touch with the Swedish social democrats, who had at that time a single organizational apparatus despite the disagreements that were tearing it apart. I became acquainted with that marvellous comrade, Fredrik Strom, the party’s secretary and a member of the Upper Chamber and the leader of the young social democrats. We talked in a mixture of German and French. In a brief space of time I also got to know other leaders of the “young men”, as the left social democrats were called there: Zeth Höglund, the favourite of Swedish revolutionary social-democratic workers, the mayor of Stockholm, Carl Lindhagen, Karl Kilbom, the talented linguist Hans Scheld, and others. They were all very interested in the revolutionary movement in our country. My report that the majority of Russian social-democratic workers had taken an anti-militarist stance was greatly welcomed. They personally offered active participation in my work on communications with Russia. The young Swedish social democrats were staunch anti-militarists. But their anti-militarist ideology contained a lot of bourgeois “pacifism”. The ultimate slogan of Scandinavian left social democrats was “lay down the weapons”, conscientious objection and other such Tolstoyisms. This stemmed partly from the situation of these extremely small countries, where (in Sweden in particular) the bourgeoisie were very militaristic. In that country especially, the army had clearly showed that it existed not so much to guard against invasion from the north as for domestic purposes. With great curiosity I went to a meeting with Hjalmar Branting, the old leader of Scandinavian social democracy and an equally old opportunist of the Second International. I found him during a session of the party’s Central Committee. Tall, grey, with a kind but firm expression on his face and bushy eyebrows over deep-set intelligent eyes, he made a formidable impression. My official proposal to publish our Duma faction’s reply to Vandervelde’s telegram and to send it to other countries was put to the Central Committee that same day and approved. I made a formal report to their Central Committee on the situation in our country and the attitudes to the war of the different social classes. From our exchange of opinions it was easy to discern Branting’s own views on the recent events. Our negative attitude to the war and the rejection of any support whatsoever for the tsarist government’s war machine was “appreciated” by Branting, but he did not wish to appreciate or share our criticism of the parties of Germany, Austria and France which had betrayed international decisions and the whole spirit of socialist teaching. He adopted the standpoint of “defence”. He subordinated the theoretical approach towards wars in our time to questions of strategy. The one who was the first to fire, to cross a line called a frontier, was the offender and thus to blame for the war. Branting condemned the Germans for their conduct but at the same time he tried to “appreciate” their position, and readily accepted that the German social democrats were acting on the assumption of a threatened onslaught by tsarist forces. His position was a hopeless one, denying as it did any opportunity for the proletariat to act in concert yet providing the “diplomats” of socialism with “principles” for establishing the “culprit” of the war. In his own country, however, Branting waged an energetic struggle against the bourgeoisie’s Germanophilia and efforts to drag Sweden into the war. But this struggle was not founded on a fight against chauvinism itself but on the desire to rebuff Germanophile chauvinism and replace it with Francophilia. Despite our differences and my sharp criticism of the opportunists, we parted friends, and Branting promised all kinds of assistance for my work for Russia. The activity of the leaders of the Scandinavian socialist parties in the remaining “neutral” countries (Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden) amounted to diplomatic mediation between the “sparring brothers”. They tried all ways of prevailing on their own governments to make official offers of peaceful mediation. However, the capitalists in the belligerent countries quickly let it be understood that they were in earnest until the utter rout of one or the other. Meanwhile, the neutral countries strove to exhibit their “neutrality” by avoiding upsetting either of the warring blocs. This common fear brought the small countries into a military and political alliance. Our Revolutionary Work and Diplomacy by the Conciliators Thanks to the large number of businessmen and emigrants liable to conscription returning to Russia, communications with Petersburg were pretty fair. At first I managed to have letters sent direct, via passengers on the steamers plying between Stockholm and the Finnish ports of Turku and Rauma, but with the extension of hostilities and the onset of winter these means could not be used. Likewise tighter measures were being taken at the frontiers and passengers were thoroughly searched. All this had to be taken into account and secure communication lines found. In my attempts to organize transport I made the acquaintance of leading figures in the Swedish trade unions. Sweden’s trade unions were organized on the model of the German and were akin to them in tactics. The trade-union movement was considerable and already had rich experience of combat. I got to know the chairman of their centre and some metalworkers, tanners and transport workers. The representative of the latter, Charles Lindley, a great admirer of the English transport workers’ union, gave me great help in organizing links with Finland. He was acquainted with fishermen and seamen along the entire Gulf of Bothnia and I managed to confirm the possibility of arranging transport by smuggling across the gulf, which could be done on quite a large scale providing that there was money. I reported this to the Petersburg Committee and the Duma faction, but received the sad news that they were not in a position to give the necessary sum of some 300 to 500 rubles a month. It was hard enough for them to send out money for my keep, and, having once sent me 100 rubles, the comrades recommended that I arrange all my own expenses. I could not even begin to think of finding work, as those first months of war had caused great unemployment in Sweden and the plants were operating only a few days per week. No opportunity presented itself of finding resources in the local emigrant community, although there were a lot of speculative racketeers there. Our party’s foreign-based Central Committee was too poor to allocate such a sum for this operation. In order to keep the work going I resorted to loans and sent back news only occasionally. During the first days of November issue no. 33 of Sotsial-Demokrat came out, and we had to think about how to deliver it to Russia. For this I decided to make use of my cobbler acquaintances. In view of the searches at the border, people returning to Russia were refusing to carry anything compromising and we had to think about concealment. There were many methods: in trunks, book bindings, dresses, umbrellas, walking-sticks, footwear and so on. I fancied footwear. I gave my boots to a cobbler who had been specially recommended and worked in strict secrecy, and suggested that he cut hollows inside the heels and soles and fill them up with the thin issues of Sotsial-Demokrat. I broke them in so that they did not seem too newly mended. Into that first pair went a small number of copies which were sent by roundabout routes to Petrovsky in Petersburg. The cobbler comrade subsequently became so adept that he could tuck up to twenty copies away in each pair of shoes. The appearance of our party’s printed organ with its leading articles defining the position of revolutionary social democracy on the war, and the spread of news from Russia and the Duma faction’s reply to Vandervelde’s telegram, published in the Scandinavian press, stirred up all the forces hostile to the Russian revolution. There were in the emigrant circles of Stockholm at that time some inveterate enemies of our party such as Messrs liquidators Larin (M. Lurie), the Organizing Committee’s representative and correspondent of Russkie Vedomosti, Levin (Dalin) and others. These men harboured a deep hatred towards me personally, even though I was not acquainted with them. All my reports on Russia and the news I had received direct from Petersburg were greeted by these people with an incomprehensible hostility. They, and Yuri Larin in particular, ran around the Swedish party comrades systematically undermining confidence in our party and our illegal organizations in Russia. But their endeavours were not crowned with success. The young social democrats soon realized with whom their interests lay and attached no importance to Larin’s intrigues. I was to be frequently amazed at the opportunism of this sick man. [1] At the end of October 1914 the diehard opportunist, Troelstra, the leader of the Dutch social democrats, arrived in Stockholm. He had come with a special assignment doubtless entrusted to him by the German social democrats. This was to obtain agreement for the transfer of the International Socialist Bureau to Amsterdam, and also to clarify the vacillating sympathies of opportunist Scandinavian socialism about why the Germans had been right to “defend their fatherland”. Troelstra had conveyed via the Swedish party his desire to meet me as representative of the RSDLP. I agreed. The meeting was held in a hotel, and the OC representative, Larin, had been informed; he arrived accompanied by Dalin, Kollontai and others came too. I gave him information about Russia and handed him our “Manifesto” and the letter to Vandervelde. Troelstra asked me to convey to him, in letter form, the attitude of Petersburg workers to the war and also an explanation as to why Russian revolutionaries were treating the current war differently from the Russo-Japanese War. I have preserved the rough draft of this letter, which runs as follows: You ask me to write to you about what the Petersburg proletariat thinks about the German socialists’ view of the question of the “struggle against tsarism”. I must above all, dear comrades, state to you that the declaration of war caught us workers of Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Baku and other industrial centres at a moment of active economic and political movement. A few days before there had been barricades in Petersburg. On mobilization day protesting masses of workers marched through the city with red banners as they escorted reservists to the assembly points. In those first days we Petersburg workers could not somehow believe in the possibility of war. We knew that on the other side of the frontier there were powerful cadres of organized workers who would neither permit nor allow themselves to be pushed into bloody clashes with each other. So how could anyone in the International doubt our readiness for self-sacrifice? But sad news reached us. We saw the great German social democracy betraying socialism and international solidarity. Reports also reached us that the German General Staff was banking on winning its victory over the Russian forces with the aid of our revolution. We likewise knew that our former teachers (Kautsky and co.) had treacherously cloaked German imperialism in the toga of “liberator” of the Russian people. We knew too well the nature of this war to trust and enter into a deal with the bourgeois government of this or that country. Our government is also coming forward in the role of “liberator” of Slavdom while keeping its own multi-millioned people in ignorance and disenfranchised. But however dreadful the conditions of our life might be today with the complete absence of our press, our working class is, with the exception of certain individuals, as far from chauvinism as it is from trusting the Tsar’s government. We are as deeply indignant at French “democracy’s” exchange of kisses with Russian tsarism as we are gladdened by the fact that away in a country cut off by the seas there is a section of the party of the British socialists which, amid the universal debauchery, has not forgotten the ABC of socialism but is fighting with every means against the greedy passions of British imperialism. You are surprised that “Russian society” and Russian revolutionaries have modified their attitude to the war now being waged by tsarism, and especially incomprehensible to you is the contradiction between the attitude of “Russian society” to the war against Japan against which it protested to a man and its attitude today when it is apparently wholly reassured by and reconciled with tsarism in this sorry world drama. Above all, dear comrade, I should tell you that the Russian socialists’ attitude of principle to the war has remained one and the same but the situation in our country has changed substantially. Above all we have lived through a revolutionary period in which the counter-revolutionary and cowardly nature of Russian liberalism clearly exposed itself. The Russo-Japanese War met with a negative response from the Russian bourgeoisie because Manchuria and the other Far Eastern territories had no interest for capital because of their remoteness and small populations and therefore that war was looked upon as a dynastic enterprise, an adventure by the Tsar’s camarilla which profiteered out of forests. The current war, though fought in the name of the liberty of Galicia, the French Republic and Belgian democracy, also has a dynastic interest for Russian tsarism but for the Russian landowners and capitalists it has an economic interest too. Tsarism is seeking salvation from approaching revolution in the idea of a “Greater Russia” while capitalism and landowner interests are seeking the passage through the Dardanelles and a revision of the trade agreement between Germany and Russia whose interests were sold off in 1904 by the diplomats of the Tsar to the benefit of German capitalism. It is only that which can really explain the “change” in so-called Russian society from which, however, the proletariat should be excluded. The German socialists’ surprise that we are not rejoicing over their recently announced alliance with their government for a “holy war on Russian tsarism” is nothing but a hypocritical cover for their own betrayal of the International and socialism from the eyes of the masses. We have always been glad to accept a helping hand from comrades in toil and ideas in our arduous struggle against tsarism but we have never demanded nor expected assistance to the Russian revolution from the part of German feudalism and Wilhelm II, the Russian Tsar’s reactionary counsellor and friend. We do not renounce our struggle against Russian tsarism but in that struggle we are counting only upon our own forces. We would ask the German social democrats not to send Wilhelm II with his 420-millimetre gun to our aid but to try to put this war material to use against their own feudal lords just as we hope to use ours against Russian tsarism. The Finns, our brothers in toil, have also given a negative reply to all the ploys of Germany’s bellicose capitalism and take the same standpoint. The revolutionary proletariat of Russia, along with all the oppressed nationalities, hope to emerge victorious without doing deals with any government whatsoever. With comradely greetings, A. Belenin During our exchange of views it became clear that Troelstra was the prevalent type of social chauvinist, the Germanophile. He stressed the liberating role of German social democracy in relation to Russia. I refused to accept the liberating effect of 420-millimetre shells upon Russian workers and peasants. I recommended that these sophisticated appliances be set in action against their own landlords and bourgeoisie, for we had no need for such assistance. I asked him to convey the profound indignation of our workers, in Petersburg and elsewhere, at such a “liberating” provocation and also their greetings to Karl Liebknecht and the comrades standing by him. Larin tried to prove that they, the Mensheviks, Trotskyites, Plekhanovites, Bundists and so on, were “quite the reverse” of the Bolsheviks. Here he told how a special committee had been formed in Warsaw made up of representatives of the Polish Socialist Party (left group), the Social Democracy of Poland and Lithuania (Warsaw opposition), and the Bund. The chief task of this organization was, in his words, “the struggle against Austrophile influences in Polish society”. In actual fact this inter-party council had been organized for an entirely different end. Our Polish comrades were far removed from the Russophile chauvinism ascribed to them by Larin. Their position was akin to ours, and they fought against militarism without respite. Larin’s own contribution could not have conformed better to the theory of “defence of the fatherland”. As a counterweight to my hostile attitude to the Scheidemannite Vorstand (the Central Committee of German Social Democracy), he asked for greetings to be conveyed to the Vorstand on behalf of Chkheidze’s Duma faction, along with assurances of their solidarity etc. Troelstra was unspeakably delighted at this and carefully noted it. The remaining Mensheviks were apparently a little aghast. It was decided as a result of the meetings between the Scandinavian leaders and Troelstra to organize a congress of “socialists of the neutral countries” in December. The socialist parties of the “belligerent countries” received invitations to submit written reports. The American socialists also consented to participate in the congress, which was postponed until 17 January 1915 in order to have them present at the conference. At the end of the autumn of 1914 certain Russian socialists began to be shadowed by the police. I was summoned to the police for a “pass”, as it was explained to me. I had observed local security police posts near the flat. Gatherings at the People’s House were similarly subject to surveillance. Reactionary newspapers, especially Germanophile ones and those published at the expense of the German Embassy, waged a campaign against Russian socialists, suspecting them of espionage and accusing them of plotting and so on. Comrade Kollontai, who had taken quite an active part in the work of the left social democrats and the women’s organizations, was subjected to the sneers of a reactionary Stockholm paper and was honoured by a special denunciation to the police. This was followed by her arrest, trial, imprisonment and deportation to Denmark. I had to be extra careful not to lose my right of residence and freedom of movement within Sweden. Over Kollontai’s case I had to seek the assistance of Branting. He seemed to be angry at this sacrifice to the Swedish police and kept repeating with visible dissatisfaction that she was to blame, for disregarding his advice not to get involved in Swedish political life. But the leftists reminded me that Kollontai’s deportation did not go against Branting’s own wishes. At that time I was discussing with him the possibility of moving the foreign section of the Central Committee to Stockholm. He had assured me that all Russian socialists who had not been accused of acts of terrorism could live freely in Sweden. The Kollontai incident did not square with this promise, but Branting added a new condition: newcomers “should not involve themselves in the local political struggle”. At the Swedish Social Democrats’ Congress On 23 November 1914 the congress of the Swedish party opened. I decided to deliver a message of greeting in which I could throw some light on the Russian revolutionary movement on the eve of the war and during it, and also set out the attitude of the organized proletariat to the war, I managed to do so in the following greeting: Respected comrades, I bring you greetings from the organized proletariat of Russia and its class organization, the RSDLP. I wish the Swedish social democratic party success in its work. At the present time of general decline when the bourgeoisie of nearly all Europe, both west and cast, is, under the guise of “national self-defence”, following a policy of armed conquest, we socialists must carry high our internationalist revolutionary red banner and not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the waves of reformism which has put its theory of the “union of classes” into practice in the present criminal war. We Russian, and in particular Petersburg, workers have followed with great joy your struggle against the current that wished to drag the Swedish people into the world war and we are highly delighted that all the efforts made in that direction by the commercial travellers of militarism have suffered an utter fiasco in your friendly country. Allow me to say a few words about our own workers’ movement which, Starting in 1912, has experienced a period of upsurge and has distinguished itself by an unusual growth of the strike movement and especially the growth of the so-called mass political strikes. To illustrate my point I shall give you some figures concerning our struggle. In 1911 the total number of strikers in our extensive country had reached 105,000 while one year later, in 1912, it had risen to 1,070,000 of which 855,000 were accounted for by political strikes. In 1913 the strike movement was equally widespread: in the course of that year, 1,185,000 employees took part in strikes of which 821,000 were due to political strikes; moreover the official statistics of the Factories Inspectorate are incomplete as they do not cover small-scale industry and state-owned enterprises. The ferocity and persecution of the authorities and organized capital could not break the solidarity of the Russian working class. The current year serves as a graphic example. This year the workers’ struggle sharpened to the extreme. All economic and trade-union conflicts turned quickly into a political movement on account of the government repression. Once again the working class proclaimed its readiness to fight for the republic, the Constituent Assembly and the eight-hour day. In July the political struggle flared up with unusual vigour. The working class of Petersburg answered the government’s bloody provocation with a general strike that in Petersburg alone involved over 250,000 workers. In many areas the city’s streets were covered with barricades and workers’ blood was shed. By now the movement had spread to the rest of the country and took in the Baltic provinces, Poland, the Caucasus, Moscow and the south. But at the very point that our struggle had reached this stage the monster of war advanced upon us. The bourgeoisie sounded the alarm: its fatherland, the fatherland of money-bag, was in danger. Soldiers in grey greatcoats, the sons of peasants and workers, headed for the frontiers. In the days of the mobilization Petersburg workers downed tools and noisily protested against the war. Workers escorted their mobilized workmates to the assembly points singing revolutionary songs and carrying red banners and streamers. We conscious workers had not believed in the possibility of a world war. We had turned our hope-filled eyes towards the west and our organized brothers: the Germans, French and Austrians. We had expected to find support there and hear a mighty summons to struggle against the bourgeoisie’s diabolical plot. But bitter reality brought us something else. The government press and bourgeois newspapers, and also fellow-countrymen fleeing from abroad, informed us of the betrayal committed by the leaders of the powerful German social democracy and later by many others who also looked on things “from the standpoint of national self-defence”. But our social-democratic party has not been consumed by the universal conflagration for it has not forgotten the true causes of today’s war which the imperialist policies of the bourgeois governments of all countries have brought about. The Duma faction has given true expression to the organized proletariat by refusing to vote for the war budget and stressing its negative attitude to the war by leaving the chamber. Many local organizations have issued illegal leaflets on the war (Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Warsaw, the Caucasus and so on). Our party’s Central Committee and its central organ, Sotsial-Demokrat, have entered a fight against international opportunism and call proletarian revolutionary elements in all countries to this struggle in the name of the common interests of the proletariat worldwide. In conclusion I wish the congress of our fraternal party successful work. Long live the Swedish proletariat and its class party, social democracy! Long live the International! For fear of police persecution and upon the advice of the young social democrats, I wrote this speech out and one of them, comrade Scheld, translated it and read it out to the congress. The message caused a stormy clash between the two tendencies, a speech by Branting and Höglund’s protest. I quote here material on this from the congress minutes: Branting takes the floor on a question over which he considers it essential to take a decision. He had just familiarized himself with the text of a greeting, originating from one of the Russian parties, where it speaks of a betrayal by the German party. The speaker points out that it does not befit the congress to express condemnation directed at other parties and considers it necessary that a motion of regret be formally moved with regard to the paragraph inserted in the greetings. Höglund (Stockholm) considers it improper for the congress to adopt such a resolution, because within our own party there are also comrades who regard the Germans’ behaviour as a betrayal. Fie moves that congress does not pass judgement but contents itself with entering Branting’s statement in the minutes. S. Vinberg (Stockholm) considers that we should state merely that the judgement expressed remains the responsibility of the Russians. Branting repeats his demand and asserts that otherwise the misunderstanding will arise that delegates to congress are in sympathy with the aforementioned judgement. The congress defeated Vinberg’s motion and accepted Branting’s by 54 votes to 50. I was personally present at the congress and Branting considered it his duty to explain to me that his statement was necessitated by my direct raising of such an important question as the attitude towards the defence of the fatherland. I replied that was not just my own personal view, but the principled attitude of both our centre and the huge majority of Russia’s organized workers. He and I had, in the main, established “chivalrous relations” though. Branting had given me his address and would do small favours. With his help, I managed to obtain a passport from the French consul which was valid for transit to France, and so on. During the congress of Swedish social democracy we received the report of the arrest of our Duma faction in Petersburg. This event made a deep impression on the delegates to the congress. A resolution of protest was carried. A wave of protest at tsarist barbarity swept across all Scandinavia. I found I had a portrait of comrade Petrovsky on me and it went the rounds of many Scandinavian social-democratic newspapers. The deputies’ arrest greatly impeded our party’s contact with and information from Russia. I had, prior to this, managed to arrange the forwarding of brief commentaries on the international situation, information on the state of affairs in Scandinavia and the anticipated conference of socialist parties of the neutral countries and to send on several letters from Lenin and also some literature (Sotsial-Demokrat, nos. 33 and 34). But news from Russia was very hard to come by. In the middle of November the Menshevik’s reply to Vandervelde’s telegram was received in Stockholm. The document was received by Larin, the OC’s representative, and was kept in strict secrecy, but I still managed to get hold of the actual original with amendments added in Larin’s hand. I quote it here in full: To Minister Vandervelde of Belgium. Dear Comrade, Your telegram reached us allowed through by the war censorship. We greet the Belgian proletariat and yourself, its representative. We know that you, like all the international proletariat, have vigorously opposed the war when it was being prepared by the ruling classes of the great powers. But the war began against the will of the proletariat. In this war your cause is the just cause of self-defence against all those dangers threatening democratic liberties and the liberation struggle of the proletariat emanating from the aggressive policy of Prussian Junkerdom. Irrespective of the asms which the great-power participants in the war are setting themselves, the objective course of events places in question the very existence of that citadel of modern militarism, which also stamps down the liberation struggle of the German proletariat with a heavy heel, namely, Prussian Junkerdom. We are profoundly convinced that along the road to its elimination the socialists of the countries compelled to take part in this war will come together with German social democracy, the glorious vanguard of the international proletariat [and assist it in the task of Germany’s political and social reconstruction]. But, unfortunately, Russia’s proletariat is not in the position that the proletariat of other countries at war with Prussian Junkerdom is in. It is faced with an incomparably more complex and contradictory task than its western comrades. The international situation is further complicated by the fact that in the present war against Prussian Junkerdom another reactionary force is taking part: the Russian government which, by reinforcing itself in the course of the war, may in certain conditions become the focus of all reactionary tendencies in world politics. This possible role for Russia in international relations is closely bound up with the nature of the regime that has undivided rule over us. But even at the present moment the proletariat of Russia is, as opposed to its western comrades, deprived of any chance of openly expressing its collective opinion and realizing its collective will: those few organizations that it had before the war have been closed down. The press has been wrecked. The prisons are over-flowing. This prevents social democracy in Russia from taking up the position that the socialists of Belgium, France and Britain have taken and accepting responsibility for the actions of the Russian government both before the country and before international socialism by taking active part in the war. But, in spite of the presence of these factors and bearing in mind the international importance of the all-European conflict as well as the active part of socialists of the advanced countries in it that gives us grounds for hoping that it will be resolved to the benefit of international socialism, we declare to you that in our activity in Russia we are not opposing the war. We do, however, consider that it is necessary to draw your attention here and now to the need for preparing vigorous opposition to the great powers’ policies of conquest being now planned and demanding in any annexation a preliminary plebiscite of the population of the territory to be annexed. In the original, the passage in brackets has been crossed out by Larin and the words in italics written in. It was received in Stockholm on 15 November. Larin’s Germanophile sentiments could not tolerate the point about “aid” to Germany in the work of political and social transformation. He personally believed that such “aid” was already being objectively carried out by Germany in relation to all the countries at war with her. This correction had been apparently accepted by the foreign organ of the Organizing Committee, as it had been published by the “Larinite” editorial board. The fruits of the information gathering activity of the OC’s representative, Larin, soon began to reveal themselves. Protests started coming in from Russia about the distortions of the truth permitted by one of the leaders of Scandinavian opportunism. Without realizing it, the latter found themselves in a tight spot. This was the case for Troelstra also, to whom Larin had reported in my presence: the Warsaw socialists sent him a disclaimer. The Copenhagen Conference The persecution of Russians, and the police shadowing of myself personally, prompted me to leave Sweden temporarily. There had been a few more deportations after the sensationalized case of Alexandra Kollontai. Branting and Strom also found my temporary absence from Stockholm highly expedient. There were no permanent properly established links with Russia. We had to use the good offices of passing emigrants, and also Finnish comrades, for transporting the precious funds. Various commercial and manufacturing firms were running contraband traffic in both goods and personnel. Heading some of these establishments were Russian engineers glorying in their former social democracy, but these gentlemen were afraid of losing their cosy niches and did not wish to lift so much as a finger in the business of aid for revolutionary work in Russia. Russian social (and other) patriots constantly repeated their dirty suspicions about the “German” money with which our literature was supposedly produced and our transport organized. In the war period a considerable portion of this work was carried through with my direct participation. No monies were received from Russia. Because of the small size of the Russian colony in Stockholm there was nowhere to obtain funds from. We had to cut work to a minimum and resort to loans. The Central Committee of the Swedish Social-Democratic Party loaned me 400 kroner, several comrades managed to rustle up the same amount, dribs and drabs came in from our Central Committee abroad, and this formed all the income for 1914 and the spring of 1915. With these funds we managed to sound out possibilities for sending people over and forwarding literature but not for making full use of the routes themselves. This was a huge disappointment for the party workers. The lack of funds brought me to despair and drove me to prospect in various fields but it was not even possible to find a job, never mind funds for such an unprofitable enterprise as revolutionary work in Russia. In December I crossed to Copenhagen. The low cost of living there was striking. This had attracted a large number of profiteers of all nationalities, emigrants from Russia, wives of German bourgeois who had come over to recuperate, and deserters. Quite a few Russians worked at Parvus’s “Institute for the Study of the Social Consequences of the War”. Some had got jobs at the Russian Red Cross Society dealing with prisoner-of-war welfare. Copenhagen was teeming with spies and reporters from all countries. It was from here that all worldly gossip, fabrications and ballons d’essai originated during the war. The Danish Social-Democratic Party was preparing for the international congress. Our foreign centre, jointly with the Swiss and Italian social-democratic parties, had declined to take part in the congress. I merely had to report this diplomatic concoction, brewed up by the Scandinavian opportunists. In Denmark itself, a country of small peasants, socialism was devoid of even a trace of revolutionary spirit. The country was regarded as democratic even though it had a king, albeit one without “pretensions to power”. Denmark’s peninsular position gave its agriculture and livestock a favourable place in the market by affording cheap sea transport for exports to England and Germany. With the development of food shortages in the belligerent countries, the prices of these products rose to fabulous heights and Danish proprietors secured handsome returns. On the eve of the war Danish workers and peasants were fighting for universal suffrage for women. At the elections the Social Democrats and the Radicals, who stood for giving women the vote, gained a majority in the Folketing. The Social-Democratic party received the largest number of seats in parliament and, in accordance with custom, ought to have formed the government, but they declined and the Radicals took the job. One of their tasks was to draft a new constitution, and the Social Democrats promised the liberals their “loyal support”. However, the slight reactionary majority in the Senate took advantage of the war to halt any debate on a new constitution. So the liberal government, supported by the socialist majority in parliament, submitted to the reactionary will and ceased their reforming work. The government’s chief concern was to preserve peace, and in the interests of this the socialists made a “holy alliance” with their bourgeoisie. And of course they propped up the government by every means, voted for the war budget and so on. The trade unions were “happy” at the absence of conflict between labour and capital. This was not to be explained by a “happiness” reaching down into working-class quarters, for there was in no sense an improvement in living conditions. The war had produced colossal unemployment in this neutral country. Out of 120,400 organized workers, 13,900 were out of work. Aid for the unemployed was given by the unions and the state. Local authorities gave some assistance to unorganized workers directly, and subsidies to the unions. The Danes claimed to observe their neutrality very strictly. The slightest expression of sympathy or anger over this or that act by the belligerents was equated with a violation of neutrality. This did not, however, prevent the capitalists from unloading their products on whoever, belligerent or not, would pay the highest price. By the time I moved to Copenhagen, the Social Democrats’ support for the Radicals had developed into close collaboration. The Danish Social-Democratic Party was taking an active part in the cabinet. Stauning, the leader of Scandinavian social democracy, had joined the government. With him I had a totally unexpected experience, though one typical of the middle-class psychology of the Danish socialists. Stauning would invariably evade the questions I put to him and even avoid meeting me. This forced me to approach him “officially”, by a letter on our party’s headed paper. Now he could no longer back out and fixed a special meeting for me at the premises of the Central Committee. Here he stated to me that he was unable to express his opinion on the party’s attitude to the war, as that would mean a violation of neutrality: he would only be able to proclaim it when the war had ended. However, as a pupil of German social democracy and, like many others, an admirer of its organizational and tactical methods, Stauning supported it on the question of the war. For him an “attitude” to the war was equivalent to expressing sympathy with one of the warring alliances, which was impermissible for an advocate of neutrality. He would discuss the International as an organ of action only after the war. The International was, in his opinion, a peacetime instrument. At the moment of the greatest crisis for the working class, the International Workers’ League ceased activity and the “socialist leaders” contented themselves with fine hopes for the day to come after the crisis. Such specimens were no rarity in the socialist parties of every country. I did obtain valuable information from citizen Stauning about the struggle over the International Socialist Bureau. The Germans were trying to use the Dutch to get the ISB into their own hands. But the socialists of the Entente held tightly on to the apparatus, not wishing to “hand it over” even to the “neutral” hands of the socialists of America. The idea of an international congress enjoyed fairly wide currency. The first attempt was made by the Socialist Party of America. Stauning handed me a copy of a printed invitation with the seal of the “National Committee of the Socialist Party of America” and the following letter: Chicago, United States, 24 September 1914 I enclose with this letter an appeal for the convening of an extraordinary meeting of the International Socialist Congress devoted to the question of peace. This appeal comes from the National Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of America. It has been sent out because: (1) it maintains that an international assembly is absolutely essential in the current crisis; (2) it maintains that the International Bureau is unable to function because of the war in Belgium; (3) the United States is the only great nation not participating in the war. This assembly should be held in Washington (USA), The Hague or Copenhagen. Desirous of receiving your vote for one or other venue and receiving by telegram to our Bureau. Should you choose Washington, the American Socialist Party will undertake to meet travelling and any other expenses on the basis of five delegates per country having twenty votes and the others pro rata with a minimum of two per country. Fraternal greetings, Walter Lanferseik, Secretary to the EC The American socialists’ wish to see an international conference in their country did not, however, meet with sympathy in the Scandinavian countries. The voyage to America would occupy too much time and would put the party leaders too far from contact with the situation in Europe. The majority of the neutrals therefore declined the invitation. By 17 January 1915 the following representatives to the International Socialist Conference had arrived in Copenhagen: Branting and Strom from Sweden; Knudsen from Norway; Troelstra and another, an editor, whose name I have lost, from Holland; and Stauning from Denmark. Other countries refused to take part. The conference sessions took place behind closed doors. There were no deep differences between those assembled. Only two lines of “sympathies” clashed: the Germanophiles, Troelstra and Stauning, against Branting, the Francophile and Knudsen, the Anglophile. It was not hard to reach agreement with such differences. At roughly the same time another conference was taking place in London, with the socialists of the Entente countries, France, Britain and Belgium and some representatives of Russia taking part. This conference attempted to find consolation in the International’s past, recognized the struggle between the two imperialisms but took the imperialism which was “on the defensive” under their protection. German imperialism, having “assaulted” Belgium and France, had placed these socialists on the side of “their” capitalists. The best forces of the Second International were being directed to “the defence of the fatherland”. The representatives of the Entente socialist parties had joined bourgeois cabinets and harnessed themselves to the chariot of war. (An exception was the Italian Socialist Party which, from the first days of the war, had taken up a resolute struggle against it and all who “recognized” this war.) The resolutions of the London conference were distributed by the governments of the Entente countries. All the reactionaries, rogues and profiteers making fortunes out of human slaughter had gambled on the reputations and public activity of the leaders of the Second International, who had accepted the war on behalf of their governments. The socialists of the German coalition countries did not lag behind their “rival brothers” in inciting their peoples to the “defence” of the fatherland and the mutual destruction of the proletariat. Chauvinism celebrated a victory on all fronts. The capitalists could be proud of such socialists. Social Chauvinists as Servants of the Bourgeoisie After the Scandinavian socialist conference I headed once again for Stockholm. There I met some new arrivals from Russia who passed me some bits of information which I forwarded to our central organ, Sotstal-Demokrat. I set about reinforcing the working group of Bolsheviks in Stockholm and training several proletarians in the conspiratorial work of smuggling literature, etc. The Petersburgers had displayed no initiative in organizing communications. My activity in this direction ran into obstacles through lack of funds. Smuggling could be managed at great expense, but I had no money and not a hope of obtaining any. We had to improvise. This was far from satisfactory, especially when with some 500 rubles a month I could have showered our working-class organizations in Russia with literature and maintained a regular monthly contact with every corner of the country. But such a trifling sum could not be managed, so there matters rested. In February a strange gentleman came to me in Stockholm who introduced himself as a former Bolshevik, Finn-Epotaevsky. Larin, whom he had dropped in to see, had informed him of my work. The Petersburgers had, in his words, “been frank” with him about me and he had come along to “persuade” me of the mistaken nature of our tactics. He was a fervent patriot, a contributor to Yordansky’s Sovremenny Mir, believed in the inevitability of Russia’s victory, etc. His persistence and boastfulness were limitless, I was very glad when he left. All his references to commissions received from various Petersburgers proved to be false. From later meetings with comrades, I established that they never passed any assignments to the Finn. At the very start of my work in Stockholm I got to know many Finnish, Estonian and Zionist party workers who had been engaged in revolutionary work in Russia but who now in those bloody days maintained a rather odd orientation towards the German General Staff. One man named Kesküla, who turned up from Switzerland with all the appearances of an Estonian social democrat, offered to supply funds, arms and everything necessary for revolutionary work in Russia. All this was offered in such ways and through such individuals that their origin might have seemed reliable. However, being always wary, I managed to establish that behind these figures lay a strategic manoeuvre by militarism. All such offers were always turned down by my comrades or myself. I firmly instructed the comrades I was leaving behind for the work of smuggling literature, the secretary of our Bolshevik group in Stockholm, Bogrovsky, and others, not to accept funds from anyone other than Swedish party organizations. On this visit I managed to establish that the Russian political police had agents in Stockholm. Our organizations and certain individuals were placed under observation. There was evidence of mail being tampered with, and this suggested that the Swedish police, despite its national predisposition against Russia, was assisting the Okhrana. Branting had to be made aware of this, and he questioned the Minister of the Interior, but naturally received an assurance that the “official” police was not itself involved, although he could not vouch for private investigation bureaux. I was summoned to the local police station to register as an alien. This was a simple formality that in no way inhibited my residence in Sweden. Having sorted things out with the group, I decided to move on to Christiania (Oslo) where there was less police intrigue and living was considerably cheaper, which was of great importance to me as my funds were coming to an end. I imagined that I might find a job in a Norwegian engineering works more quickly. I found Ibsen’s land clad in its luxuriant winter attire. Wooded hills, sprinkled with snow, sparkled under the rays of the March sun. The lightly covered trees in the woods and forests looked like a kingdom of snowy columns studded with icicles gleaming in the sun. An endless, all-absorbing stillness spread everywhere. Christiania, the capital of Norway, hemmed in by hills and strewn out along the shore of an ice-free fjord, overflows into the plain and its outskirts ascend the hillsides. From one of those hills, Holmenkollen, an enchanting view of the city opens up at night-time. Millions of tiny electric lights twinkle like stars in the nocturnal distance, merging with the Milky Way, thinning out towards the foot of the mountains, disappearing into the expanse and blending into the stars of the night. It seemed as if that part of the night sky which is hidden from our eyes by the horizon might be visible from that mountain. The Norwegian comrades received me with kindness. Of all the Central Committee only one, Videns, the editor of Social-Demokraten, the party’s central organ, knew foreign languages. The Norwegian Social-Democratic Party was somewhat more left than its Scandinavian sisters. On the war the Central Committee held an internationalist position and upheld the neutrality of the country, but often wavered towards Anglophilia. The “young” social democrats were in solidarity with their Swedish counterparts. They too had their own organ, Klassekampen, which followed a line of revolutionary struggle against the war, but it too veered towards pacifism with its slogan of “lay down the weapons”. My search for work did not yield the desired results. Industry was in the grip of the war crisis and at the beginning of 1915 it was only just starting to recover. Ignorance of Norwegian was also a hindrance. I had to consider what to do next. The idea occurred to me of a trip to England for work. I had previously managed to obtain a “foreign” passport from the French consul in Stockholm and, not without some difficulty, I succeeded in getting the consent of our party’s foreign centre. I obtained some money for the journey and all that was needed was the agreement of the British consul. My well-meaning manner and numerous testimonials from French factories swung him rapidly in my favour and, collecting the appropriate fee from me, he stamped a visa in my French passport. I also took with me my personal Russian passport of 1907, a red one, in case of need, and set out at the beginning of April. To England Communications with England during the war were maintained by steamer from Bergen to Newcastle, with the risk of touching off mines, encountering German submarines and warships and so on. But these hazards and difficulties only increased the price of passenger tickets and cargo rates, and provided additional profits for the shipping line. The route to Bergen by rail is regarded as one of the most beautiful in northern Europe. The iron ribbon of the railway track twists through the mountains and gorges, passes along lakesides and deep precipices, dives into the ground and ascends into the realm of perpetual snows. Every year thousands of tourists come to pay tribute to these beauties of Norway. The small but extremely lively port of Bergen shelters at the foot of the mountains on the shores of the Bergenfjord, an inlet of the Atlantic. Shipping movements were considerable in spite of the war but the whole life of the port, and especially sailings for foreign ports, lay under the strict control of the British. Mail and passengers were transported in rather small, uncomfortable steamers with a displacement of under 2,000 tons. Passenger embarkation took place under supervision and a personal appearance before an official specially authorized by the British to check the passports was required, in addition to the visa in the passport. Here the interrogation and examination of the departing passenger was conducted, and if the latter appeared suspicious he would be refused access to the vessel. I safely passed this check. The vessel’s departure had been veiled in some secrecy. As we neared the English coast passengers were forbidden to go up on deck. The approaches to the Tyne had been mined and passengers sat in their cabins all the way up river to Newcastle. After forty hours’ passage from Bergen, the steamer docked at the quay in Newcastle. After a brief passport and luggage examination there was free exit to the city. I made for the railway station and, among the numerous stairways, entrance and exits, found a train to London; twenty minutes or so later the train set out smoothly on its journey, without any of that special commotion of noise and bells customary in our country. The coaches were first and third class only, built for comfort and designed for easy boarding and alighting. Every compartment had its own door opening directly on to the platform. The coaches glided along without noise or jolting. The tracks had been so aligned so that the danger of travelling at speed was reduced to nil. All the way there was cleanliness, comfort and an absence of excited crowds. In a few hours I arrived in London. I had been in London several times before the war. I had worked at an aerodrome in Hendon and walked around out of work, and had closely studied the ancient, soot-covered capital of Great Britain. The war could not yet be sensed in the streets of London. Only at nighttime did London not shine with lights as before: the street-lamps had been covered so that they only cast light downwards in a hardly noticeable patch. But large numbers of soldiers were in evidence everywhere. I looked up an old friend, “Daddy” Harrison, Litvinov. Through his good offices I moved into the flat of an old exile and at once set about job-hunting. In the morning I would get a Daily Chronicle, where vacancies were advertised. I wrote off to my old job at Hendon, In response to one advert for turners I headed for a car plant at Wembley, a branch of the Italian firm of Fiat. There I met the Swiss manager who spoke French, several Italian fitters and one Englishman who spoke French. The offer of my skills was accepted and I started work the next day. After a test I got a bench as a first turner at a day-rate of one shilling an hour. For the first few days I travelled back to the flat in London, but that took two hours each day and my new workmates found a furnished room in the same area for only eighteen shillings a week with meals. The working hours came to fifty-two and a half a week, five days of nine and a half hours and five on Saturdays. Work was easy-going. The English workers worked well but without rushing, and they did not like to be chased. My relations with everyone were excellent from the very first days. All the workers learned that I was a revolutionary and an opponent of the war, and we often had simple arguments over the benches, sometimes with the participation of an interpreter. The men were mostly members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Before the war it was very difficult for a foreigner to get into this union, for the leaders of the British trade unions were great nationalists and, although the unions had formally joined international trade-union organizations, their participation in congress decisions was highly platonic. I asked the works union representative to admit me as a union member and presented my subscription cards from unions in other countries. The comrade went down to his branch at Chiswick and explained when he came back that my “knowledge of the trade and work practices” entitled me to join the union. He proposed that I turn up at a meeting the following Saturday for my final acceptance. The union rented several rooms in a local restaurant. About fifty comrades were in their seats waiting for the meeting to open. A few novices were awaiting the rites of acceptance. The meeting was declared open and the chairman announced the wish of the new comrades to join the union. The first candidate was myself. Our shop representative stated that I knew my job and the work rules well, and that I would observe the union ruling on the minimum wage. The chairman added that I had already been for many years a member of unions in France and Germany, but they had still to acquaint me with the obligations of a new member. All the new entrants gathered round the table and the chairman opened a small booklet to read out the “rules” on the obligations, duties and rights of union members. After this solemn ceremony the novices became fully-fledged members. This atmosphere of solemn initiation and secrecy was redolent of the good old days of “camaraderie”, when apprentice craftsmen formed their clandestine associations against the master craftsmen. Within the British proletariat, which was organized into socialist parties – namely the British Socialist Party and the Independent Labour Party – and into trade unions also, the war had given rise to the same attitudes and the same splits as in other countries. The Independent Labour Party’s most popular leader, Keir Hardie, who was familiar to us in Russia as an “opportunist”, proved to have been a vehement and a serious opponent of the British war party. He died at the beginning of the war gloriously as an anti-war fighter, and the loss Was keenly felt by British workers. Another leader, known in Russia as Britain’s “only marxist”, the aristocrat Hyndman, had become an inveterate nationalist and chauvinist. Some Russian comrades who had had dealings with him back in the 1905–8 period referred to him as a two-faced politico. Comrade Martins, a social democrat and exiled engineer who was working in Britain, had information that Hyndman was a shareholder and director of a machine-gun and rifle manufacturers. Thus his “warlike” disposition was justified by some “warlike” income. Widespread anti-war activity was carried out by the ILP. In addition to its parliamentary statements this party expended great energy outside parliament. At the very beginning it issued a “manifesto” on its attitude to the war in which it set out its pacifist anti-militarist stance, without being able to give so much as a clue to a practical way out of the new situation for workers. The party’s weekly paper Labour Leader carried constant pacifist slogans against the war. The party’s publishers put out several dozen books, pamphlets and booklets against the war, in which the blame for the slaughter was placed on the British government. Especially valuable was the book Secret Diplomacy, which exposed a whole number of Anglo-French machinations against Germany. The bourgeois press slandered the ILP over this book, accusing them of selling themselves to the Germans and so on. The government seized the journal and pamphlets and ordered the printers not to handle them, but that did not stop the ILP from further work. They also organized public meetings. The police tried everything to break them up, mobilizing hooligans and planting agents to shout down the speakers and disrupt the meetings in other ways. The activity of the British Socialist Party was less conspicuous. It did, however, issue quite a few leaflets calling for a struggle against patriotic chauvinism. Both parties searched for all sorts of ways to organize international contacts. With the help of comrade Litvinov, one of the oldest exiles, I made the acquaintance of an MP, the independent socialist, Anderson. He familiarized me with the parliamentary struggle conducted by their party and their work as a whole. This comrade showed great interest in revolutionary work in Russia and asked me to write an article for them outlining the current situation in our country. English trade unionists, although in a considerable number of cases only their chiefs, took the side of the government on the question of the war. The Trades Union Congress had published a manifesto of lackeyish content beneath which were the signatures of several unions. A happy exception was the Amalgamated Society of Engineers. Among metalworkers there was no such “drunken” nationalism. But while working at the plant and mingling in the pub and the union I was greatly struck by the low level of political awareness of even the English metalworkers’ organizers. When I came into the shop following May Day, when I had stayed away from work, several workmates came over to see whether I had been sick, as they had missed me at work. I explained that I did not go to work on May Day. Some of the youngsters were quite amazed and starting asking questions about the meaning of May Day. Yet these workers were living and working at the very centre of Britain’s labour movement – London! Among the Russians in London The number of Russian exiles in London had grown considerably during the war. Many had come from Belgium. Pressure put on all Russians of call-up age by the French government had prompted many to leave France also. The exile community had fragmented into a number of party groupings, with their siège at the Karl Marx People’s Club in Charlotte Street. The non-party Herzen Circle was also based there. Our party organization required a report from me on the state of affairs in Russia. The gathering listened with great interest to my accounts of the Petersburgers’ summer demonstrations and the first months of the war. I had to repeat the report several times at other meetings of national sections. Living near London I was able to observe at first hand every day, from the newspapers and the mood of the inhabitants, the skill of the British bourgeoisie in manipulating society. By forming a land army the British bourgeoisie had successfully exploited its purported “unpreparedness” for the war. It was this same “unpreparedness” that had enabled Lloyd George to make capital out of the British government’s “peaceful nature”. The press sought to make use of raids by Zeppelins, aircraft and ships on Britain’s coastline to inflame hatred for the Germans and in that they succeeded. The strike movement had weakened considerably, thanks to the policy of “alliance” carried out by the trade-union chiefs. This was also helped by the conciliatory attitude of both the government and manufacturers, who had prospered on large profits. But in the summer of 1915 I happened to be witness to a number of strikes (on the trams, etc.) and to take part myself in demands for pay increases. The employer agreed to raise the Wages of all workers by the penny an hour demanded by the workers. I had, prior to this, managed to win a personal rise of a penny so that my daily wage was now one shilling and two pence an hour. Thanks to the low cost of living in England I was very soon able to bring some order back into my clothing and to re-equip myself with underwear, which had got pretty tatty during my illegal travels. I also started to give thought to procuring funds for my return to Russia and illegal work over there. I fulfilled a request from the Russian and English comrades to write an article on the situation in Russia. I received a request from America too. I made copies on a typewriter, giving one to the comrades for the English and sending one each to Norway, Switzerland and America. The effect of the despatch was wholly unexpected. I was placed under observation as a spy, and a British secret police agent came to visit my landlady in order to get to know me a bit better. One day when I came in from work, the landlady asked me to come downstairs to the sitting-room where a young man was waiting for me. The landlady furtively introduced us and then hastily shut the door and left us alone. Before me was an Englishman, a tall chap, intellectual-looking and smartly dressed. He began with apologies and frankly stated that he had received an assignment of a quite unusual nature from his superiors: to trail me and elucidate my character, because of some article I had written. He was most interested in this article, two copies of which had been intercepted by the military censorship on their way to Switzerland and Norway. “The copy for America had got through. He had obtained only an excerpt from the article, and realized that it was directed against the tsar and the war. I confirmed that this was the case. I asked, is the British government undertaking the defence of the tsar? The sleuth winced and said that he did not think so, but in half-an-hour’s conversation tried to inspire me with trust in the British government. I protested about the interception of my manuscripts, demanding their return or an official notification of the reason for their seizure. The sleuth replied that under the Defence of the Realm Act, the military censorship had the right to seize mail without any explanation. I applied to the Post Office for compensation for the undelivered manuscripts, but when I was back in Sweden I received notification from the Post Office that the manuscripts had been impounded. In Wembley I got to know comrade I.K. Martins, who lived there under police surveillance as a “German”. Comrade Martins had been born in Russia of German parentage, had taken part in the revolutionary movement and for this had been deported to Germany, where he had served two years as a soldier and then left for England. There he had worked on various inventions for the “combat tasks” of the Russian revolution. He had been working as a draughtsman in an engine works. In the summer of 1915 some of the firm’s office-workers started a campaign against him as a “German” and the manager, to prove that he was not unpatriotic, agreed to sack him. Comrade Martins, with his wife and child, remained out of work, amidst the hostility of the middle-class patriots of the area. Only comrades from the Russian colony kept contact with him. Thanks to their trouble and his half-Russian extraction, comrade Martins managed to get himself out of Britain to New York. In London I met the former party agitator and journalist, Stanislav Sokolov (Volsky). He was struggling to learn the lessons of the war, but was patriotically inclined. It was very sad to see a valuable organizer leaving the revolutionary path. I argued with him for a long while in order to try to shake off his social patriotism and went on a trip with him to Brighton. There were many other organizers and journalists in London: Kerzhentsev, who was working somewhere “for defence”; Kapuskas with the Lithuanians; Berzin and Peters with the Letts; Chicherin, who had broken with the liquidators, and Petrov, who had become a Bolshevik in the British Socialist Party. Among the liquidators were Maisky and others. In midsummer we had news that comrade Bukharin and his wife were on their way from Switzerland through France and Britain. On the day of his arrival in London, comrade Litvinov and I went to the station to meet him. I had not previously met Bukharin and did not know him by sight. Nor did Litvinov. However, we assumed that we would find them and meet somehow. The station was packed with soldiers leaving and their families seeing them off. Hundreds of passengers emerged from a train that had just pulled in. But none of them were “they”, the “Russians”. But then at last came a couple of vacant-looking Russians looking around in all directions. We decided that these must be the Bukharins. We went up and greeted them. The comrades were most surprised that we could distinguish them from among thousands of passengers, but the secret was simple: we could tell them by their wandering gazes, absent-minded expressions and the small bundles under their arms. We took them to our suburb of Wembley and lodged them with comrade Martins. Bukharin was travelling on the passport of a Jew, M.L. Dolgolevsky, and had as a result of this suffered a great deal of offence from French and English anti-Semites. I sent a number of assignments to Russia with N.M. Bukharina. The comrades underwent quite a few ordeals on the way but still reached Stockholm safely and N.M. reached Russia too. The organizers of our party work in the London colony took seriously my search for funds for the return to Russia and to regularize illegal transport and communications. Comrade Litvinov found it possible to liquidate the circle and group assets and to allot about £50 from that to me for my work. In August I was ready to leave Britain, but this required certain formalities. My foreign passport was valid only for passage to Paris and was not good for the return. So I decided to use my old red 1907 passport, issued to me by the town elder of Murom. I put my photograph in it and went off to the Russian consulate. My “genuine” Russian physiognomy provoked no suspicions, and a stamp was placed in my passport for the exit from Britain to Russia. With this document it would now be easy to buy a ticket and get on the steamer. However, I only used this passport once, for the exit from Britain. Although the visa had been granted for through travel to Russia I did not use it, considering such a journey unwise. I said goodbye to the comrades left behind who were envious of my journey, and set out on the pleasant route through the fields and towns to Newcastle. I was already at the quayside on the evening of the same day. Embarkation had not yet commenced; the passengers were waiting in the baggage shed. Among the travellers were many Russians, including some prisoners-of-war who had escaped from Germany through Holland. The British military control appeared to be checking the passengers’ documents. I had to put myself out over the prisoners-of-war, as their consular escort had disappeared and they were getting upset not knowing the language. I got them sorted out. The British customs officers and emigration control examined the luggage and wallets of departing passengers without any hurry, swapping jokes. There was no talk about the war: the rising food prices were of greatest concern. Starting up a conversation in French with one of them who was closely acquainted with the industry of the area, the conditions of the workers and so on, I learnt that the night before there had been a Zeppelin raid not far off which had demolished several buildings in a village. My things were not examined, thanks to this conversation, and I got on to the steamer considerably sooner than the others. The steamer quietly sailed at midnight. The passengers sat in their cabins. In the morning we were allowed to go up on deck, as by then we were far from Britain’s shores. Everyone was living in fear of meeting a mine or a submarine. The crew explained to the passengers which cabins had to embark in which lifeboat in an emergency. Any dark object floating ahead of the vessel, any pole sticking out of the water or any puff of smoke on the skyline aroused anxiety. The steamer sailed slowly, not making more than nine or ten knots. The sea seemed to be populated by evil-doers watching over their victims from behind each wave-crest. I got talking to the Russian soldiers who had escaped from captivity. They were all NCOs; they spoke with pride of the rigours of escape. In London some prince of the Romanov family had presented them with wrist-watches, but they were so bad that some of the “presents” were already broken. We chatted about the war. The travails they had undergone made them hostile to Germans. I began to interest them in the aims of the war. It was clear that people were already thinking about, and they said that Russia had gone in to support France. I gave them our literature to read and explained the true nature of the war. I did this unobtrusively and only in so far as the people interested wanted to talk. That removed any mistrust and we parted friends upon arrival in Norway, exchanging addresses as we said goodbye. In Christiania I met Alexandra Kollontai, who was now actively assisting the Bolshevik party work: she was helping organize communications. In the Christiania district a “League of Russian Workers” had been formed, which was something like a political club. And what a funny thing: as soon as an organization of Russians is formed there at once begins the squabbling, the intrigues and other such “politics”. I had a lot of trouble escaping the persistence of the intriguers and the idleness and stupidity of the different “parties” who wanted to involve me as a referee. In Scandinavia Communications with Russia had weakened and transport had come to a stop during my absence. But this time I considered that things could be remedied, as there was money. I decided to use the available funds to investigate all the routes that could serve for transport, and to send as much illegal literature as possible over the frontier, establishing several dumps near the Finnish-Swedish and Norwegian-Russian borders from where our party organizations in Russia could easily obtain all the necessary literature and through which they could transmit news, correspondence and reports back to our foreign centre and central organ. I found out which routes had been used by our revolutionary organizations in the heyday of the underground from 1900 to 1905. Many of these routes lay in the war zones on the borders of Austria and Germany. Only Finland remained. The difficulties were enormous, as all the frontiers were closely guarded on either side. The summer routes from the north of Norway to Arkhangelsk seemed attractive. It was known that out on the remote shores of the Arctic Ocean the inhabitants along the border between Russia and Norway had good neighbourly relations among themselves, and Russian fishermen and small traders quite often passed in and out of Norwegian ports, coming down as far as Narvik and Trondheitn. Russians in small flat-bottomed boats would put in at Vardø, a small town on an island off the north coast of Norway. Between the Murman coast (Kola and Alexandrovsk) and the Norwegian ports of Vardø, Kirkenes and Vadsø, there was a passenger and mail steamer service. Some Russian steamers maintained a regular service to Vardø. It was very tempting to make use of these routes for transport. I left Christiania for Stockholm. There I found mountains of literature and also comrade Bukharin and the newly-arrived G. Pyatakov and E.B. Bosch. The party group had increased substantially. Comrades Bukharin and Pyatakov had got to know all the leaders of the Swedish left social democrats and were taking an active part in their work, though refraining from public appearances. They wrote articles for the periodical Kommunist and leaflets for Russia. I acquainted them with my plans for putting communications and literature on a sound footing and the preparations for my own journey. The comrades approved my proposals and offered their full assistance. They had moved from Switzerland to Stockholm solely because of the proximity to Russia, and to help in establishing revolutionary work there. I now felt a lot stronger knowing that once I had got back to Russia there would be people on the border who could deal with communications requirements. I picked up the issues of Sotsial-Demokrat that had accumulated in Stockholm and sent them off to the Finnish frontier. Through my acquaintance with social democrats in the northern region of Sweden, and also the unions of seamen and river boatmen, I made many contacts in Lulea and Haparanda. Through Lulea, literature and people could be sent to Oulu by Finnish and Swedish fishermen. From Haparanda and its environs there were many routes into Finland. The most preferable and quickest would have been the ferry to Tornio and from there direct by rail to Petersburg. But this was the most difficult as it lay under the scrutiny of gendarmes, counter-intelligence, frontier patrols and customs guards. I nevertheless sought to make use of this route and strike up acquaintances. In Haparanda I was familiar with a social democrat, a small shopkeeper in the footwear trade, and he had many acquaintances among the Finns on the far side of the frontier. He had made contact with a Finnish social-democratic group in Tornio and found one worker comrade there: his name, translated, was “Voice in the Wilderness”. I got to know several others but could not communicate as they spoke only Finnish and Swedish. Comrade “Voice in the Wilderness” took on the transport job and, through an interpreter, listened to my suggestions with enthusiasm. He was excited at the task of outwitting the gendarmes and servants of the tsar. He had already dreamed of organizing a special telephone link across the frontier and of setting up a special literature ferry across the Tornio-ioki in a hermetically-sealed container. You felt that this man would do the job with great zeal. I left all the literature with him at the shop-cum-flat, asking him to think it all over and prepare a route by mid-October. Having finished in this corner of the country, I set off through the extreme north of Sweden to Norway, to the shores of the Arctic Ocean and the island town of Vardø. Just before my departure from Haparanda I met a familiar face. We got talking and I recalled that we had met before at the home of N.D. Sokolov, who had introduced him to me as a Polish social democrat. His name was Kozlovsky, a barrister. He was travelling to Copenhagen and then back to Petersburg. I used him to tell the Petersburgers via N.D. Sokolov that I would be sending literature and that, for their part, they should apply themselves to its receipt. Kozlovsky was reluctant to talk about his own business, but it was obvious that his journey had nothing to do with the work of the Polish social democracy. I travelled back to Boden and there changed to a train for Narvik. The railway northwards passes through forests and then desolate plains and as we drew closer to the Norwegian frontier it changed to hilly and then mountainous country. A considerable section of the line was electrified. Narvik is built on the mountainous shore of a fjord, and its inhabitants are engaged in fisheries and shipping. There was a social-democratic newspaper and a very strong party organization in the town. Often in the north of Norway socialists ended up controlling local authorities. From Narvik a long sea passage lay before me, first on a small steamer as far Lødingen but then I would have to pick up a steamer from Bergen to Kirkenes. It was the beginning of September and the north was looking autumnal. It kept raining. Ragged storm clouds often swept the sky and yet the voyage was most interesting in the powerful beauty of the north, along the fantastic twists of the fjords, now crushed by the mountains hanging over the water and now receding far back in gentle slopes behind broad pools of water. The small steamer, packed with passengers and cargo, also took the mail. Every so often it would put into a village landing stage to be greeted by the waiting crowds. At Lødingen I changed to a relatively large steamer and as we progressed northwards past Tromsø and Hammerfest, nature became more stark and off the North Cape took on a severe and majestic aspect. No longer was any forest or greenery in evidence. Black and grey cliffs looked down on all sides. A squally wind with light rain completed the picture. After several days’ passage through the fjords and the Arctic Ocean the steamer docked at Vardø. This small town is built on a little island of sand and stone and has some three thousand inhabitants occupied principally in fishing. There I found a social-democratic newspaper, Finnmarken (the name of this region of Norway). One of the party workers, Osman Norgaard, spoke Russian and showed me a dump of our literature left behind in 1906 and 1907. There were about ten thousand pamphlets: anthologies of revolutionary songs, pamphlets on the tax question, and the newspaper Pomor and other leaflets for the State Duma elections. It was possible to send literature and people this way but the route was a long one: to Arkhangelsk or the Murman railway in summer but in winter to the latter only, or else by ski and reindeer over the polar wastes. Crossing the frontier here was easy; the difficulties started further on. The route might serve as a “reserve” in case of obstacles on the Finnish-Swedish border. Comrade Norgaard nevertheless took on the task of making contacts with the crews of Russian vessels. We sorted the literature out, but because many of the pamphlets were out-of-date we decided to leave them at Vardø with comrade Norgaard. The majority of the working population of this town were socialists, and the fishermen’s votes at elections were cast for the Social-Democratic Party. There was also a trade union, a library and a cinema. The town, as compared with Russian ones, was well equipped, and there was electric lighting and main water supply. Each day in the hotel dining-room I would meet the Russian consul and the British consular representative. Every meeting would be accompanied by an acrimonious dispute about the war. Well, obviously, the official representatives thought as their governments wished them to and the Russian official was deeply shocked by my distrust of his government: my anti-patriotism quite likely provided him with the topic for a denunciation. Having found out all that was necessary and made arrangements with comrade Norgaard, I set out on the return journey. In Stockholm I prepared for my journey to Russia, and wrote to the foreign section of the Central Committee, comrades Lenin, Zinoviev and Krupskaya. I mapped out a plan of work and a plan of communications and methods of transport. The three newcomers, Bukharin, Bosch and Pyatakov, undertook to maintain links over the routes established. To myself fell the major organizational task. Among my jobs was the formation of an all-Russian centre that could permanently direct the work there; I also had to regularize contacts with abroad and literature supply. Agreement was reached on all questions with Lenin, Zinoviev, Krupskaya, Bukharin, Bosch and Pyatakov. The long-awaited Kommunist, nos. 1–2, and thirteen issues of Sotsial-Demokrat had come out by the time I left and the delivery of this literature to Russia would give an enormous boost to the work. An Illegal Journey In the second half of October 1915 I said goodbye to my Stockholm friends and headed for Haparanda. I had sent several poods of literature there in advance. Swedish and Finnish comrades were waiting for me, they had succeeded in establishing communication with Helsinki and forwarding literature there from Kemi in parcels by rail using the railwaymen: it went directly to one of the stations on the line from Viipuri to Beloostrov (Terijoki, I believe). My blue-eyed comrade, “Voice in the Wilderness”, was to send it over the frontier. To make things easier he had got on friendly terms with the frontier gendarmes. My comrades had devised a plan to get me across, and one evening we went to try it out. Haparanda and Tornio are separated by the frontier, the river. A precarious wooden bridge some 350 sazhens long had been built across one arm of the Tornio river. In the middle of it was a toll-booth: the bridge was open from eight in the morning to eight at night. A sentry stood at the Swedish end of the bridge while at the Russian end, some eighty paces away, there was a fence and a guard-post by a wicket gate; to the left were some Finnish farm buildings. My comrades’ plan consisted in my crossing the bridge accompanied by “Voice in the Wilderness”; when we had passed over the water, we would use the darkness to jump off and run or hide under the bridge. The plan was risky and we decided to conduct a rehearsal. We set out on our way in the evening, a few minutes before the frontier closed. We had barely started to approach the Russian side when the gendarmes, hearing the creaking of our steps, made for the gate and scanned the bridge. There was nothing to do but turn back, as it would have been unwise to jump down before their very eyes. We tried this three times over, wasting three evenings without success. My friends were demoralized. They had not anticipated such vigilance from the Russian gendarmes, and started to seek new routes through the outlying areas. I took a room at the Grand Hotel on the very top floor from whose window the bridge and part of the town of Tornio on the far bank were visible. Sitting many hours at the window I could study the tracks and the river-bank with its odd huts and buildings. I began to prepare a plan. It would be aided by the onset of winter weather, when the fields became covered with snow and the river with thin ice. Continuing snowfalls and frost would be necessary for its success. The latter was not long in coming but the snow stopped, the sky cleared and a huge moon commanded the scene, lighting the snow-sprinkled trees, fields and rooftops with silver, The moonlight was a nuisance: but I could not wait any longer as there were secret police and spies from all countries in Haparanda. I acquainted comrade “Voice in the Wilderness” with my plan and proposed that he wait for me that evening from eight o’clock onwards beneath a red barn not far from the guard-post. The barn stood on high stones so that you could not only lie but even sit under it. The hand baggage and literature had all been ferried over to Tornio by the indefatigable “Voice in the Wilderness”, and he had also arranged lodgings for me there. I set out for the bridge just before eight, got past the Swedish sentry, who was looking aside indifferently, and approached the booth that stood in the middle of the bridge. The toll-collector was inside it. Under cover of the booth I got down under the bridge very quietly. The ice was very weak and I had to cling to the framework that supported the spans. The moon shone generously, and I had to seek shelter in the shadows of some high struts. I took a sharp look around and waited for the frontier to close. The occasional steps of a pedestrian sounded above me. At long last everything became quiet. A small red light was lit at the gate on the Russian side. This meant that the frontier had been closed. I attempted to move forward cautiously along the dark side. But the ice was still so weak that as soon as I let go of the framework it started to crack treacherously. I located a slightly smoother patch, pushed myself off from the strut with all my might, slid as if on skates to the next one and paused momentarily. My hearing grew sharper and my eyesight more acute. The Russian bank was nearby. The slightest unusual sound and my enterprise would be doomed. I could see a gendarme walking beyond the fence to put out the electric light at the hut entrance and then go in himself. There they were, the whole lot of them; sitting in the guard-post and now and again glancing out of the window at the moonlit surroundings. Another skate, and so on right to the bank. It was quiet in the village; only the dogs were barking on either side of the border. The moon rose high, completely removing all the shadows. The bridge began to curve down to the ground, so I could not walk but started crawling. Finally a hundred paces away were the gendarmes and further off to the left was the little red barn on its stone supports. Lying down, I tried to spot the enemies but failed, so I made a dash towards the old barn. There “Voice in the Wilderness” met me, joyfully shaking my hand and then taking me to the town. We cut through the back yards to the main street. All around it was deserted and frosty. We found the house where a comrade, a Finnish social democrat who worked in the tailoring trade, lived. The family was a big one but the house was orderly. We were welcomed most cordially, but the landlord and landlady did not speak Russian, so there was time for reflection. The first step had been successful. What lay ahead? My “Voice in the Wilderness” was cheerful, and confident of a happy outcome. That same day he had been to Kemi. There too were comrades who were taking an active part in getting me through. They had a flat ready and had planned out my journey- By evening the next day I had been dressed in a worker’s suit, my pockets crammed with apples, given a local passport and escorted by two comrades to the station. My erstwhile hosts wished me every success. We crossed the river by ferry, and at the station we found a mixed train going as far as Oulu. A gendarme examined the passport, and the train set out slowly on its way. Three or four hours later we were in Kemi. There we were met, but caution led one of them to take me by roundabout routes to my resting place. Soldiers were stationed in the town, and there were secret agents and counter-intelligence at the station. We found our way to the flat and there I was given a separate room. The hosts were very sorry not to know foreign languages because then they could have chatted to me. The attitude of them all was touching and comradely. From Kemi to Oulu the journey was the responsibility of an organizer of local social-democratic work. The courageous, frank nature of this comrade won me over. Here I no longer had any doubts but felt sure that I would arrive safely. The following day we were on our way. Without travelling right into Oulu, where there was a -gendarme check, we jumped off and walked some six versts along forest paths and the main road into the city. We crossed a bridge over a torrent and reached the offices of the Oulu social-democratic daily paper. In the editorial room I was welcomed by the organ’s chief editor, the deputy for this constituency, and others. I was offered a room by comrade Uskila, the deputy editor. That same evening we went out in a small comradely company to a restaurant and took a private room, where my aides for the journey and my Oulu friends drank a toast to my happy journey and I made a brief report on the state of affairs abroad and the different viewpoints on the war. The comrades were in agreement with me on everything, but warned that the parliamentary majority and the majority of the Central Committee members of Finnish social democracy tended towards opportunism, while the petty-bourgeois and intellectual circles were infected with Germanophilia. Many thousands of Finns and Swedes had gone to Germany to fight on the eastern frontiers for the “liberation” of Finland. The Social Democratic Party had to exert efforts to counter Germanophilia and so-called “activism”, i.e. co-operation with the German General Staff against Russia. The situation was complicated by the increase in reactionary pressure from the Russian government. Several weeks before my arrival there were arrests and raids throughout Finland, mainly in connection with the activists, who had set up a fairly stable organization. They had special escape routes for German prisoners-of-war and an espionage network in the Russian army. The Finnish activists received large stocks of arms and supplies for their members, Conducting agitation for an armed assault on Russian barracks, fortifications, dumps, etc. This agitation, however, met opposition from the social democrats and did not find advocates in the mass of workers or among the torppari, and instances of armed attacks were isolated. From Oulu to Helsinki two people undertook to escort me: my travelling companion from Kemi, comrade Adam Ljakonen, and comrade Uskila, While they were preparing the journey and sorting out the formalities, I spent two marvellous days among kind warm-hearted comrades, looked round the city and tried to adjust myself to future illegal life in Russia. I came to an arrangement with the people in Oulu about transport of literature and the ferrying of people and information. They agreed to help. Everything was at last ready and we set off. At the station they pointed out by an agreed sign all the Russian spies and plainclothes gendarmes. My physiognomy did not arouse curiosity, and I got into the carriage unnoticed by anyone. Comrade Uskila spoke German, so we could communicate with each other. The three of us occupied a compartment and we reached Helsinki in every comfort and without any special alarms. The comrades stopped at a hotel but lodged me at the People’s House, the building of the Central Committee of the Finnish Social Democratic Party, in a room belonging to the Swedish section of Finnish social democracy. Here I made the acquaintance of several members of the Central Committee and also some trade unionists. I looked up the deputy, Persinen, whom I had got to know in Berlin, and comrade Rovio, a Finnish metalworker who was very familiar with Petersburg party workers. With his assistance I found a Russian worker who for some money surrendered his passport, which would be necessary for me to cross through Beloostrov, and I also got to know the city and its party organization. My constant companion and guardian throughout Helsinki was comrade Wiik, a social-democratic deputy in the Sejm, the editor of a Swedish-language social-democratic newspaper and keeper of the party archives. With him I went round all the Helsinki co-operatives, the huge dairies and bakeries whose equipment was the last word in technology. The People’s House was the pride of the Helsinki organizations and in fact would have done credit to any West European capital. The workers’ movement in Finland was clamped down in a military vice. Troops were deployed throughout the country, though it was chiefly sailors who were posted in Helsinki. Revolutionary work among them was conducted wholly by Russian organizations, for ignorance of the language and fear of provocations prevented the Finnish social democrats from carrying out propaganda among Russian soldiers. It was odd to see a city with such working-class amenities only a few hours’ travelling time from the capital of the tsarist bashi-bazouks. Reaction’s hatred for this little country, doggedly defending its independence from the tsarist authorities, was quite understandable. However, as the situation developed, it became harder for Finland to maintain its freedom and the fate of that country was tied inevitably to the revolutionary movement in our country. The revolutionary social democrats of Finland were already attempting to approach their policy from this angle, but things did not yet go beyond the services rendered in transport and ferrying people over the frontier. Before my departure I made arrangements with comrade Wiik for the despatch of literature and exchanged codes and addresses. 1. In 1917 Larin joined the Bolshevik Party and became one of its chief spokesmen on economic affairs. – Ed. The Russian Revolution: The Meaning of October 7 Nov 2020 The fight of the Trotsky family: interview with Esteban Volkov 18 Aug 2020 In Memory of Leon Trotsky 6 Aug 2020 Alan Woods interviewed about Lenin’s legacy 23 Apr 2020 Happy Birthday Lenin! The great fighter and teacher of Marxism 22 Apr 2020 Sitemap Bolshevik	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1521
__label__cc	0.6754	0.3246	Top 5 Parks and Gardens in Singapore When you think of Singapore, you think of modern skyscrapers, high end shopping, amazing food and the world-renowned Changi airport. What you may not know is that Singapore invests a lot of money and effort into keeping its city clean and green. So much so that over the past few years, the Southeast Asian city-state has garnered attention for its environmental efforts in creating more and more green spaces for the six million people who inhabit the tiny island. There are so many beautiful parks and gardens to explore, Singapore has earned the title of being the “City in a Garden”. Needless to say, finding day flower deliveries in Singapore will not be a problem. If you are looking for an excellent and convenient service to arrange for flower deliveries online, a good place to start is to head to A Better Florist and order directly from there. If you find yourself in Singapore and you’re looking to escape from the hustle and bustle of the modern city, then hit up one of the following 5 parks and gardens: There’s not a lot of space in Singapore, which is why the nearly two square kilometres which make up East Coast Park makes it the largest park in the city. The location is superb as it is situated on the waterfront, which helps to create a peaceful and open environment. A fantastic way to get around the park is to take advantage of the extensive lanes by cycling around or by skate. If you happen to go on a weekend, you will see hordes of locals zipping around in scooters, bicycles and rollerblades. You can rent bikes on site at one of the many rental shops or reserve a barbecue pit for a picnic in the park. Editorial credit: artzenter / Shutterstock.com MacRitchie Reservoir If nature is what you love then you need to head out to MacRitchie Reservoir. The park is perfectly situated around Singapore’s biggest reservoir and features some amazing hiking trails with the highlight being the Treetop Walk which features a 250 meter suspension bridge which takes hikers over a forest canopy. Aside from hiking, you can also enjoy a casual walk on the boardwalk or rent a canoe or kayak to explore the area. Seeing as the park is away from the urban density of Singapore, you will be able to enjoy the wildlife which includes lizards, monkeys and lemurs. Gardens by the Bay is hands down the most popular garden amongst locals and even just a quick Google image search will show you why. The highlight of the park is the SuperTree Grove; a collection of 18 tall metallic structures that are covered with plants and other vegetation. After marvelling at the SuperTree Grove, hit up the Skywalk to enjoy a “bird’s eye perspective” view of the whole park. The park also boasts other great attractions including the Cloud Forest Conservatories, the Heritage Gardens, and the Flower Dome. It’s free to get into the park but exhibitions charge a small admission fee. Editorial credit: Sheri Armstrong / Shutterstock.com Singapore Botanical Gardens The Botanical Gardens represents one of Singapore’s original parks and is one of the most important historical landmarks of the city. It opened way back in 1859 and today the park boasts over 10,000 species of plants and is proudly one of the best places in the world to see the orchid, Singapore’s national flower. Aside from the stunning nature, it also happens to be one of the most tranquil areas to roam around in the city and you will easily forget that it sits in the middle of a densely populated city. Editorial credit: Juthamas Numsri / Shutterstock.com It is a little bit further out from the city but the Chinese and Japanese Gardens offer a unique park experience due to the stunning architecture. They are officially two separate gardens but both are connected by the picturesque ‘Bai Hong Quiao’, a Chinese bridge that was influenced by a similar structure at the famed Summer Palace in Beijing.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1525
__label__wiki	0.888788	0.888788	Navigation: Home > Contributors > Roger Toland Roger Toland In a 43-year sportswriting career, all at the Rapid City Journal, Toland was No. 1 when it came to numbers. A graduate of Rapid City High and National College of Business in Rapid City, Toland began working at the Journal in 1964. He retired in 2007. The 43 years is thought to be a state record for a sportswriter working at the same newspaper. "I never thought I'd be here this long," Toland said. "It wasn't long after I started here that my father told me that one day I'd have to get a real job." Toland reported on thousands of sporting events, from Legion baseball to high school football, basketball, wrestling and track. Statistics were Toland's specialty. He compiled lists of state records in a number of sports, lists used by coaches, fans and media throughout the state. "Roger is simply a legend in this business," said Aberdeen American News sports editor John Papendick. "Everyone connected to sports in South Dakota owes Roger. We have all benefited from his words and talent. His attention to detail and record-keeping of statistics in this state are second to none." Readers, athletes and coaches long had a love-hate relationship with Toland's practice of picking scores of important games and tournaments in his columns. The prognostications wound up on many a locker-room wall, and prompted more than a few phone calls and e-mails, both congratulatory and angry. "I got just as much of a kick from the people who disagreed with me as I did from those who thought I was great," Toland said. He was a four-time winner of the South Dakota Sportswriter of the Year award and also a three-time winner of the award as chosen by the South Dakota Coaches Association. He also was named Sportswriter of the Year as chosen by the South Dakota Wrestling Coaches Association. He is a member of the Rapid City Sports, the South Dakota High School Basketball Coaches Association and the South Dakota Wrestling Coaches Association halls of fame. He has received distinguished service awards from the South Dakota High School Activities Association and the South Dakota Press Association. « Back to Contributors Jim Quinn (son of inductee Jim Quinn)	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1528
__label__wiki	0.733071	0.733071	Summer Shootout 3 Fabolous :: Summertime Shootout 3 (Coldest Summer Ever) Steve 'Flash' Juon February 4, 2020 “I just feel like life is hot and cold. Ups and down, back and forth, wins and losses. It’s gonna be some sunshine and it’s gon’ be some rain, but when it rain it pours. But ask yourself — can you weather the storm until the sun shines again?” Fabolous might as well be talking about his personal life on the opening track of “Summertime Shootout 3“. 2018 was one of his coldest summers ever. He had to weather the storm of four indictments on domestic assault charges for allegedly beating up his girlfriend and mother of his two sons Emily. It’s not exactly the first brush with the law for the rapper born John David Jackson, who has been in some real life summertime shootouts where he’s caught hot lead in the leg and then been charged with having unlicensed firearms in the aftermath. Things were fairly quiet in the 2010’s though until the domestic abuse situation, which may have given me the mistaken impression he was settling down in his 40’s. Songs like “B.O.M.B.S.” (short for “Back On My Bull Shit”) seem destined to prove the opposite. “Do it one time they gon’ think it’s luck/gotta hit ’em with the repeat/Do it two times they gon’ still doubt/Ay, now I gotta threepeat”. Fabolous hardly needs to convince long time rap listeners. Going back to the early 2000’s the Brooklyn, Bed-Stuy emcee has been the voice of mixtapes, remixes, hot singles and (appropriately enough) summer anthems. Even though the shape of the rap music scene has changed around him, F-A-B stays a throwback in his throwback with a voice almost unchanged by time. The “Seasons Change” though as do the guest stars on his tracks. The young Tory Lanez was still a shorty playing in the streets of Toronto when Fabolous got signed by DJ Clue, and now he’s crooning with him. Fabolous is doing a little singing himself though. Even though his voice hasn’t changed, the way he modulates it has on songs like “Talk to Me Nicely” featuring Meek Mill. He’s on top of the trends of the mumble rap generation or at the very least savvy enough to be copying the trends. Maybe that’s what the majority of the audience wants, but that’s not what I want from F-A-B-O-L-O-U-S. He used to be the man you put on a R&B remix to appease the rap fans, but on songs like “Choosy” featuring Davido and Jeremih he starts to become indistinguishable from the singers who cameo on his album. Who’s the rapper here? There’s a full hour of music on “Summertime Shootout 3” though, and you can still find some actual rapping here and there. “Lovers and haters are like two of the same kind/Both of them feelings can make you do the same crime” quips John on “Frenemies” featuring Josh K, a song which clearly draws the distinctions between the genres. Fabolous spits the bars and K sings the hooks, and a smooth track by Omar Grand and Mally the Martian gives the tandem piano and drums to do it lovely. Fabolous has never been the top of the lyric writers or reciters out there, but a few decades of experience has given him an undeniable amount of polish in breath control and charismatic delivery. Whether it’s the heavy bass of Leer Luciano on “Us vs. The World” or the Wallis Lane, Foreign Teck and Hitmaka swagger of “Ooh Yea” with Ty Dolla $ign, when it works it works really well. One thing Fabolous has always been good at is making hits — pun definitely intended. With so much drama in his life over the last couple of years, “Summertime Shootout 3” is a pleasant reminder that when he puts distractions aside Fabolous still knows how to do what he’s best at. There’s always a little bit of a rough edge to his work. After all this is a man who unintentionally misspelled his own name in a freestyle and wound up stuck with it for the rest of his career. Like Paul Heyman once famously said about the wrestlers in ECW though, you get over by accentuating the positives and hiding the negatives. John knows exactly how to do it and does it well here. 7Overall Score Music7.5 Lyrics6.5 Coldest Summer EverDef JamFabolousSummertime Shootout 3 Previous ArticleGenesis Does! Prototypes From Hidden Palace Next ArticleBoJack Horseman’s Top Ten Moments After Six Seasons 10K.Caash :: The Creator Steve 'Flash' Juon October 22, 2019 Fabolous :: From Nothin’ to Somethin’ Steve 'Flash' Juon June 12, 2007 Fabolous :: Ghetto Fabolous Various Artists :: Violator: The Album V2.0 Steve 'Flash' Juon August 7, 2001 Fabolous :: Street Dreams Various Artists :: Liberty City Invasion – Music From and Inspired by Grand Theft Auto IV	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1531
__label__wiki	0.917647	0.917647	RAWA News Sorted by Month On RAWA About RAWA صفحات فارسی Promote RAWANews Display our headlines on your site or blog RAWA Photo Gallery From RAWA Photo Gallery CNN, October 27, 2009 Ignored by society, Afghan dancing boys suffer centuries-old tradition Young boys are taken from their families, made to dance and used as sex slaves by powerful men By Atia Abawi Kabul, Afghanistan -- A young boy dressed in women's clothing, his face caked in make-up, dances the night away for a crowd of men. The bells on his feet chime away, mimicking the entertainment and sexual appeal of female dancers. But there is no mistaking his pubescent body and face as he concentrates, focusing on every step in order to please his master and his master's guests.This all played out in a video that CNN obtained from a person involved in the parties. The boy is but one youth among many throughout the country forced into an age-old underground tradition known as "bacha bazi," or "boy play," in which young boys are taken from their families, made to dance and used as sex slaves by powerful men. The number of boys involved is unknown -- the practice has been going on for centuries, in a country where such practices are overshadowed by conflict and war. [utubew]u71l74-7xUM[/utubew] "It's pretty much unappreciated by [the] society, unaccepted and illegal," said Mohammad Musa Mahmodi of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, one of the few organizations in the country working to end "bacha bazi." Islamic scholars have denounced "bacha bazi" as immoral but the practice continues in Afghanistan, where the government is in the throes of an increasingly bloody battle with insurgent Taliban militants and is also working to recover from decades of conflict. The abuse stays on the backburner of issues in Afghanistan. People are aware of it, but they don't really talk about it. Almost everyone in the country is coping with some level of injustice, and they are just trying to survive. It is widely known among the population that, most of the time it is commanders, high-ranking officials and their friends who partake in the abuse of the boys. "It continues because of the culture of impunity and lack of legal provision against this practice," Mahmodi explained. Farhad,19, and Jamel, 20, are two grown dancers who were forced into "bacha bazi" about five years ago.Farhad was 13 when his older neighbor tricked him into coming to his home. He was made to watch a sex tape and then raped. After the brutal assault, he was taken to another location where he was locked up and used as a sex slave for five months."I got used to him," Farhad said, trying to explain why he stayed with his neighbor after the traumatizing experience. "He would sometimes take me to parties, and sometimes other places. I was with him all the time," he said. In Afghan society the victims of rape and assault --- both male and female --- are often persecuted and punished rather than the perpetrator. The shame forces boys like Farhad to continue in leading such lifestyles, even when they have the chance to break away. Jamel, Farhad's friend and dance partner, is now married but he was the "bacha bereesh" -- or "boy without a beard" -- of a powerful warlord who has since left the country. He said the only reason he continues to dance is to provide for his younger brothers and sisters. "I make them study, dress them, feed them. Any money I make I spend on my family. I don't want them to be like this, be like me," he said, brushing his shoulder length hair away from his eyes, framing his thin oval face. Farhad and Jamel say their families know what is going on now but are powerless to stop it -- in fact they need the money and income they make.Both Jamel and Farhad look and act more like women than men, a trait that can be deadly in Afghanistan's male-dominated society. Even the police can't be counted on for protection.Farhad said that he was taken from a party by four police officers one night and almost gang raped at the station Before their commander walked in and stopped the assault. But then, "He said if I wanted to be set free I should give him my money and my mobile," Farhad said. "I had no real choice, so I gave him my money and mobile." The boys said they are continuously threatened, beaten and raped by men who attend the parties they dance at; parties fueled by alcohol and drugs."The nights we go out, we are scared," said, Jamel, who is the more talkative of the pair and the one who more resembles a woman. "We always think about how we will be able to get out without someone attacking us." Despite the dangers, they continue to dance, making $30 for the night -- a night that usually ends in assault -- because they say it is the only thing they know and their only way to make money. There are no opportunities in Afghanistan for people like them. And once branded as men who danced as women, there is no turning back. "We are not happy with this line of work," Jamel said. "We say that it would be better if God could just kill us rather than living like this." Category: Children, HR Violations, Poverty - Views: 16777 02.04.2009: Sharia for Shias: ‘Legalised rape’ 13.09.2008: Trafficking in Persons in Afghanistan: Field Survey Report 07.08.2008: Afghan children raped with 'impunity,' U.N. official says 13.06.2008: Afghan children used in porn videos 19.10.2007: Young boys are being sexually abused in Afghanistan 19.11.2007: Afghan boy dancers sexually abused by former warlords Handicap International found that upwards of 2.7 per cent of the population (or one out of every five households) suffers from a "severe" disability and a further 4.8 per cent from a "minor" disability. The survey put the tally of severely disabled Afghans at up to 867,000. Toronto Star, May 22, 2008 RAWA Homepage :: More reports from Afghanistan :: RAWA Photo Gallery :: Fair use Notice http://www.rawa.org General Fair Use Notice: Many reposted pages of reports from Afghanistan on this section of our site may contain copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. RAWA is making these material available for non-profit purpose in an effort to raise awareness on the ongoing human rights catastrophe in Afghanistan. We believe that this constitutes a "fair use" of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use these copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond "fair use," you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1532
__label__cc	0.50992	0.49008	Star City was founded in 1907 and named by Louis Kauffeld, general manager of the Star Glass Company. Kauffeld’s factory was the first lamp chimney producer in West Virginia and made 72 different kinds of lamp chimneys. One of the first acts of the town mayor was to appoint a “Special Policeman”. This Special Policeman, John Deusenberry, was the basis for what has become the current Star City Police Department. As the needs of the town have changed, the police department has changed with them, always with the ultimate goal of protecting the town and its citizens. In 1911 Company B of the Seneca Glass Company of Morgantown opened and produced hand blown soda-lime glass tumblers until 1931. Star City began to see an expansion in the early 1900s and was a community comprised of many ethnicities. Polish and Slovak people migrated to Star City because they were skilled glass workers. Walter Kizinski had a glass factory (Paramount Glass) along the riverfront which became known as the “Polish Factory” because Kizinski hired many Polish employees. This factory specialized in hand blown tableware. Glass production was the primary industry; records indicate there were as many as 13 glass factories operating at the same time. During the 1920s, coal mining became a secondary industry for Star City. Scott’s Run Coal Mine provided employment for many residents in the community. A ferry was used to cross the Monongahela River to get to and from work at the mines until 1951 when the first Star City Bridge was constructed. Star City was home to the largest hotel in the area when the Holiday Inn opened in 1965, and by 1973 Interstate 79 had reached Star City. Sadly, the glass and coal industries have both left the area for the most part. Davis-Lynch Glass is the only active factory left in Star City. Davis-Lynch specializes in hand-decorated and hand-painted lamps and parts. Star City is working to deepen its history while enhancing the future. A revitalization of the Riverfront with an emphasis in the rich history of Star City is the perfect combination. The Town of Star City is proud of its history and origins and are always looking for ways to showcase our town. We welcome the sharing of photos and old documents as we work to preserve our towns history for generations to come.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1538
__label__cc	0.524297	0.475703	List Weblogs Home ? Weblogs Opinions on Both Sides -- a review By Jared Wesley on Dec 3, 2008 I spent 12 hours Christmas shopping and listening to talk radio shows yesterday, as I made my monthly drive from Winnipeg to Calgary. If the media buzz is any indication, it seems almost everyone in Western Canada has an opinion on the quagmire on Parliament Hill. From Canadian Tire to Suzy Shier, Tim Horton's to Starbucks, pundits to academics, leaders to followers - everyone appears to have chosen sides between the government and the coalition. With each side talking past each other, viewing moment-by-moment events through their own unique set of partisan lenses, it's not difficult to see how we've come to this point. For Canadians just tuning into the saga, finding "facts" and "truths" amid the rhetoric can be challenging and frustrating. The reason: beyond the opinions, there are few real "facts" or "truths" to be had. This is not because both sides are being entirely dishonest or disingenuous. It's because both the coalition and government have valid arguments - so valid that the other side refuses to address them. Consider the following main points of contention: Who started it? Government - The opposition had been plotting for months (if not longer) to orchestrate a takeover of power. Coalition - The government "poisoned the well" with it's "F.U." Fiscal Update last Thursday, provoking the opposition with promises to cripple them financially by removing their public subsidies, and provoking the NDP with promises to revoke the public sector's right to strike. Who's anti-democratic? Government - The coalition is proposing to govern without a "mandate" from the people, with the Liberals having renounced the idea of joining forces with the NDP during the campaign. Also, the government alleges the opposition is attempting to overturn the results of the October 14 election. Coalition - By pushing back the date of a confidence vote (from Dec. 1 to Dec. 8), and by hinting at asking for a prorogation of Parliament, the government is thwarting the will of elected MPs. Who has "confidence"? Government - The government has the confidence of the House, having passed its Throne Speech earlier in November. Coalition - Combined, the coalition (plus the Bloc Quebecois) have enough MPs to overthrow the government on an impending confidence measure. Who has the best economic plan? Government - The government has introduced preventative measures, and promises prudent planning, future stimuli (in a January budget), and short-term deficit financing to deal with Canada's recession. Coalition - The government is not doing enough, and not acting quickly enough, to address the economic downturn. The coalition promises an immediate $30 billion stimulus package. Who's being ideological? Government - The coalition's solution amounts to "crisis socialism". Coalition - The government's solution amounts to "crisis capitalism". Who's "in bed with the separatists"? Government - Under the coalition arrangement, the Bloc Quebecois ("the separatists") hold a veto over all future initiatives. Coalition - Right-wing parties from Mulroney's PCs, to Day's Canadian Alliance, to Harper's Conservatives have struck deals with Quebec nationalists in the past. Who's reaching out to opponents? Government - The government is willing to work with any opposition party willing to rip up the coalition accord. Coalition - The coalition, itself, demonstrates the willingness of its members to reach across party lines. Most of these arguments are opinions, and many mix fact with rhetoric. At this point, most who have chosen sides in the debate appear to be interpreting events using their own predispositions as filters. They hear what they want to hear and see what they want to see. They speak to their "allies" in friendly environments, be they blogs or radio talk shows. When they do engage the other side, they talk past their opponents (who they label as "traitors" or "despots"). We've seen this before, of course. Similar lines were drawn over the Charlottetown Accord and two Quebec Referendums. A plea for both sides to talk to one another, let alone listen to each other, may be futile. For those who have yet to make up their minds, I would challenge you to listen to both sides. Unlike national snafus from decades past, Canadians today can watch different TV broadcasts, read different newspapers, visit different blogs, and attend different public rallies. Regardless of whether you're a voter, a leader, a journalist, or an academic - and regardless of whether you're settled in your opinions or not - I urge you to take advantage of the opportunity. Open minds make clear minds, and those are in short supply. Jared Wesley's blog Tactical Lessons, Part II: The Coalition The Politics of Hope vs. the Politics of Uncertainty Harper and Dion take to the airwaves NDP Narrowcasting Constitutional refresher course: the people do not choose the government Campbell & the Construction Worker Vote The Year of the Political Apology - I'm Sorry for the F.U. Thoughts about the coalition and minority government	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1541
__label__wiki	0.697414	0.697414	Science and the Humanities Are the Humanities and the Sciences fundamentally different? Or do they share roots, values, aspirations and a common, contemporary predicament? Presenter: Howard Hotson, Professor of Early Modern Intellectual History, University of Oxford (Chair, Cultures of Knowledge network, TORCH) Ian Walmsley, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Hooke Professor of Experimental Physics, University of Oxford Mark Pagel, Professor and Head of the Bioinformatics Laboratory, University of Reading Chair: Sally Shuttleworth, Professor of English, University of Oxford This seminar is part of "Humanities and the Public Good", a special series of events bringing together leading scholars in the arts and sciences and influential figures beyond academia, to consider the role of the Humanities in addressing contemporary challenges. TORCH \| The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities Howard Hotson Ian Walmsley Mark Pagel Sally Shuttleworth The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) The University of Oxford is home to an impressive range and depth of research activities in the Humanities. TORCH \| The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities is a major new initiative that seeks to build on this heritage and to stimulate and support research that transcends disciplinary and institutional boundaries. Here we feature some of the networks and programmes, as well as recordings of events, and offer insights into the research that they make possible. <iframe width="640" height="400" src="http://www.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/embed/92a91813e6a0bd06d836" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1544
__label__wiki	0.792522	0.792522	BX3M – Screening Tuesday, June 4, 2019, 7PM at Latea, 104 Suffolk Street April 14, 2019 The Forumescalona For Maria and Mona, graduation means fulfilling a dream. For Michael, it means dashing all hope of a better future. You either make the grade or you don’t – in academics or love – and that makes all the difference. Things are heating up as Maria, Mona and Michael get ready for their senior year at Monroe High in the Bronx. Maria is at the top of her class, but love is a subject she has yet to master. Mona wants to go to Cooper Union and that spells trouble for the aspiring photographer. Michael is flunking out. No matter, Michael is on a mission yet unknown to him— call it destiny or revenge. A timeless story of love and revenge, drugs and violence… Breaking free of the past to love and be loved. BX3M: Sometimes love is the endgame. Judith Escalona grew up in the Bronx, where BX3M takes place, and returned home to make this feature. She previously wrote and directed The Krutch, a surreal narrative about a Puerto Rican psychoanalyst with an identity problem. She is currently working on a new screenplay for her next film. A segment producer for CUNY-TV, Escalona is also the Founder and Executive Director of Puerto Rico and the American Dream (www.PRdream.com), the 21-year-old, award-winning website on the culture and art of the Puerto Rican diaspora. PRdream’s office was located in Spanish Harlem, where the organization launched several new media initiatives, among them the technology-based art gallery MediaNoche (http:// www.medianoche.us). BX3M has garnered “Best Picture” awards from The Newark Latino Film Festiva 2018, Pocono Mountains Film Festival 2017, Shawna Shea Film Festival 2017. Escalona received three Communicator Awards 2012 for her work at CUNY-TV. She won First Prize in the Best Video category of the Ippies Awards 2011. New York State Senator Bill Perkins recognized her for her work in the arts. Judith Escalona received an Appreciation Award from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College and was designated a Distinguished Latina by El Diario/La Prensa. This Hurricane Season, Puerto Ricans Are Imagining a Sustainable Future July 19, 2018 The Forumescalona Puerto Rican movements are rebuilding their island in a way that not only enhances climate resilience, but also reclaims their political power. By Celia Bottger, July 12, 2018 . Foreign Policy In Focus Nine months after Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean island faces another potentially devastating hurricane season, while much of its infrastructure and land still remain in tatters. The category-5 hurricane that ripped through the Caribbean last fall not only caused nearly 5,000 deaths, but also exposed the fragility of the island’s social, political, and economic underpinnings. The truth behind Maria’s devastation and the United States’ laggard response to the hurricane lies in centuries of colonial exploitation — first by Spain and then by the United States — and in its perpetual subjugation to the whims of American elite. There is little that distinguishes Puerto Rico from an American colony. Since its acquisition of the island in 1898, the United States has gradually stripped Puerto Rico of any political agency through a web of legal cases, laws, and arbitrary categorizations intended to keep Puerto Rico politically weak and economically dependent on American products — and its poor, brown, “foreign” population distanced from their mainland compatriots. Hurricane Maria exposed for the world to see what Puerto Ricans have known for centuries: that Washington treats Puerto Rico as little more than a captive market from which the U.S. extracts profits. Although Puerto Rico is an island bathed in sunlight and lashed by winds and waves, it imports 98 percent of its energy from American fossil fuel companies. And despite its fertile soil and lush tropical landscape, Puerto Rico buys around 90 percent of its food from U.S. agribusiness companies. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico last September, it eviscerated fields of monocrops and shattered Puerto Rico’s already derelict electric grid. Many of the almost 5,000 deaths that resulted from Maria were due not to Maria’s whipping winds or flash flooding, but to the mass power outages and food shortages that ensued, a result of the government’s closing of hospitals and neglect of the electric grid necessitated by U.S.-imposed austerity measures. Despite its catastrophic impacts, Hurricane Maria provides a kind of tabula rasa upon which a new, economically regenerative, and politically empowered Puerto Rico can be built. Several international and local organizations are already working in Puerto Rico to transition it away from an extractive and U.S.-dependent economy towards a self-sufficient, socially just, and ecologically sound one — while at the same time enhancing local economies, reclaiming sovereignty, and boosting climate resilience. “When Puerto Rico experienced the effects of Maria,” says Angela Adrar of the Climate Justice Alliance, “it was clear that we had a one in a lifetime opportunity to unite communities together and have a vision for a just recovery.” That vision incorporates “food sovereignty, energy democracy, self-determination, and a real justice approach…to building power.” A just recovery for Puerto Rico not only means rebuilding what Maria destroyed, but reclaiming the political and economic agency stifled by American colonialism. Resilient Power Puerto Rico, a grassroots relief effort that began hours after Maria hit the island, promotes energy democracy in post-Maria Puerto Rico by distributing solar-powered generators to remote parts of the island. The Just Transition Alliance, Climate Justice Alliance, and Greenpeace have also sent brigades to install solar panels across the island. Solar energy reduces the carbon emissions that fueled Maria’s intensity and makes Puerto Rico more resilient against the next climate-charged storm. A decentralized renewable energy grid — which allows solar users to plug into or remain independent of the larger grid as necessary — combats Puerto Rico’s dependence on U.S. fossil fuels. It also democratizes Puerto Rico’s energy supply, placing power (literally and metaphorically) in the hands of Puerto Ricans rather than American fossil fuel corporations. Another aspect of Puerto Rico’s “just recovery” is food sovereignty, a movement to promote community-controlled agricultural cooperatives that grow food for local consumption and thus counter Puerto Rico’s reliance on the American food industry. The Organizatión Boricuá de Agricultura Ecológica encourages food sovereignty through “agroecology,” a method that revives local agriculture through traditional farming methods, rather than the monoculture system put in place by American colonists. According to Corbin Laedlein of WhyHunger, who visited the Organizatión in 2016, “food sovereignty and agroecology are grounded in an analysis of how U.S. historic and structural settler colonialism and racism have shaped and continue to manifest in the food system today.” By rejecting the larger food system and focusing on self-sufficiency, agroecology allows Puerto Ricans to reclaim the political and economy agency the U.S. denies them. The Organizatión sends brigades that deliver seeds for community members to plant. By stimulating local production, agroecology also reduces the carbon pollution emitted from ships transporting food to Puerto Rico, and moreover acts as a local carbon sink. As the Atlantic Ocean incubates another hurricane season, the people of Puerto Rico are rebuilding their island in a way that not only enhances climate resilience, but also reclaims their political power. The island they are creating — one that is socially just, ecologically sustainable, and politically empowered — is an inspiring model for a just, sustainable future. One that is definitively not American-made. Puerto Rico’s American Dream is dead Tyler Cowen September 26, 2017, 8:46 AM EDT Hurricane aid is on its way, but the U.S. seems unwilling to tackle the island’s long-term problems. President Donald Trump has finally started tweeting about the disaster in Puerto Rico, and his messages show that he — and we as a nation — still haven’t digested the full implications of the post-Hurricane Maria situation. The underlying reality is that the political and economic model for the island just isn’t working any more, and the dream of Puerto Rican economic convergence has been laid to rest once and for all. That in turn says something bad about the rest of this country, namely how quickly we will give up on the possibility of transformational change. The traditional American dream is that the poorer parts of this country would, sooner or later, start catching up to the richer parts. The American South, after an extreme divergence, gained on the North after World War II. But Puerto Rico never made the same leap, and in relative terms has held roughly steady since 1970. Worse yet, the island has about $123 billion in debt and pension obligations, compared with a gross domestic product of slightly more than $100 billion, a number that is sure to fall. In the last decade, the island has lost about 9 percent of its population, including many ambitious and talented individuals. In the past 20 years, Puerto Rico’s labor force shrank by about 20 percent, with the health-care sector being especially hard hit. The population of children under 5 has fallen 37 percent since 2000, and Puerto Rico has more of its population over 60 than any U.S. state. Hurricane Maria has produced conditions unprecedented in recent American experience. Much of the island has no fresh water and no phone service, and the status of the food supply and its accessibility is uncertain. Restoring electricity will take months, the health-care system isn’t functioning, and a major dam may yet break, causing further dangerous flooding. Those developments will worsen the already dire long-term prospects for Puerto Rico. Tourism no longer exists after the storm, and presumably outside investment will decline in both the short and longer run, due to damaged infrastructure and the possibility that major storms are now more likely as the climate changes. Federal aid is being mobilized, but that won’t even restore the pre-storm state, which was already fiscally insolvent. Nydia Velazquez, a representative from New York, will be requesting a one-year waiver from the Jones Act, a federal law that requires cargo shipments to Puerto Rico take place on U.S. vehicles. The act was originally intended to help the U.S. shipping industry, but it raises prices in Puerto Rico by raising costs. A one-year waiver is better than nothing, but it’s sad we cannot repeal the Jones Act altogether, or at least permanently exempt Puerto Rico. It’s a sign of how little we are willing to budge to solve what is a catastrophic problem for 3.4 million Americans. Statehood would have been Puerto Rico’s best chance for economic growth. One of the wisest features of American policy after the Revolution was the emphasis on rapid statehood, rather than territory status. When regions moved from territories to full-blown states, it provided a big boost to their per capita incomes. Puerto Rico never did the same, in part because its citizens voted not to, and in part because the mainland was reluctant to absorb a Hispanic territory. These days, political polarization renders statehood hard to imagine, as Puerto Rican senators likely would be Democrats. Increasingly, it seems that many parts of the Western world might never “catch up,” including Greece, southern Italy, much of the Balkans and much of Latin America, in addition to Puerto Rico. One of the pleasing features of the 1990s, in retrospect a delusion, was the notion that proper policy and good multilateral institutions would bring most of the world into consistent, steady-state growth at a higher rate than what the wealthier countries could manage. Sending external aid for life support is a fundamentally different endeavor than seeking to restore and then boost sustainable growth. Are we really ready to write off Puerto Rico? That this story hasn’t dominated the headlines unfortunately suggests the answer is yes. We’re looking at a future where Puerto Rico has simply ceased to be an independently viable economic unit. In addition to the well-being of Puerto Ricans, at stake is what kind of nation the U.S. is going to be. Do we respond to major challenges, or run away from them? I expect to see American generosity toward Puerto Rico’s storm recovery, but unfortunately very little engagement with this more fundamental question. BX3M, a film by Judith Escalona at the Havana Film Festival New York Bx3M Trailer BX3M, a film written anddirected by Judith Escalona, is in competition for the Havana Star Prize at the Havana Film Festival NY! For Maria and Mona, graduation means fulfilling a dream. For Michael, it means dashing all hope of a better future. You either make the grade or you don’t— in academics or love— and that makes all the difference. The film will screen Thursday, April 12 at 8:30PM––AMC Loews, West 34th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues. See you there! CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bx3m-tickets-44151114171 March 19, 2018 Corrientes, The Forumescalona Leave a comment Puerto Rico is a changed land and the Puerto Rican people need our aid October 15, 2017 The Forumescalona With the two hurricanes that struck Puerto Rico in September, the island has been transformed into a paradisic wasteland. FEMA and the general federal response to the island, that has lost all electrical power and lines of communication after MARIA rolled over and just sat on it, has been exasperatingly poor. Mismanagement from FEMA and the limited deployment of the military has led to the death of people in the interior and to a majority of people with limited access to food and water. Conditions have deteriorated to such a degree that there is the fear of an outbreak of cholera. Governor Rosello is eating his words for saying that the Feds have acted appropriately. Mayor Yulin of San Juan stands out as someone who drew attention to the inadequate and inept response of FEMA. According to one news commentator, Yulin changed the way Puerto Rico is being covered. Example: While FEMA reportedly said that certain communities in the interior were unreachable, reporters and volunteer teams delivering food and water were able to arrive without much difficulty. The famed ship USNS Comfort, a floating hospital with 800 beds, and teams of doctors, has only 8 patients while people are dying for lack of access to dialysis, and other life support equipment. Now, nearly a month later, most of the country remains in darkness. What’s absurdly surreal and frustrating, the Comfort requires that people be referred by a doctor. Puerto Rico is choking on Federal red tape. To donate check out a recent reposting of artist Nayda Collazo-Llorens recommendations on PRdream’s Facebook page: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1705378302826132&id=262890787074898&_rdr We haven’t been posting here. We have been posting about the crisis in Puerto Rico on PRdream’s Facebook page. More later. Community Film Screening of Judith Escalona’s Bx3M August 17, 2016 The Forumescalona Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony in Honor of the BORINQUENEERS – Sunday, July 17, 2016 July 8, 2016 The Forumescalona The 65th Regiment of the U.S. Army, comprised of Puerto Ricans and, later, other Latinos, will be honored with a Congressional Gold Medal Ceremony and screening of Noemi Figueroa’s documentary “The Borinqueneers” at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies Library in El Barrio (Spanish Harlem). SCREENING: “THE STANDBY GENERATION” by Juan C. Davila Santiago May 23, 2016 The Forumescalona Puerto Rican Island Millennials speak out. The filmmaker will be present along with some of the interviewees who will be Skyped live from Puerto Rico to discuss the situation in Puerto Rico further. No te lo pierdas. PRdream presents La Generacion del Estanbai (The Standby Generation) by Juan C. Davila Santiago – Saturday, May 28 at 2PM PRdream mourns the passing Ramon Jimenez, Esq. and community activist, September 19, 1948 – May 10, 2016	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1545
__label__wiki	0.988261	0.988261	PRdream mourns the passing of Herman Badillo 1929 – 2014 December 9, 2014 Corrientesescalona From the New York Times Herman Badillo, America’s first Puerto Rican-born congressman and a fixture in New York City politics for four decades who championed civil rights, jobs, housing and education reforms, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 85. His death, at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital, was caused by complications of congestive heart failure, his son, David, said. Mr. Badillo rode many horses on New York’s political merry-go-round from 1962 to 2001. Besides being elected to four terms in Congress, he was a city commissioner, the Bronx borough president, a deputy under Mayor Edward I. Koch, a counsel to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a candidate for state and city comptroller, and a trustee and then board chairman of the City University of New York. But the prize he most coveted — to be New York’s first Puerto Rican mayor — eluded him, despite six tries, in 1969, 1973, 1977, 1985, 1993 and 2001. The ’85 and ’93 bids were so short-lived, they hardly counted, and he never won a major-party endorsement, although he came close in 1973, losing to the city comptroller, Abraham D. Beame, in a Democratic primary runoff. Mr. Beame went on to be elected mayor. The peaks of Mr. Badillo’s career were his seven years in Congress, in the 1970s, when he advocated urban renewal, antipoverty programs, voting rights and bilingual education, and his leadership of the CUNY board, from 1999 to 2001, when it ended open enrollment in the senior colleges and raised standards for admission, curriculums and graduation after years of academic decline. He called himself “the first Puerto Rican everything,” and it was true in a way. He was a role model who overcame an impoverished orphaned boyhood and an inability to speak English to become a famous politician. He lost many elections but won respect as a fighter, as the first Puerto Rican city commissioner and borough president, and as the nation’s highest-ranking Puerto Rican officeholder. Mr. Badillo’s political odyssey was a long arc from Kennedy-style liberalism in the 1960s to Giuliani conservatism in the 1990s. He defied party loyalties and was by turns a Reform Democrat, a Democrat, a Republican and a neoconservative. A lean, broad-shouldered man with a proud, solemn bearing, he often spoke his mind bluntly, sometimes offending ethnic sensibilities and alienating constituents. He called Mr. Koch “cowardly,” for example, and derided Mr. Beame as “a malicious little man” in a 1973 mayoral primary debate. (Mr. Badillo said he had been referring to Mr. Beame’s “pettiness of mind” and not his physical stature. Mr. Beame was 5-foot-2, Mr. Badillo 6-foot-1.) Mr. Badillo ran for mayor six times. He challenged Michael Bloomberg for the Republican mayoral nomination in 2001. Early on, Mr. Badillo supported bilingual education and assistance for the poor. Later, he concluded that the immigrant’s path to assimilation and prosperity lay in self-reliance, not government largess; he advocated a meritocracy of standard achievement tests, opposed bilingual education and promoted urban renewal to create jobs and housing, even when it displaced poor people. In the 1990s he became a Republican, Mr. Giuliani’s education adviser and Gov. George E. Pataki’s CUNY chairman. His last hurrah was a 2001 challenge to Michael R. Bloomberg for the Republican mayoral nomination. Even friends called it quixotic, but it reflected the trajectory of a self-made man who had often run the New York City Marathon and always thrived on adversity. Herman Badillo (pronounced bah-DEE-yoh) was born in Caguas, P.R., on Aug. 21, 1929, the only child of Francisco and Carmen Rivera Badillo. His father, an English teacher, died when Herman was 1 and his mother, when he was 5, both of tuberculosis. Relatives took him in, and at 11 he was sent to New York. Shunted among relatives, he lived in Chicago, in California and with an aunt in East Harlem. He learned English and became an excellent student at Haaren High School in Manhattan. Working as a dishwasher, bowling pinsetter and accountant, he graduated with high honors from City College in 1951 and from Brooklyn Law School as valedictorian in 1954, then settled into law practice in New York. He married the first of three wives, Norma Lit, in 1949, had one son, and was divorced in 1960. In 1961, he married Irma Deutsch Liebling; she had Alzheimer’s disease and died in 1996. Later that year he married Gail Roberts, who lived with him in Manhattan and East Hampton, N.Y. She and his son survive him. Mr. Badillo founded an East Harlem Kennedy-for-President committee in 1960 and supported Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr.’s successful antimachine campaign for re-election the next year. The mayor rewarded him, in 1962, with the new post of commissioner of housing relocation. Mr. Badillo went on to defy Bronx Democratic bosses and win the borough presidency in 1965. He opposed the Vietnam War, backed the presidential candidacies of Robert F. Kennedy and, after Mr. Kennedy’s murder, Senator Eugene J. McCarthy, and won a seat in Congress in 1970. He was re-elected in 1972, 1974 and 1976. But while his political life would continue for 25 years, he never won another election. He quit his safe congressional seat in 1977, a year early, to become a deputy mayor to Mr. Koch. But they had a falling-out over South Bronx redevelopment, and he departed in 1979. He lost a challenge to Mr. Koch in the 1985 Democratic mayoral primary and a 1986 race as a Democrat for state comptroller. He fared no better as a Republican. He did so poorly in a 1993 mayoral primary campaign against Mr. Giuliani that he quit and became his rival’s Republican-Liberal running mate for city comptroller. He lost again, but Mr. Giuliani won and named him an education counselor. In his book “One Nation, One Standard: An Ex-Liberal on How Hispanics Can Succeed Just Like Other Immigrant Groups” (2006), Mr. Badillo said Hispanic Americans undervalued education, which he called tragic for the nation’s largest ethnic minority. He was appointed CUNY chairman in 1999, but resigned in 2001 to make his final run for mayor, challenging the billionaire Mr. Bloomberg in the Republican primary. Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Pataki, his erstwhile patrons, backed Mr. Bloomberg, the winner, and Mr. Badillo retired from politics. ← Previous Post PRdream mourns the passing of Fernando Salicrup, August 6, 1946 – January 1, 2015 →	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1546
__label__wiki	0.909503	0.909503	Poets Corner Archive Poets Corner Site Index P.O.E JUNIORS Junior Site Index Ancient Egyptian Compendium Roman Compendium Ancient Greek Compendium Medieval Compendium Articles by Under 16’s P.O.E HERITAGE Hollywood Glamour: Four Women Posted on January 19, 2014 May 1, 2016 by Kim Seabrook For two decades from 1930 to 1950 before the movie industry adopted the pained expression of art and turned the lens on itself to reveal truths that become neither more or less significant in the re-telling, Hollywood gloried in the production of entertainment pure and simple that saw it attain heights of unparalleled success. Ranging from screwball comedies and musical spectaculars to racy thrillers, gangster movies, and hard-boiled film noir the movie industry distracted a people beset by the nightmare of economic recession and the trauma of war drawing them into a world of dreams, aspiration, and unimaginable glamour. But things weren’t always quite as they seemed: This is the story of four women: “I never go outside unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.” She was born Lucille Fay LeSeur in San Antonio, Texas, on 23 March 1905, the daughter of a laundry man who abandoned the family whilst she was still in the womb. Not that she ever permitted her humble origins to intrude upon her later grandeur. The young Lucille had two ambitions in life to achieve good grades at school that would permit her to attend college and to dance. Whilst she was still a very young girl her mother married Henry Cassin, suggesting that Lucille had been born out of wedlock. Cassin soon moved the family to the town of Lawton in Oklahoma where he ran a small local theatre. This was a dream come true for Lucille who was now able to practice her dancing whenever she liked and for as long as she liked, and she became very fond of the man that for many years she believed was her father until her brother one day somewhat bluntly told her that this wasn’t the case. Lucille’s grades at school were modest at best but she nonetheless managed to enrol at college but once there found little time to study instead having to work long hours scrubbing floors and washing dishes to make ends meet. Aware that she would never achieve academically she now focused her attention entirely on her dancing and decided to pursue a career in the theatre. When she was eighteen and following the death of her step-father she moved to New York where she found work on Broadway as a member of the Chorus Line. Her obvious love of dancing, despite being amongst the poorest paid and most put upon member of any stage production, and the energy and vibrancy she put into every performance made her stand out from the rest of the cast, and in 1924 she was offered a contract of $75 a week by M.G.M Studios. It was an opportunity that she was not about to let pass her by even if she had to borrow the money for the journey to California. By the end of the year she was picking up roles in minor low-budget movies, though it has since been rumoured that some of these films were not necessarily intended for the local cinema and pushed the bounds of public decency, but there is little evidence for this other than hearsay. Her ability as a dancer saw her cast in many of her only roles as a Flapper, or the free-spirited girl without a care in the world, and she soon became a familiar and popular figure in the candy floss, boy meets girl shorts that preceded the main feature. At this time she was appearing under her own name but was told to change it when it was pointed out that LeSeur could be misinterpreted when spoken aloud as The Sewer. The studio decided that her change of name should be decided upon by her fans and they opted for Joan Arden but there was already an actress by this name and so Joan Crawford was chosen instead. Lucille liked neither of the names and was resentful that she’d had to change it at all. The newly named Joan wasn’t just becoming a familiar face on the silver screen she was also a regular at the many Hollywood parties. Indeed, there rarely seemed to be one that she didn’t attend even when they ran simultaneously, and it was at one of these parties that she met fellow actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Seen out together regularly it seemed that Fairbanks was just another one the many men that Joan was dating around this time but the relationship was more serious than it had first appeared and on 3 June, 1929, they wed. It was a marriage made in heaven, at least as far as Joan’s career was concerned. Her new in-laws were the legendary silent screen stars Douglas Fairbanks Sr and Mary Pickford. It was as close to Hollywood Royalty it was possible to get, and even though the marriage itself was to last only four years and end in a great deal of recrimination the impact it had on her career was far deeper and far more significant. For much of the next decade Joan was to establish her reputation as one of Hollywood’s leading ladies in a series of ever meatier roles that invariably cast her as the gritty and determined All American Girl struggling in adversity to provide for herself and her family but always coming out on top in the end. Indeed, she became the personification of hope in harsh economic times. In times of war however people seek escapism and not Joan’s character as the spiky I will survive woman in kitchen-sink melodramas. She seemed out of place and out of time, especially to the many millions of American men serving in the armed forces who sought their distractions in the more obvious sexual allure of Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable. It seemed as if Joan’s career had hit the skids and was in irreversible decline. Following a series of flops where it seemed that you couldn’t pay people to see a Joan Crawford movie the roles stopped coming – she had become box office poison. In public Joan appeared unconcerned about the decline in her fortunes remaining the glamorous must see movie star but in private she was riddled with self-doubt. And for more than five years her career remained on hold as new younger stars drew the crowds to the cinema. But all this was to change in 1945 with the release of the melodrama Mildred Pierce for which she won the Oscar for Best Actress and which was in many respects to be eerily autobiographical. Milldred Pierce was to be the pinnacle of her career and she never attained such heights again but she was to remain an in-demand actress for the rest of her life and the movie star par excellence. Joan was to continue to make movies throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s and late in her career made the smooth transition to television despite her increasingly heavy drinking making some doubt that she could adapt to its demands, but for all the turning up late if at all, the forgetting of her lines, and the hissy-fits on set it was rare for Joan not to produce the goods when required and to impress with her undoubted talents still as a dancer as well as an actress. Joan’s private life was often as melodramatic as the characters she played on screen. She was to marry a further three times after her divorce from Douglas Fairbanks Jr with varying degrees of success and her relationship with her children is well documented. She was in fact to disinherit two of them and Joan is perhaps as famous now for her long-running feud with Bette Davis and the 1982 film Mommie Dearest based on the best -selling memoir of her daughter Christina which portrayed her as a self-obsessed, paranoid, and hysterical mother who demanded affection and inflicted mental torture on her children, which either served to damage or enhance her reputation depending on your point of view. Joan Crawford died of a heart attack on 10 May 1977, aged 72 having earlier returned to the Christian Science of her childhood. She was voted the tenth greatest movie actress of all time by the American Film Institute, though there has probably never been a greater movie star. Bette Davis was voted the second greatest movie actress, something which would have irked her. “You should never say bad things about the dead, you should say only good. Joan Crawford is dead. Good!” Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known as Bette, was born on 25 October 1909, in Lowell, Massachusetts and was the opposite of her great rival Joan Crawford in almost every way. With her father a successful Attorney-at-Law she was from a cushioned and privileged background which saw her never feel the need to adopt airs-and-graces or to placate those she offended or disagreed with. Bette received an excellent education attending Boarding School but was never drawn to academia or a career in the professions but was instead drawn to acting by her love of the movies spending many hours watching her childhood hero Rudolf Valentino. Eager to follow in her heroes footsteps she attended Theatre School in New York where she was taught to dance by the legendary choreographer Martha Graham, and by her early twenties she was appearing in small roles on Broadway where her acting abilities were spotted by a talent scout and she was invited to do a screen test for Universal Studios in Hollywood. It was a tribute to Bette’s stage presence for she was neither blessed with the obvious beauty and glamour that was considered the prerequisite for any young actress wanting to make her way in the movies. Unlike Joan, Bette had no need to borrow the money for the journey to California and was accompanied on the trip by her mother. Upon their arrival they were shocked to discover that there was no one from the Studio present to greet them, although the Studio was to claim that someone had been sent but he did not see anyone leave the train who, looked at all like a prospective movie star. Bette was to fail her subsequent screen test but was used in others for budding actors where she apparently made more of an impression. Much later she described her feelings: “I was the most Yankee, the most modest virgin who ever walked the earth. I lay on the couch and tested fifteen men. They all lay on top of me and kissed me passionately. Oh I thought I would die. I would just die!” Following her performance as the modest virgin, Bette was offered a second screen test which she again failed and it seemed as if her fledgling career in the movies had stalled at the first hurdle, and it was only the intervention of the actor George Arliis, who had been impressed by her charm and insisted that she appear in his next movie that prevented her from returning home. It was an intervention for which Bette was to express her eternal gratitude. Within a few years Bette was one of the most admired actresses in Hollywood and had a reputation as someone who was willing to take on those roles that others turned down fearing it would be detrimental to their careers. Even so, her film roles rarely matched her talent. In 1935 however she was cast to play alongside Franchot Tone (who would later be married to Joan Crawford) in what now appears an overly-sentimental and humdrum movie entitled Dangerous. Despite the failings of the movie itself Bette’s performance stood out even if it cannot be considered to be one of her finest. Nonetheless she won the Oscar for Best Actress and it was to be the turning point of her career. Three years later she won again for a towering performance in the Civil War drama Jezebel. Bette believed that her Oscar winning performance as the Southern Belle Julie Marsden made her a shoe-in for the forthcoming role of Scarlett O’Hara in the Civil War epic Gone With the Wind but along with other established stars who auditioned for the role such as Tallulah Bankhead, Paulette Goddard, Jean Arthur, and Lana Turner she was overlooked for the little known English actress Vivien Leigh. Despite this disappointment the 1940’s were to be the highpoint of Bette’s career with her appearance in box office smashes such as Dark Victory, All About Eve, and Now Voyager. Throughout this period Bette and Joan continued to cross paths as well as swords. The role of Mildred Pierce for which Joan Crawford had won her Oscar had originally been turned down by Bette. Four years later she had to withdraw from the movie Possessed because she was pregnant. Joan Crawford took her place and as a result received her second Oscar nomination. No one knows for sure origins of the feud between Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, but one can imagine. Bette despised Joan’s pretensions and believed she used them to disguise her humble background, something that she of course had no need to do. Once when answering a question regarding her own career she remarked: “Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it’s because I am not a bitch. Maybe that’s why Joan Crawford always plays ladies”. But there may have been more to it than this. Joan was promiscuous no doubt, and had a fondness for both sexes and it is rumoured that early in her career Joan made advances to Bette that she not only rejected but greatly offended her. She also believed that aware of her deep affection for Franchot Tone, Joan seduced and married him not out of love but in an act of malice. Bette wasn’t joking when she said: “She was the good time had by all”. And everyone knew who she was talking about even if she did not reference Joan Crawford by name. During the 1950’s Bette continued to make movies but only with varying degrees of success and though she remained an actress in demand she was no longer a box office draw and she became as notorious for her hard-drinking, chain-smoking, straight talking off-screen persona as any on-screen performance. In 1962 she made the psychological drama Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Co-starring alongside, Joan Crawford. The news that they were to appear on-screen together for the first time caused a great stir but also concerned the production team. They needn’t have worried and there was very little friction on set with the movies Director Robert Aldrich remarking: “It is true to say that they really detested each other but they both behaved impeccably”. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Was to be the last great movie success for both women and Bette Davis was to receive her tenth and final Oscar nomination, a record at the time. She wasn’t to win and later accused Joan Crawford of actively campaigning to undermine her nomination, something she denied. It was true however that she had contacted the other nominees and told them that if they were unable to attend the ceremony for any reason then she would gladly accept the award on their behalf. Bette made the transition from the silver screen to television and continued to work right up to the end of her life but like her old nemesis Joan Crawford she too was to be the victim of a warts-and-all book by her daughter that portrayed her as an abusive drunk. The accusations hurt her deeply despite her friends rallying around to defend her. Long suffering from ill-health Bette Davis died in France on 6 October 1989, aged 81. “Every man I knew went to be with Gilda, and woke up with me”. Margarita Carmen Cansino, or Rita Hayworth was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 17 October 1918. Her parents were both professional dancers and her mother had performed with the Ziegfield Follies so there was an inevitability that Rita would follow in their footsteps, not that she was given much choice by her parents. By the age of three she was taking dance lessons, and by the age of six she had already given her first performance. In 1927 her father moved the family to Hollywood where he set up a dance studio with some initial success and he could count some major stars amongst his clients but the Wall Street Crash of 1929 hit America hard which not only saw his investments fail but paying for dance lessons become superfluous. He had little choice but to start performing again and so he formed the Dancing Cansino’s to play the local theatres and nightclubs and the eleven year old Rita was an integral part of the troupe. She was however too young under California law to appear in nightclubs but this didn’t provide her with any respite from a grueling schedule as her father took her across the border into Mexico to do so. In 1934 Rita’s dancing was noticed by the head of Fox Studios and she was signed on a short-term contract making her movie debut aged sixteen. Her contract wasn’t renewed but a local promoter Edward Judson, whom Rita would marry two years later, arranged for her to have a screen test with Columbia Pictures which the strikingly beautiful Rita passed almost at first glance. Beautiful though she was with her rich auburn hair and dark brown eyes it limited her opportunities. She was simply too exotic and too Latin, and there were only so many Arabian Princesses and Mexican Senoritas you could play, and the competition was also great with established stars such as Dolores del Rio and Carmen Miranda taking the best roles for themselves. So she was told to change her image and become more ‘American.’ Rita did as she was told, she always did as she was told, something she would later regret. She died her hair a deep red, began to use a paler foundation, emphasised her lips rather than her eyes, and changed her name from Cansino to her mother’s maiden name, Hayworth. The head of Columbia Pictures Harry Cohn was delighted with her compliance and now took her under his wing controlling every aspect of career and her life, obsessively so according to Rita who later described him as a monster. In 1939 he got her a small role in the Howard Hughes production Only Angels Have Wings and despite only a short time on screen upon its release it wasn’t the movies stars Cary Grant and Jean Arthur that received the sackfuls of fan mail but Rita Hayworth. Harry Cohn realised he had a star on his hands. The roles now came thick and fast and in 1941 she appeared alongside James Cagney in The Strawberry Blonde. It was a great success and so was Rita Hayworth. She was now hot property and her image was everywhere including appearing numerous times on the front cover of Life Magazine and throughout the war years she was a forces sweetheart receiving thousands of letters from lovelorn soldiers serving overseas. The movies she appeared in continued to be box office hits but she received few accolades for her acting. It was her beauty that struck a chord with the public and her bankability with Columbia Pictures. The critics seemed to care little either way – she was neither good nor was she bad. She was just Rita Hayworth. The Studio had been keen to maximise her talents as a dancer and she was one of the few actress to appear alongside both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, even though both had expressed their concerns that at 5’6” she was a little tall. In 1942, Rita divorced her husband and the following year married the new enfant terrible of American cinema Orson Welles, but her movies, though hugely popular, remained largely forgettable. In 1946 however she was cast to play Gilda in the movie of the same name. A classic of its genre it was to be the greatest role of Hayworth’s career and the one with which she will always be associated. Upon its release the film caused outrage with its portrayal of the irresistible siren leading men to their destruction and with its provocative if not exactly revealing striptease scene, Gilda was the femme-fatale that launched a thousand imitators – sultry, seductive, and dangerous she changed Rita Hayworth from a mere actress into a cultural icon. The role created a new Rita Hayworth, though in time she was to consider it more of a curse than a blessing. Orson Welles now decided to cast her in a similar role in his movie The Lady from Shanghai but this time he had her hair cropped and dyed platinum blonde. This was not however the sumptuously gorgeous redhead with the shoulder length hair that the nation had taken to its hearts and the movie flopped. Sadly so did Rita’s marriage and she and Orson Welles were divorced the following year. Rita had never been ambitious to be a dancer and a performer, she had been born to it, and she was to repeat on numerous occasions: “All I wanted was just what everybody else wants, you know, to be loved”. Simply admired for a beauty that did not stare back at her from the mirror the stress and the strain of it all was proving too much, and Rita, who had long been a heavy drinker was doing so more than ever. In 1948 she scandalised America by marrying the future Aga Khan at a time when inter-racial relationships were frowned upon and her popularity dipped so alarmingly that she was forced to take her first ever real break from performing. The playboy Prince however had no real intention of settling and subjected Rita to what the divorce papers sited as severe mental and emotional abuse. They also clashed over religion with Rita, a Roman Catholic, refusing to raise their daughter Yasmin as a Muslim despite being offered a million dollars to do so. Just months after her divorce from the Prince, Rita married for the fourth time to the singer, Dick Haymes who was appearing in Las Vegas at the time on a lucrative contract paying him $5,000 a week. Unknown to her however he was heavily in debt to the Inland Revenue Service who took almost all of his money and the burden for maintaining their glamorous lifestyle fell almost entirely upon Rita. The marriage was never a happy one and in 1955 he struck her so hard in public that she later went into shock and was forced to take to her bed, but only after she had packed her bags never to return. Despite her personal traumas the 1950’s were to be the most successful period of her career and she appeared in such films as Salome, Separate Tables, and The Fire Down Below but it was noticed how the old flirtatious self-confidence had gone. By now her heavy drinking had tipped over into alcoholism and it was taking its toll. Whilst making The Fire Down Below she was in makeup when she was told to hurry up because no amount of time could make her look young. The following year she was signing autographs on the set of the movie Pal Joey when she heard a fan remark – “But she looks so old”. She was in fact 38. In 1958 she married the film producer James Hill. The actor Charlton Heston recalled an occasion when he and his wife were invited to dine with them at a local restaurant: “Hill heaped the most obscene abuse on Hayworth until she was reduced to a flood of tears, her face in her hands.” He goes on to describe how humiliating it was and how tempted he was to strike Hill, instead he and his wife, who was also in tears, got up from the table and left. He later wrote: “I’m ashamed of walking away from Miss Hayworth’s humiliation. I never saw her again.” Over the next two decades Rita Hayworth made fewer and fewer movies as her alcoholism became more profound and her behaviour increasingly erratic. She had never received much critical acclaim and now frequently drunk and unable to remember her lines she merely became a famous name on the cast list. She died on 14 May 1987, aged 68, from Alzheimer’s Disease which had gone undiagnosed for many years and may have been mistaken at times for drunkenness. Rita Hayworth was only ever nominated for one Golden Globe which she didn’t win. Even so she was voted nineteenth greatest ever actress by the American Film Institute, one behind Shirley Temple. “You could put all the talent I had into your left eye and still not suffer from impaired vision”. The girl with the peek-a-boo hair was born Constance Frances Ockelman in Brooklyn, New York on 14 November, 1922. Her father who worked for an oil company was killed in an industrial accident when she was aged ten, but her mother was soon married again to the newspaper artist Anthony Keene and not long after Frances was sent to attend Catholic Boarding School in Montreal. Constance had a troubled childhood, she could be stubborn, suffered from severe mood swings, and displayed signs of emotional instability. She was often uncontrollable and her erratic behaviour was to see her expelled from her expensive Boarding School. Following Constance’s expulsion her step-father moved the family to Miami before in 1938 his work took him to Beverly Hills. The very pretty sixteen year old Constance enrolled at Theatre School and the family’s close proximity to the big Hollywood Studios and their contacts within the business soon found her being cast in minor roles in small budget movies for RKO but she displayed no great talent and Hollywood was replete with pretty young girls and the work soon dried up. She was talent scouted by Paramount Studio’s however who were intrigued by the way her long blonde hair would fall over her right eye giving her an aura of mystique. She was signed on a contract and provided with a new name –Veronica Lake. It was thought that the name Veronica had class and that Lake matched her bright blue eyes. In 1941 she was cast in the wartime drama I Wanted Wings which was a success if not a box office smash but she soon followed this up with the more popular comedy Sullivan’s Travels. But there were early indications that Veronica’s career path would not be a smooth one. Her co-star in Sullivan’s Travels, Joel McCrae turned down the opportunity to make another film with her saying: “Life’s too short to do another film with Veronica Lake”. She had a complex and unpredictable personality and was proving a difficult person to either get to know or to work with. One of her other co-stars Eddie Bracken put it more succinctly: “She was known as The Bitch and she deserved the title.” In late 1941 she made This Gun for Hire, the first of the series of gritty film-noirs in which she was to make her name. She had only been cast in the role however because at 4’11” she was the only actress the Studio had who was significantly shorter than the movies male lead, the 5’5” Alan Ladd. She believed that she had just got lucky. The movie was a great success and in the photos distributed to publicise its release Veronica was shown with her hair falling provocatively over her right eye. It started a craze known as peek-a-boo, and having a Veronica Lake became the must have hair-do of its day. For the next five years Veronica was to be one the best paid actresses in Hollywood but it was always a faltering career. Her frequently erratic behaviour was made worse by her liking for hard liquor and the quality of her work suffered. It also seemed to some that if she had any talent at all it was for making enemies. The Studio tried to maintain the momentum of her career by casting her in light-hearted dramas but she displayed little talent for comedy and she was accused of acting with her hair, something she appeared to delight in. In 1946 her career once more took off with the classic film-noir The Blue Dahlia again alongside Alan Ladd and it was a huge box office smash and was to set the standard for hundreds of such-like films to come. But again Veronica had been difficult on the set, so much so that she was referred to outside of her hearing somewhat unkindly as Moronica Lake. Following the success of the Blue Dahlia it seemed that every young American woman now wanted to be Veronica Lake but within two years of its release Paramount Studios had cancelled her contract. Though she continued to make films of increasingly poor quality and appear on stage and television Veronica’s career never recovered from the Studio’s rejection of her. Her later years were blighted by alcoholism and mental health issues and she became as famous for her arrests for being drunk in public as she was for her movies. In 1960 she was discovered by a newspaper journalist working as a waitress in a hotel. People who worked closely with her were to say that she was a gifted young woman but that she couldn’t see it, and that you couldn’t tell her. She died on 17 July 1973, aged 50, from kidney failure. She had earlier been diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia something that her mother claimed to have known since her childhood. Veronica Lake created a look and an image that has iconic status and is still imitated to this day. Indeed, it is believed that the character of Jessica Rabbit was based on her. She also made a series of films that are a classic of their type and have stood the test of time. What more do you need to be a star? But she won no awards and does not appear on the American Film Institute’s list of great actresses. 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__label__wiki	0.859645	0.859645	Ignored veto divides president, majority over booming gambling industry By Tirana Times September 13, 2018 12:43 In his suspensive veto returning the legal changes for reconsideration by Parliament, President Ilir Meta argued the government-proposed amendment eased the tax burden and also failed to curb a booming phenomenon that has not slowed down despite nationwide campaigns and legal changes aimed at discouraging gambling in downtown areas Cold weather blocks part of the country Bush dismisses as ‘ludicrous’ story that his watch was stolen in Albania New Italian recession signals more trouble for Albanian economy TIRANA, Sept. 13 – The ruling Socialists ignored a presidential veto this week as they turned into law some legal changes which the president had previously turned down by arguing they eased the tax burden and failed to discourage a booming business with negative effects for the country’s economy and society. In a session boycotted by the opposition and not attended by representatives of the President’s office who said they had not been informed about it, ruling majority MPs cancelled the presidential veto to finally turn into law some legal changes which they say apply a unified 15 percent profit tax on gambling companies. The president’s office argues the legal changes approved by the ruling Socialists in early July and vetoed by the president in late July cut the gambling tax to 15 percent of gross earnings calculated as the amount remaining after the distribution of profits to gamblers compared to a current 15 percent turnover rate, significantly reducing the tax burden on gambling operators. However, the government says the legal changes have been misinterpreted by the president as the gambling tax remains unchanged and the sole change to the 2015 gambling law is that the gambling tax on the loss-making Austrian-run national lottery has been unified to 15 percent compared to a current 10 percent. Austrian Lotteries launched its Albania operations in 2013 after it was given a 10-year licence to organize Albania’s first ever national lottery and offered a 10 percent tax rate. Back in mid-2016, the Austrian Lotteries Albania operations were taken over by another Austria-based company already present in Albania with a chain of electronic casinos following accumulated losses. In his suspensive veto returning the legal changes for reconsideration by Parliament, President Ilir Meta argued the amendment also failed to curb a booming phenomenon that has not slowed down despite nationwide campaigns and legal changes aimed at discouraging gambling in downtown areas. “The gambling business model does not produce added value for the society, on the contrary the expansion of this industry brings potential risk that impoverish Albanian households and cause social drama,” argued the president. Casinos no longer in town Speaking at the parliamentary economy committee this week, Finance Minister Arben Ahmetaj defended the legal changes as applying equal 15 percent tax rate on all companies and said 2016 legal changes disciplining gambling in downtown areas would finally come into force starting January 2019 following a two-year extension in 2017. Minister Ahmetaj said electronic casinos will no longer be allowed in downtown areas starting January 1, 2019 and the booming sports betting shops also serving as coffee bars be disciplined at a distance of not less than 200 meters from each other. The legal changes initially scheduled to come into force in January 2017 were postponed for two years in late 2016 ahead of the mid-2017 general elections after some ruling Socialist MPs described the legal changes as premature and posing a threat to the industry employing 1,800 people and generating an annual $125 million in turnover and taxes. Legal changes limit the geographical location of casinos only to areas determined for tourism development or five-star hotels or tourist resorts and set restrictions for the booming sports betting industry. Transferring casinos outside Tirana is an initiative that began in 2012 when former Tirana mayor Lulzim Basha, the current leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, imposed higher tax burden for casinos operating in downtown Tirana, but failed to displace them outside Tirana, including the country's sole casino that still operates in the city center. Back in October 2013, soon after Edi Rama took office as the country’s Prime Minister, he initiated a nationwide campaign dubbed “The End of Madness” that closed down dozens of illegal gambling businesses, vowing zero tolerance to an activity which he said “cannot be the future of the country even legally.” Five years on, gambling remains a booming business and casinos and betting shops have grown in numbers and are even found close to schools or religious institutions. A 2017 report by Albania’s Supreme Audit Institution, identified about 50 billion lek (€390 million) in gambling income that state authorities failed to collect from 2014 to 2016. The revenue miss is related to the Gambling Supervisory Authority’s failure to impose and collect fines following seizure of games of chance equipment, often operated informally or not meeting technical requirements following the late 2013 nationwide campaign that closed down dozens of illegal gambling businesses in a bid to curb widespread informality in a sector that generates more than €100 million in income annually. Albanians gambling more Finance minister Ahmetaj says government revenue from gambling have increased to $54 million compared to $37 million in 2013 when the Socialists took over and there are fewer companies operating, some 20 compared to 40 five years ago. However, data shows Albanians are spending more and more on gambling and sports betting shops have flourished in the past few years, making Albania one of top countries with the highest per capita betting shops. Albania had more than 3,900 betting shops at a rate of 1 per 730 local residents this year, setting a European record, according to data obtained by local media. Albanians reportedly spent a record 16.6 billion lek (€132 mln) in gambling in 2017, up 10 percent compared to the previous year, according to turnover data reported by the main electronic casino, lottery and sports betting companies. Gambling is a booming business in Albania and varies from lotteries, electronic casinos and more numerous sports betting shops. A gambling law, which has been in force for several years, bans people under 21 from entering betting shops, but regardless, teenagers are often seen there. The booming gambling businesses is often linked to gangs laundering crime and drug proceeds. There have been also cases when even senior officials and judges have justified some of their income through winnings in betting shops or casinos in their wealth declarations. Albanian authorities have selected an Austrian-Polish-Albanian concessionaire to set up, operate and maintain an online central monitoring system on Albania’s gambling industry for the next 30 years amid opposition by gambling authorities who unsuccessfully appealed the law at the Constitutional Court over an increase in the tax burden. President-Gov’t clash The final approval of the gambling legal changes by Parliament also marks the first official clash between President Meta and the ruling majority. The president, whose powers are largely ceremonial, had previously exercised his suspended veto power on a bill paving the way for the demolition of an Italian-built WWII building in downtown Tirana that has served as the country’s national theater for about eight decades in a controversial project that has divided Albanian politicians and actors. The new contemporary architecture theater is supposed to be built by a private company in return for being offered public land to build business towers next to it, but the president argues the bill has violated market competition through its negotiated procedure and fails to preserve national heritage values. The bill is back for reconsideration and the ruling majority MPs seems to have withdrawn following a European Commission letter suggesting open competition for the project. President Meta is a former experienced politician who has served as the country’s Prime Minister and Parliament Speaker and also led the country’s third largest party for more than a decade until he took office as president in mid-2017. The now opposition Socialist Movement for Integration which he led served as a kingmaker with both the Democrats and the Socialists from 2009 to 2017. The final approval of gambling legal changes by the ruling Socialist in Parliament also comes at a time when the country’s constitutional court is non-operational due to a vetting process underway as part of a judiciary reform having dismissed several judges after failing to justify their financial assets. The main opposition Democratic Party and its allies have also been boycotting Parliament this month following the summer beak, arguing their absence with alleged rising corruption and government links to gangs hampering rule of law. The ruling Socialists, who won 74 out of 140 seats in the mid-2017 elections allowing them to govern on their own, had 78 votes in favour this month as they approved a mid-year budget cut amid a boycott by the opposition. The ruling Socialists are yet short of the three-fifths of votes, 84 MPs, required to push reforms.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1549
__label__wiki	0.509518	0.509518	Robert E. Howard: Existentialist Icon As the creator of Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, and other classic ‘pulp’ heroes from the early twentieth century, Robert E. Howard holds a special place in the history of speculative fiction. For me personally, though, I feel a strange kinship with Howard that is eerie at times. What follows is a personal journey of similarities with Howard. In existentialist terms, however, perhaps I place value on such a connection that isn’t truly there. No, I’m not comparing my writing to Howard’s. Regarded as one of the greatest pulp fiction writers of all time, Robert E. Howard is among my key inspirations as an author. His vibrant, visceral prose was driven by a ‘galloping pace’ and took place in fantastical settings. True, his heroes can come across as one-dimensional, but one key component of his tales is the existentialist nature of his characters. They are responsible for their own actions—not gods, kings, lovers, or any other outside force. Howard’s heroes alone, and no one else, brave the dangers because they want to. This ‘lone wolf’ mentality reflected Howard’s own alienation from society. Growing up in several Texas towns, it’s easy to see how that could happen for a man who wrote about demons, wizards, scantily-clad temptresses, and forgotten gods. I’ve heard that the short story is an ‘expression of loneliness’, and as a writer myself, I can relate. The existentialist concepts of despair, angst, and of giving one’s own life meaning, are rife in Howard’s work. I too have explored these concepts in my own fiction. Being a writer is an exercise in seclusion, of stepping out of the world for a time to write about another. There is no greater feeling than when I’ve just completed a story, but there is also no greater burden than when a writer can never truly connect to the outside world. I’m speaking from my own experience; it may be different for other writers. Robert E. Howard called himself the ‘one who writes alone’. There is a certain mystique surrounding such a person: one wonders at what their imagination and intellect creates in the small hours of the night. Behind this mystique often resides a sensitive, lonely person who can be socially inept. Howard, I think, was such a person. Sometimes I am myself. There is nothing romantic about it. The 1996 film about Howard and his erstwhile romance with Novalyne Price, ‘The Whole Wide World’, illustrates this in a wonderful fashion. Set against the backdrop of 1930’s rural Texas, its understandable how someone like Howard would write such tales. Writing to escape the boredom and loneliness surrounding him. Though this film dramatizes actual events, it nevertheless evokes a sense of kinship within me every time I view it. Like Howard, I grew up (and still reside) in a rural area with a conservative population. Like Howard, I too once hung swords on the wall, constructed ship models, drew maps of imaginary lands, and studied history and philosophy. We both wrote frontier stories about the region in which we lived. We both feature life’s gritty, hard realities in our work. And like him, I also loved a woman who never could see what I saw, never could come to terms with who I really was and continue to be. I understand this is my side of the story, but it’s what I feel. I don’t know how else to describe it. There’s a scene in the film, drawn from an actual conversation, where Howard tells Novalyne he just ‘wants a woman to love and believe in him’. I think we all want someone similar, but for a writer it’s harder to make one understand. In this society, those who aren’t making a fortune with their art (read: writing) aren’t taken seriously by certain people. It’s regarded as a strange hobby, even a vacuous dream. Having support behind you is important for everyone regardless of ambition or vocation, but when it comes to something as personal as one’s writing, the need seems to be reinforced. At least for me, this need strengthened once I took my own writing seriously. I’m not sure why; perhaps in turning emotions into prose, a vacuum is created within that can only be filled from without. One of the film’s best scenes is when Howard asks Novalyne to imagine an ‘Indian brave’ watching her from the forest, and for her to imagine what happens next. In contrast to Howard’s adventurous mind, Novalyne says ‘I’d tell him to get a haircut, wash off the war paint and come with me to Sunday school’. This alone doesn’t mean they were incompatible; it reveals the existentialist freedom of Howard’s thinking, compared to Novalyne’s preconceptions of what a person should be—the antithesis of freedom. I think in being a writer, Howard thus gave his life meaning. Some critics might say, instead of writing about the life of a fictitious character, one should live life instead. Yet, in writing, the author subsists in myriad lives; some may be different, but all ultimately return to a certain commonality regarding their creator. In my own fiction I have explored the existentialist concept of ‘finding one’s self’. Such an exercise often reveals things about me I hadn’t realized before, good and bad. In this way, not only the writing itself, but also my personal exploration during the writing process, gives my life meaning. Robert E. Howard committed suicide in 1936 when he was thirty years old; his mother had entered a coma following complications from tuberculosis. The two had been very close; some claim he even possessed an Oedipus complex. Before shooting himself in the head while in the car, Howard wrote on his typewriter: ‘All fled, all done, so lift me on the pyre, The feast is over and the lamps expire.’ He once stated he did not wish to grow old; to my knowledge none of his protagonists were elderly figures. Even King Conan was still a robust character in late middle age. This adds a romantic layer, just as it has for others like Alexander the Great, James Dean, and Jim Morrison: that of eternal youth. We never got to see Howard grow old and wither. He died in his prime, which is how we remember him. None of his key characters—Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, El Borak, Bran Mak Morn—are ever slain in a story; they too live on forever in our imaginations. Some have said the capability for human beings to commit suicide makes everyone an existentialist. The fear of freedom, and of having to give this freedom meaning when society, religion, or emotion fails to do so, is at the center of this theory. Though I’m not a proponent of suicide, and I regard Howard’s death a tragedy, one of my stories mentions the concept of suicide as the ‘ultimate freedom’—the power of choice to destroy oneself, even if that choice provides no benefit to that person. One of my unpublished novels is about a protagonist who commits suicide as an escape, but he enters a hellish afterlife where he remembers nothing. This also ties in with the existentialist concept of angst, when the fear of one’s own freedom imbues that person with the power of life and death over oneself. I admit this parallel with Howard is, as I stated in the beginning, eerie. Maybe, true to existentialist form, in thinking it eerie, I make it so. Nothing has value other than what we give it. Again, I’m no Robert E. Howard. I can only dream to achieve the impact his work has had over the decades. But the loneliness, alienation, and defining of oneself through one’s work, are things I think I share with him. I’m not unique; many other writers share this as well. I will close in saying that, unlike Howard, I plan to continue to ‘find myself’, and revel in the freedom of the individual, rather than end my life when despair drowns reason or meaning. Just like Conan, Solomon Kane, and other Howard creations, meaning is defined through one’s actions. I only hope my actions are considered meaningful, long after the lamps have dimmed and I am placed on the pyre.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1550
__label__wiki	0.967806	0.967806	Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michael Jones – Je te donne Home » Jean-Jacques Goldman » Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michael Jones – Je te donne Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michael Jones – Je te donne – Official Music Video The song was written and produced by French singer-songwriter Jean-Jacques Goldman, and Welsh singer, guitarist, and songwriter Michael Jones. “Je te donne” was released as the second single rom Goldman’s fourth studio album “Non homologué”. It was released in October 1985 with “Confidentiel” on the B-side. The single topped the SNEP singles chart in France and reached #20 on Eurochart Hot 100. In 1996, the song was covered by the multi-national boy band “World Apart”. Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michael Jones – Je te donne – Lyrics Read “Je Te Donne” by Jean-Jacques Goldman on Genius Madonna – Everybody Chris Rea – The Road To Hell (Part II.) Phil Collins – Take Me Home Stevie Wonder – Part Time Lover Five Star – Find The Time Icehouse ‎- Hey Little Girl Blondie – Call me Fancy – Chinese Eyes Ann Wilson & Robin Zander – Surrender To Me Kool & The Gang – Misled Men Without Hats – Pop Goes The World The Twins – Face To Face – Heart To Heart Marc Almond & Gene Pitney – Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart Simply Red – Money’s Too Tight (To Mention) Nik Kershaw – One Step Ahead Fancy – Lady Of Ice Hombres G – Devuélveme a mi chica C.C.Catch – Are You Man Enough? Jean-Jacques Goldman, Michael Jones English singer-songwriter Robert Palmer was born. In 1986, he topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart with "Addicted to Love". He died from a heart attack in on 26 September 2003 at age 54. Michael Jackson started a four-week run at #1 in the U.S. with "Rock With You", the second single from his fifth solo studio album, "Off The Wall". The Pretenders went to number one in the UK for two weeks with "Brass in Pocket" (aka "Brass in Pocket (I'm Special)", the third single from their debut, self-titled album. Pink Floyd started a fifteen-week run at #1 on Billboard 200 chart with their eleventh studio album, "The Wall". The album produced three singles: "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2", "Run Like Hell", and "Comfortably Numb". Pretenders, the debut studio album by British-American band The Pretenders, went to number one in the UK for four weeks. It produced three singles: "Stop Your Sobbing", "Kid", and "Brass In Pocket". John Lennon posthumously went to no. 1 in Australia for four weeks with "(Just Like) Starting Over", the first single from his seventh and final studio album, "Double Fantasy". British band Bucks Fizz went to @1 in the UK with "The Land of Make Believe" for two weeks. The song was released as the second single from their second album, "Are You Ready". British-American rock band Foreigner started a three-week run at #1 in the UK with a power ballad "I Want to Know What Love Is", the lead single from their fifth studio album, "Agent Provocateur". Bruce Springsteen went to number one in the U.S. with his seventh studio album "Born in the U.S.A." and stayed there for three weeks. The album produced seven successful singles: "Dancing in the Dark", "Cover Me", "Born in the U.S.A.", "I'm on Fire", "Glory Days", "I'm Goin' Down", and "My Hometown". Alison Moyet hit the number one spot in the UK with her debut solo album, "Alf". Four singles were released from the album: "Love Resurrection", "All Cried Out", "Invisible", and "For You Only". Sister duo Mel & Kim started a three-week run at #1 in Germany with "Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend)". In 1987, the song was included on their first and only album, "F.L.M.". ← Taylor Dayne – With Every Beat Of My Heart The Jesus And Mary Chain – Just Like Honey →	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1553
__label__wiki	0.977131	0.977131	2012-12-30 Intrepid correspondent took risks for news Intrepid correspondent took risks for news The pilot and adventurer wrote best-selling books, met Mao Zedung and Ian Fleming and won accolades for his foreign reporting FRED LANGAN Special to The Globe and Mail William Stevenson became famous for writing A Man Called Intrepid, a real-life espionage story about a Canadian spymaster confusingly named William Stephenson (spelled with a "ph," not a "v"). The book was on The New York Times Best Sellers list for most of 1976. Among other things, it told of the Enigma code breakers at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, a story that was almost unknown until then. Mr. Stevenson followed that up in 1976 with 90 Minutes At Entebbe, the story of the daring Israeli rescue of hijacked hostages from the Entebbe Airport in Uganda. There are many books on that subject; Bill Stevenson's was out first. He had many connections after having written two books on Israel, and he was tipped off about the raid. "Big Daddy [a reference to Ugandan dictator Idi Amin] is in for a big surprise," was the message Mr. Stevenson received, according to his last book, Past to Present, A Reporter's Story of War, Spies, People, and Politics. Bantam Books told him to fly to Israel and write a book. "We avoid paperwork and save time by shaking hands at Grand Central Station," wrote Mr. Stevenson of the deal he did with his publisher. He flew back to New York after the Entebbe raid on July 4, 1976, and holed up at the Algonquin Hotel with his son Andrew for company. "Bantam had someone outside the hotel door and every 10 pages or so we would pass them out and they would be run back to the publisher for editing and typesetting," said Andrew Stevenson, a filmmaker who lives in Bermuda. The book was finished in just over a week and was on the shelves in bookstores on July 26, a little more than three weeks after the actual raid. Both his 1976 best sellers were made into big-budget movies. The Henri in William Henri Stevenson's name was from his French mother, who moved to England as a nanny to a Viscount, and married a Scot, the radio officer on a merchant ship. Mr. Stevenson was born June 1, 1924, in the London district of Marylebone, posh now but not then. ("Not Posh" was a chapter in his last book.) Mr. Stevenson won a scholarship to the East Ham Grammar School, the type of school that offered the same education as private schools. When he was 11, his class visited an airfield on Empire Air Day and he sat in a Tiger Moth biplane and vowed to become to a pilot. He got his wish and trained in a Tiger Moth during the Second World War. He first started writing for the Boy Scout Magazine in Britain when he was 12 and was a King Scout, the top rating, at 16. He then became a junior reporter at the Leighton Buzzard Times, a local newspaper. During the early stages of the Blitz, when London was being heavily bombed, as a King Scout he volunteered as a fire spotter and bicycle courier for government agencies. He joined the Royal Navy at 17 in 1941. Mr. Stevenson first came to Canada in 1942 as a trainee pilot in the Commonwealth Air Training scheme. He then went on to fly aircraft off British aircraft carriers. At first he flew Gloster Gladiators, old-fashioned biplanes that were vulnerable to German fighters but ideal for guarding convoys from submarines on trips to Murmansk, Russia's Arctic port. Later, he flew Seafires, the carrier version of the Spitfire fighter, as a combat pilot. During the war, he flew some secret missions and first met William Stephenson, the man called Intrepid who would be the subject of his book more than 30 years later. He also learned about the code-breaking unit at Bletchley Park, where his father - the radio expert - worked. After the war Mr. Stevenson wrote for provincial papers and then came to Canada and worked for the Toronto Star. Soon he was appointed a roving reporter for the paper and travelled the world meeting the famous, such as Jawaharlal Nehru of India, and the infamous, including Ramon Mercader, the man who assassinated the exiled Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky, Joseph Stalin's arch-rival, with an ice pick in Mexico. Mr. Stevenson brought along a photograph of the assassin's mother to verify his identity. "I enter the assassin's jail cell, hold up the photograph and ask 'Is this your mother?' He leaps across the cell, clawing at my throat. Armed prison guards yank me out." In 1950, he started covering the Korean War, and in 1952 won the Canadian National Press Staff Correspondents Award for foreign reporting from Korea. In 1954, while still writing for the Star, he began to file radio reports for the CBC. Mr. Stevenson joined the CBC full time in 1957, when he was 33. He worked out of a small Agence France-Presse office in Hong Kong. Filing stories to newspapers could be done by cable, but TV was another story. Today a reporter in China can Skype live into a newscast. When Mr. Stevenson covered China, undeveloped television film and voice-over tracks on separate tapes were shipped back to Canada. "Films and tapes are sent twice weekly by direct Canadian Pacific Airlines flights to Vancouver. Turbo-prop Britannias have cut the flight time down so that a tape recorded at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Hong Kong time, can be in Vancouver by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Vancouver Time," wrote Mr. Stevenson in the CBC Times in 1958. In the early 1960s he began filing reports to The Globe and Mail. In January of 1961, the paper published a pamphlet with all of his foreign reports for the year and an analysis of Canada's foreign policy. The CBC and Mr. Stevenson parted company in 1976, around the time he was writing his Entebbe book. Some people say other foreign correspondents, including those running the news service, were jealous of his literary success. The Globe and Mail was critical of his departure in a piece by John Ayre, published in the Weekend Magazine supplement in January of 1977. "An author only the CBC could refuse. Despite his extraordinary connections with the Spy Network, super-reporter William Stevenson has been disconnected by the TV Network." After leaving the CBC, he wrote full-time, publishing more than 20 books in his lifetime. During the 1980s, he and his family spent a great deal of time in Thailand, a period detailed in his book The Revolutionary King. "Bill Stevenson was my boyhood idea of a hero. A pilot, a foreign correspondent, an adventurer who took risks. I was full of admiration for him," said John Polanyi, a chemistry professor at the University of Toronto and winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Dr. Polanyi got to know Mr. Stevenson in the past three or four years. He came to appreciate his self-deprecating humour. "He often treated his adventures and accomplishments as if they were a joke, but of course they were not." In his long career - he never stopped working and writing - he met everyone from Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, to Mao Zedong. He didn't much like Fleming, but thought Mao polite, in spite of his fearsome reputation, when he responded to Mr. Stevenson's shaky Mandarin greeting with "I am Chinese," in perfect English. Mr. Stevenson was 89, though his Ontario Health Card said he was 91 and he could never manage to get it changed. He leaves his wife, Monika, their daughter Alexandra, and his daughters Jackie and Sally and son Andrew. His son Kevin predeceased him.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1556
__label__wiki	0.597942	0.597942	Can vaccination end the virus? 'Maybe in time, but we must not drop our guard' Dr Juan Manuel Pascual, in Malaga recently. / FÉLIX LORENZO Juan Manuel Pascual. The renowned doctor, professor and researcher at the University of Texas came back to Malaga for a visit and spoke to us about the pandemic, how it is being handled and whether it will disappear PEDRO LUIS GÓMEZ \| MALAGA. He is currently involved in five “spectacular” pieces of research, in his laboratory or in direct collaboration with 35 professionals from different fields of science at the University of Texas, with a considerable budget which is funded mostly by the American government. Juan Manuel Pascual, a dual professor at that prestigious educational centre, researcher and doctor, also works in three hospitals (each with approximately 900 beds) which are associated with the same university. He was named the best doctor in Dallas in 2019, and his prestigious career has made him one of the best-known ‘malagueños’ in his field, internationally. Dr Pascual came back to Spain to spend Christmas with his mother, after many intensive weeks running a hospital service which has seen numerous patients with Covid-19, and a complicated journey. His experience, his opinions and reflections at this time are more valuable than ever. What’s your analysis of the Covid-19 situation in the world at the moment? As happens with many epidemics, I had been thinking that it may have significantly decreased or even disappeared, but like others, there still seem to be unknown factors prolonging it, no matter what is being done or not being done. The evolution of epidemics is like the behaviour of starlings when they fly in large groups: individual characteristics can be known (for example the way each bird flies), but the behaviour of the group is unpredictable (when grouped together to fly, several hundred starlings generate very complex geometric patterns which a single bird never does when it flies alone). The same occurs with weather forecasts: there are so many inter-related components influencing the weather that it is hard to know what will happen a week later. Another example is the economy, and the way stock markets behave. Or, going back to the subject of medicine, the number of years someone will live, no matter how much we may know about their genome or illnesses. In general terms, do you think people are really aware of what this pandemic is? In general terms, yes: nobody ignores the fact that it can kill or have possible long-term effects, but from what I have seen on this trip, that seems less important to people than the desire to get together without safety precautions or the reality of an infrastructure which is lacking in many hospitals, bars, shops and other public places. Is the vaccine the panacea for its eradication? Yes and no, because every concept has to be seen in context. To be able to eradicate the virus through vaccination we would need three aspects in our favour. One, the vaccine would need to be significantly effective in every person that receives it (effectiveness being defined not just as the simple production of antibodies following the injection, which is a purely biological phenomenon, but the absence of illness in people exposed to the infection, which is something different and very important). Another is that there should be few side effects (there always are some and they become more clear as time passes and more experience is acquired). And a third is that it would have to be produced and administered in a reasonable time. What do I mean by ‘reasonable’? Well, let’s look at a simple example: let’s suppose the aim is to vaccinate 20 million people in Spain (I’m only giving that number as an example). Let’s suppose that it takes five minutes to vaccinate each person (assuming that lists of people have been drawn up beforehand and appointments made in advance). And let’s suppose that each person needs two injections. That would mean, if everybody was vaccinated in the same place in the whole country, it would take 380 uninterrupted years, working 24 hours a day with no coffee breaks, vaccinating one person after another in that same place. That is equivalent to one solid year of vaccinating (again, 24 hours a day) if there were 380 different vaccination points. Those are not pleasant figures for those responsible for the logistics. And here’s a really important point: despite the vaccine, what we must absolutely not do is drop our guard. Haven’t we been in a bit of a hurry with the vaccine? Did we end up in a scientific-economic race? –t’s strange that many vaccines, if they meet the requirements, of course, will practically be copies of others (more than 100 are currently being developed). That must mean there is a lack of scientific imagination and a race to obtain sales as soon as possible. But nobody should place all their eggs in the same basket. Several very similar vaccines would not be much use if they didn’t work as a result of changes in the strain of the virus which is spreading most. In fact, few problems in medicine are tackled or resolved from a single angle. For example, in one year recently the vaccine against the common flu, a mortal illness which is caused by another respiratory virus and was also produced through an accelerated process, only had a level of effectiveness of 10 per cent. Even last year it was only 30 per cent. How can a pandemic like this suddenly appear in the world and change our lives? How could it not? Life is an unstable process and the surprising thing is that it lasts (with luck) more than 80 years. The physico-chemical world around us is generally adverse to life, and we also carry the seeds of our destruction in our biological nature. Can normal medications or remedies can be used for Covid once someone is infected? There are many studies being carried out into this and my institution is looking into anti-viral drugs, experimental antibodies and several types of blood filtering. But the most important thing is very, very basic: isolation to avoid others being infected, and keeping respiration and circulation going when the worst is threatening. This is generally what happens in intensive care units. It seems simple but it isn’t, and in fact in many countries intensive medicine is deficient. In many others, like Spain, it barely reaches a minimum. For example, Spain has fewer than one third of the number of intensive care beds per inhabitant than the US or Germany and I can’t see any medium-term planning in that respect. Remember the controversy over the ventilators: first of all there weren’t enough and then there was an spate of new ones which weren’t really the right thing, but anyway I looked at where they were going to put them and who would operate them: where were the rooms and the suitable personnel? Because it isn’t at all simple to use a ventilator correctly. The press said that in many places the solution was to limit access to intensive care units based on age and those ‘priority protocols’, which are so deep-rooted in Spanish civil servants of all types. In reality, those are inquisitorial processes disguised as equanimity. Can so much ‘stabbing in the dark’ have any positive effect against something as unknown as Covid-19? The first effect has been a major reduction in the frequency of other infections such as common flu and other illnesses which are preventable through hygiene. The usual five per cent child mortality due to syncytial respiratory virus (common at this time of year) has almost disappeared. There are several hundred respiratory viruses like those and although it is still early in the seasonal cycle, many have still not appeared yet this year. With luck, some might disappear forever, because they need to spread among people in order to keep going. But apart from that, I’m not seeing any international concerted effort towards the diagnosis, isolation and research which the situation deserves. They say this is just the beginning, that other pandemics will occur before long and society will become accustomed to what we are getting used to today. There have always been epidemics and they have always disappeared. I don’t see that this one will be any different. How do you view what Spain has done to tackle Covid-19? What image does this country have abroad? As with other things the image is average, which is lower than our country deserves. I believe some shortcomings and mistakes were only to be expected, given the context in which people have lived in Spain for several years, and those have already been forgotten. Nevertheless, the saturation of the hospitals, despite the very high spending on health which is funded by taxes, has highlighted deficiencies which I don’t see being discussed or tackled. Does the low incidence of the virus in Wuhan, where this whole pandemic started, seem normal to you? Well there is concern about the mutations which have occurred in the UK. Is it normal for that to happen? The virus has already mutated over 1,000 times, and that was predictable (and it’s why the flu jab has to be given every year). That shouldn’t be confused with the spread of a new strain, which is difficult to study at a world level because the means and times of detection vary considerably between one country and another. The British system of detection is much better than in other countries, which means that if the strain appears later in another country it doesn’t necessarily indicate that it has come from the UK, but that it might just have been detected later in that other country, even though the strain could have occurred much earlier. That situation is analagous to the mortality rate per number of infections in Spain: it has gone down, but at first not enough tests were done, so today it may look as if there are many more contagions but that is only because so many more tests are being carried out now. Another expert from Malaga with greater recognition abroad than at home Juan Manuel Pascual, who was born in Malaga in 1967, is a professor of Neurology, Physiology and Pediatrics; a specialist in Neurology and Child Neurology and the director of the rare illnesses department of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He is a member of the university teaching programmes in Neurobiology, Integrated Biology, Neurology, Neuropediatrics and Clinical Genetics, associate editor of the neurobiology magazines ‘Neuroscience Letters’ and ‘The Neuroscientist’, and on the board of several patients associations. He is also a member of the American Spanish Language Academy, an academic correspondent of the Royal Spanish Academy, a doctor in Molecular Physiology and Biophysics from the Baylor College of Medicine (Houston, Texas),and a specialist in Neurology and Child Neurology from the University of Columbia and the Neurological Institute of New York, where he was a professor before taking up his present post. He advises the National Neurological Institute of the USA on a wide range of matters, and also the FDA. Juan Manuel Pascual currently heads five research and clinical assistance groups and their work is closely linked: research in Biophysics and Molecular Biology of the nervous system in transgenic experimental models of human illnesses; developing direct non-invasive methods for the study of the functioning of the nervous system through magnetic resonance; neurotherapeutic clinical tests and diagnosis of rare and unknown diseases, or those which are especially complex, in childhood and adults, and occasionally treating patients who visit the USA from other countries, especially Spain, sometimes describing illnesses which have not been recognised until now. Dr Pascual is married with a 13-year-old daughter and his life is based in the USA, where he moved with a scholarship when he was 22, recommended by renowned professor Severo Ochoa, with whom he developed a close friendship. After attending school in the Martiricos district of Malaga city he studied five years of Medicine at Malaga university and completed his education at Granada university. His conferences, scientific publications and seminars are innumerable, and he has thousands of followers all over the world. Despite all this, he has still not been recognised as Doctor Honoris Causa by Malaga university or an Honorary Citizen of Malaga, nor has he been awarded the Medal of Andalucía. You are a specialist in neurology; do we yet have scientific data about possible effects of coronavirus on the brain? Like most respiratory viruses, it produces excessive responses from the immunological system and those affect the nervous system. No doctor ignores neurological complications from respiratory viral infections, which can include paralysing inflammation of the nerves in the whole body, or illnesses which resemble multiple sclerosis, or the excessive blood coagulation which causes thrombosis and strokes, and some others, and I have seen several of these every day in recent weeks. When will the brain stop being the least-known part of the human body? When we can study many or all cerebral cells simultaneously, because they act in a coordinated manner and it is still not possible to analyse that correctly. I’m not referring to the pseudo-problem of the brain-mind relationship, which is a scientific and philosophical mirage. What about a third hospital for Malaga. Do you think that’s necessary? What would you advise? I thought we would already be working on a fourth hospital, but obviously I forgot which region and city this is.... my advice would be very simple: nowadays there is no excuse for not having single rooms, as there have been in developed countries for the past 20 years. And that includes normal beds as well as those for intensive medicine (apart from a few exceptions such as recovery beds in some areas of a hospital). Apart from stopping infections spreading because the patients are not sharing a ward, making friends should always be a matter of choice. When the human race began to walk on two legs instead of four, they stopped sharing food, toilet facilities and clothing. Malaga is still an important part in your life. Wouldn’t you like to come and head up a research team at the university or a health service hospital here? Of course I would. A piece of advice to continue living... even with Covid-19? Better hygiene. More independent thinking, such as, for example, about everything I have just said in this interview. And more intelligent debate. vaccination, maybe, must, drop,	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1561
__label__wiki	0.608789	0.608789	Terrorism Research Initiative Follow @Perspectives_T Information for Readers and Authors No registration is required and access is free. There is no online submission or registration. Authors wishing to submit a piece of work should review the author guidelines and then email submissions to [email protected] Home > Vol 11, No 6 (2017) > Rassler Al-Qaida and the Pakistani Harakat Movement: Reflections and Questions about the pre-2001 Period Don Rassler There has been a modest amount of progress made over the last two decades in piecing together the developments that led to creation of al-Qaida and how the group has evolved over the last 30 years. Yet, there are still many dimensions of al-Qaida that remain understudied, and likely as a result, poorly understood. One major gap are the dynamics and relationships that have underpinned al-Qaida’s multi-decade presence in Pakistan. The lack of developed and foundational work done on the al-Qaida-Pakistan linkage is quite surprising given how long al-Qaida has been active in the country, the mix of geographic areas - from Pakistan’s tribal areas to its main cities - in which it has operated and found shelter, and the key roles Pakistani al-Qaida operatives have played in the group over the last two decades. To push the ball forward and advance understanding of this critical issue, this article examines what is known, and has been suggested, about al-Qaida’s relations with a cluster of Deobandi militant groups consisting of Harakat ul-Mujahidin, Harakat ul-Jihad Islami, Harakat ul-Ansar, and Jaish-e-Muhammad, which have been collectively described as Pakistan’s Harakat movement, prior to 9/11. It finds that each of these groups and their leaders provided key elements of support to al-Qaida in a number of direct and indirect ways. Full Text: PDF HTML ENHANCING SECURITY THROUGH COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH Perspectives on Terrorism is a journal of the Terrorism Research Initiative and the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1565
__label__wiki	0.523564	0.523564	Biafra: INTERVIEW; Nigeria is a false entity – Elliot Ugochukwu Uko Evangelist Elliot Ugochukwu Uko is the Founder/President, Igbo Youth Movement (IYM), and the Secretary-General, Eastern Consultative Assembly (ECA). In this interview with DAILY POST, he traces the roots of major issues in Nigeria, and speaks on the way forward. EXCERPTS: How would you describe the present state of the nation? Well, the country is in dire straits, and everybody is pretending that all is well. All is not well. The South-East where I come from, where I reside, is tensed up. There’s a lot of tension. The leadership pretends that they are in control, but they are not in control. The masses are standing on one bank of the river, while the leadership is standing on the other bank, and the Red Sea is in between. That’s the situation in the south east today. The just-concluded election in Anambra State was a farce. That election was boycotted by more people than those who came out to vote. If you add that to the brazen buying of votes at polling units openly, and you’ll see that Nigeria is heading the wrong way. When you add, on top of that, the false pretence, the jubilation and celebration of the election by the authorities, you begin to wonder, where are we going? The authorities are so excited that a governor was elected, in spite of the IPOB boycott, so they are willing to accept anything, including a situation where people came with bags and cartons of money and paid voters openly. Nigeria is in dire straits. Read Also: Nnamdi Kanu: The Stupidity And Unprofessional Conduct Of Buratai, FG, And The Need To “Invoke The Doctrine Of Last Seen” The south east is troubled. There is the peace of the graveyard. The federal government and the international community are misled by the silence. They mistake the silence of the people for acquiescence. Nobody is happy in Igboland. The problem with the south east has always been imposed leadership, either imposed directly or imposed through a manipulated electoral system, but imposed all the same. 50 years ago, 32 year old Yakubu Gowon imposed 33 year old Anthony Ukpabi Asika on Ndigbo. Olusegun Obasanjo took Ukpabi Asika to Dodan Barracks, and Gowon imposed him on Ndigbo, and he led East Central State for 9 years. That culture of imposing leadership on Ndigbo has persisted up till date. The only difference is that, this time around, the security will vet some people, they will be allowed to run for elections, INEC will conduct elections, the money will exchange hands, and powerful influence-peddlers and carpet-baggers from other zones will impose someone here in the east, and INEC will announce him the winner. The results are written, sometimes in Government Houses, sometimes in hotel rooms, and they are announced, but they are all imposed on us. Ana-Igbo has been suffering from imposed leadership. When they imposed Ukpabi Asika for 9 years, he was replaced by Anthony Ochefu, who was replaced, a few months later, by John Atom Kpera. And ever since then, they have been imposing leaders on Igboland. Later, they brought Datti Sadiq Abubakar for Anambra and then Sunday Adinihun for Imo, before the advent of Mbakwe and Jim Nwobodo. Soon after that, another military-imposed leadership, where young soldiers would seize government by coup, sit down in Lagos or Abuja, as the case may be, appoint military governors and military administrators, and send them as governors to the states. They were all imposed by cabal, whether the cabal calls itself the Supreme Military Council, or Armed Forces Ruling Council, or Provisional Ruling Council, but that cabal of the military are usually of northern extraction, who would sit down in Lagos or Abuja and impose leaders on Ndigbo. So the culture of imposed leadership has been going on in Igboland for 50 years. It has destroyed our values, destroyed our future, and kept Ndigbo in prison, in political prison. Read Also: Biafra: Prosecutor’s absence, not enough reason to adjourn Kanu’s trial— Barrister Ejiofor What we have now is a different kind of imposition, where the police play a role, INEC plays a role, security plays a role, political leaders play a role. Do you know that for the past 16 years, leaders in Igboland were decided in a building in Abuja called Wadata House? That Wadata House would decide who would run for Senate in Igboland, who would be governor in Igboland. No matter how popular you may be, if Wadata House does not like you, when your people organize their own primaries to vote for you, Wadata House will send representatives from INEC, they will go to one hotel, and they will elect who Wadata House has chosen. That person will be imposed on INEC, imposed on you as a Senator, whether you like it or not. Ndigbo are a conquered people, political slaves in Nigeria. The culture of imposed leadership has brought us to where we are today, the crying baby of Nigeria. One of the most gifted people in the world cannot find their bearing politically. What we have today is an angry population. They are angry with Operation Python Dance, they are angry with the attack on Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s residence on 14th and 15th September; they are angry with the silence of the so-called elite, they are angry with the suspected complicity of the political leadership. Our masses are angry with Nigeria. Most importantly, everybody now reveres Nnamdi Kanu. Why do you say so? Wherever you go in Igboland, every market, every school, every office, at the Secretariat, at the church, at the bar, in all public places, what they are saying is, God bless Nnamdi Kanu. Since soldiers went to kill him, and he disappeared till date, nobody has seen his corpse, we don’t know his whereabouts, nobody is any longer talking about restructuring. It has died. Nnamdi Kanu remains the eternal hero of the people of the eastern region. Dead or alive, he is revered, he is respected, he is loved by all. He is deeply resented by apostles of the status quo, he is deeply resented by those who love this Nigeria as presently constituted. Nnamdi Kanu is resented by the oppressor, resented by those who have held us in bondage. He remains the hero of 99.9 % of the people of the eastern region, dead or alive. Do you know why they love him? They love him because he has not compromised. They see it clearly. They know, if he had compromised, they would not have wanted to kill him. It is clear for all to see that the only reason why attempts have been made to kill him is because he refused to be bought over. So they love him, unlike others who pretend they are like Kanu but they are loved by the oppressor, because they are con-men. If they were genuinely committed to the freedom of their people, like Kanu, the oppressor will not love them, dine with them, eat with them. They would have tried to kill them as they tried to kill Kanu. So everybody knows that Nnamdi Kanu is the eternal hero of the people of the eastern region. People ask me everyday, they say, why is it that the young people of the eastern region are angry with Nigeria? Well, the answer is simple. The youths of the eastern region, 99 % of them, are angry with Nigeria as presently constituted. Who will not be angry with a country that deliberately schemes you out of things? Deliberately they keep you out. Who will not be angry with a country that denies you necessary infrastructure in your region? Who will not be angry in a country that was built at your expense, where states and local governments were deliberately created to oppress you and enslave you perpetually? Who will not be angry in a country where 90 % of young people who want to gain university admission are deliberately and effectively screened out of a university education by a system that gives them higher cut-off mark, while people from other regions will be getting admission with a very low cut-off mark? The aim is just to keep them off from going to school, and asking them to go and try kidnapping or armed robbery. Who will not be unhappy, who will not be bitter, with a country where the structure is so unwieldy that states can’t pay salaries, and every cry to go back to the regions is resisted by the oppressor, who designed the country fully dependent on oil rent? Who will not be angry with a very, very, very inept leadership? Leaders who have spent trillions of naira, and still we don’t have power today. Leaders who steal day and night. Leaders who care only about themselves. Who will be happy with such a country? But, most importantly, the youths of the eastern region want out because the oppressor refuses to enthrone equity and justice by restructuring Nigeria along the lines of regional autonomy. Read Also: Biafra: Buratai, FG, Must Produce Kanu In Court, Justice Must Be Allowed To Take Its Toll The principal reason why millions of youths of eastern region have sworn to leave Nigeria to form a country of their own, where they can be free, is because the country, as presently structured, does not offer them any hope. They can see clearly that they will remain eternal slaves in the country the way it is structured, in the manner states and local governments are created. I stand by them. They are my people, and I stand by them. If you look at the country the way it is, you will see clearly that the only people who are happy with Nigeria are those who are benefiting directly from the ills of the country, who have access to the till, and their surrogates. Those who are politically active enough to enjoy patronage at the expense of the larger population. Those are the people who are happy with Nigeria as presently constituted. The worst enemies of Nigeria are those who are resisting the restructuring of the country. If Nigeria is not restructured, Nigeria will die. All those opposing the restructuring of Nigeria are the worst enemies of Nigeria. So, I stand with the people of the eastern region. I stand fully with them. They are my people, and I feel their pains.” Where is Mazi Nnamdi Kanu? You should be asking the army, you should be asking the soldiers. It’s public knowledge he was supposed to come to court a little before they attacked his father’s house. It’s public knowledge that since then he hasn’t been seen. It’s public knowledge that a fortnight before he had a successful meeting with the south east governors, anchored by 86 year old Prof. Ben Nwabueze. It’s public knowledge that the meeting was so successful, and that a subsequent meeting was to hold a fortnight later. It’s public knowledge that those who sent soldiers to go and destroy his house simply wanted to halt that peace process negotiated by Prof. Ben Nwabueze, for reasons best known to them. So when you are looking for Nnamdi Kanu, you will ask the GOC, 82 Division, you will ask the Commandant at the Military Cantonment in Ohafia, you will ask the officer that led the contingent to storm Kanu’s house, you will ask the Minister of Defence who said publicly on Al-Jazeera that, yes, they invaded his house, but, according to the Minister, they didn’t take him away. You will also ask the marksmen who made 268 bullet holes in his father’s house. Those are the people you will ask, where is Nnamdi Kanu? They are in a better position to tell us where he is. Read Also: BIAFRA: WE CAN TAKE IT NO LONGER The reality of the situation is that the folly of trying to kill Nnamdi Kanu and then solve the problem once and for all is a very, very unintelligent strategy. The people who designed that strategy are avoiding the truth. The truth is that only two things will solve the problem, dialogue with the young men who want out of Nigeria, and beginning the process of restructuring Nigeria. These are the two solutions. The oppressor does not want to do that. They are looking for other means to solve the problem. How do you think that 5 gentlemen standing on the staircase of Enugu Government House, to bring out a paper that they have proscribed IPOB, how do they think that will stop the secession? How can any sensible person think that that will stop the secession? It’s impossible. How do you think that the government of Nigeria telling the world that IPOB is a terrorist organization, while Germany and other countries are giving them licence to open radio stations, solve the problem? They have branches in over 80 countries of the world. People in civilized countries all over the world deal with IPOB. IPOB corresponds with embassies and governments all over the world, and Nigeria is the only country that is calling them a terrorist organization. How do you think that will solve the problem? The only solution to the problem is to engage the young men, to find out why they are angry enough that they don’t want to be a part of Nigeria anymore, and to dialogue with them, and to begin to address those issues that hurt them so much that they want to leave Nigeria. And then you begin the process of restructuring Nigeria. There is no other way out of this. The false narrative that when you kill Nnamdi Kanu, the agitation for Biafra will end is false. It’s not going to solve the problem. It’s unhelpful. It’s not true. It’s a fallacy. The agitation for Biafra by a large chunk of the young people of the eastern region, is predicated on, anchored on the frustrations and injustices of the way and manner Nigeria is constituted, on the way and manner states and local governments are created, on the way and manner the people of the region are oppressed, on the way and manner the young people feel about the country, not by killing Nnamdi Kanu. Nnamdi Kanu is not the problem of Nigeria. Read Also: Biafra: Be Wary Of DSS’ Fake Radio Station – IPOB To Newspaper Editors The problem of Nigeria produced Nnamdi Kanu, threw up Nnamdi Kanu. It’s the injustices in Nigeria that produced the agitation for Biafra. That’s the reality. Our problems, the Igbo, are legion, but the chief of our problem is that we are suffering from imposed leaders, leaders who are imposed by the Nigerian state. Leaders in Igboland are usually imposed on us by others. The electoral system is distorted, perverted, to allow people from other regions to decide on the kind of leaders they want for the east. So what we see happening is the resentment by the younger generation of that culture. What the younger generation want is to develop the eastern region. They don’t see the leadership, for the past 50 years, doing that. All kinds of leadership that have run the region for the last 50 years, whether military or civilian, have fallen short of the aspirations of the masses. Our people are oppressed everywhere. Our youths are marooned. They migrate outside this country, sometimes on foot, by road. They are enslaved in Libya, they are killed in the Sahara Desert as they attempt to cross into Europe, they are in jails all over the world, as they are forced to engage in illegitimate businesses and other criminal activities. They are in jails in China, in Malaysia, Thailand, the world over. Our youths here are so marooned that they don’t have faith in the nation. And the painful aspect is that all these real problems that afflict the younger generation, the so-called leaders don’t care about these problems. They only care about their re-election, and their own enjoyment, so they don’t give a damn whether your cousin is in jail in China or wherever, it doesn’t concern him. So there is a disconnect between these imposed leaders, who pretend that they are leaders, and the masses, who have no respect and regard for them. And these imposed leaders have managed to remain relevant for two reasons. First, they have the resources, stolen money, to manipulate the electoral system. The, they also use that stolen money to give handouts to the marooned people who are otimkpu, who follow them about, and campaign for them, and sing their praises. So, as long as they have the resources to hand out to the otimkpu crowd, and to manipulate the electoral system, they remain in power continually. This is the reality of the problems of the eastern region. I am warning Nigeria as a state, this is December 2017, if President Buhari does not begin the process of restructuring this country back to regional autonomy and true fiscal federalism, Nigeria will not survive. Read Also: Biafra: Nigerian Government Frustrating Kanu's Trial By Keeping Him Out Of Circulation That’s my warning to them. The federal government-sponsored narrative that they have silenced the agitation for Biafra, that they have killed Nnamdi Kanu, or they don’t know where he is, and that the agitators for Biafra have suddenly been raptured to heaven, they’ve all disappeared, is false, patently false. It’s a false narrative. The boys are angry with Nigeria, they are bitter, they are very, very, very disenchanted, they resent Nigeria deeply. They’ve not raptured into heaven o, they are here o, don’t mistake their silence as acquiescence, or as defeat. They are angry with Nigeria. Now, if you look at the political culture, you will see that the younger people have no way of ever participating in the highly-monetized Nigerian political development, so they remain constantly and perpetually zoned out of it. At best, they could be used as thugs or otimkpus . they are helpless. So, in their agitation for a separate state of theirs, the statement they are making for the whole world to hear is that we do not like Nigeria as presently constituted. What the federal government should do is to invite these boys and dialogue with them, and also begin the process to restructure Nigeria. I’ve been saying this over, and over, and over, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, because it’s the only way to go. There’s no other way to go. Those who advise the Presidency to shoot the boys, shoot them shoot them and kill them, it is only by shooting them that they will fall in love with Nigeria, they are misleading the government. the issue already is that the boys don’t like Nigeria, they don’t want to be part of Nigeria. How can you shoot them to make them to love Nigeria? That’s impossible. When you shoot them, they are going to hate Nigeria more. If your son is running away from home, and you are told that your son is running away from home, my brother you will leave your office, you will jump into your car, tell your driver to rush to the airport or to the railway station, and you will embrace your son and say, my dear, why do you want to leave home? Come, come and tell daddy what the problem is. Whatever the issues are, everything I have is yours, for you and your brothers. Am I hurting you somewhere, am I offending you? Come let’s sit down. You buy a cup of coffee for your son, you sit down, you pet him, you find out why he wants to run away from home. You don’t send soldiers to go and shoot him! It’s idiotic. Already, he wants to run away from home. That means there are reasons why he doesn’t feel comfortable in the home. You’ll find out what those reasons are, and you’ll address them. Not shooting them. Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gunpowder. People of the eastern region are disenchanted, bitter, angry. This is a warning. Blocking it in the media, or paying the media to block out their anger, it cannot solve the problem. When the government spends resources to block the truth from coming out, how the people feel, you can’t solve the problem that way. You can’t. you can never solve the problem by blocking them out in the media. You can’t. Then it becomes combustible. It goes underground, and pops with a huge blast, like TNT. It explodes like TNT explosive. The people of the eastern region are angry, bitter with Nigeria. Very angry and bitter with the decision by the military of Nigeria to shoot them and kill them and shut them up by fire by force. They hate the structure of Nigeria. The states created by the military, local governments created by the military, they hate it and they want Nigeria restructured. Anybody who is telling you that you can stop the anger by shooting them and killing them is deceiving himself. I’m saying this. This is the last warning. We are deceiving ourselves if we pretend that the people of the eastern region are happy with Nigeria as presently constituted. I’ve been talking with Igbo youths for more than 30 years. I’ve been organizing seminars, conferences, conventions, meetings for Igbo youths for decades, in schools, universities, everywhere, for decades. I know exactly how they feel. They are bitter with Nigeria, and that’s the truth. Read Also: IPOB PRESS RELEASE: GRAND OPENING OF IPOB HEADQUARTERS IN GERMANY, WHERE BIAFRA REFERENDUM WILL BE LAUNCHED FROM INEC says 75 % of those who collected their PVCs for Anambra State election stayed away. That’s INEC’s figure, officially. Observers who were in Anambra said more than 90 % stayed away. They said that the polls were rigged and that the figures, as usual, were inflated. Now because the Nigerian state is desperate to prove that Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB cannot affect elections in Nigeria, everybody is celebrating the election, praising it to high heavens, as the best-conducted in the universe. Now the truth of the matter is if we go by INEC’s official figure that 75 % of the electorate boycotted the election, it means that Nigeria already has k-leg. By next election, more people will boycott. It means that by next election, 80 % will boycott. After that, 90 % will boycott, until Nigeria is crippled. That’s the reality, because I know the boys’ mindset. I know they’re not willing to change their position. They’ve told the world that they are going to boycott all elections in Nigeria from henceforth, and they are doing that. And Nigeria will continue that way, until one day governors will be elected with only 1,000 votes in a whole state! Because some very stubborn people refuse to begin the restructuring of Nigeria. They refuse to dialogue with these boys and come to an agreement. They look down on the people of the eastern region, they won’t dialogue with them. They begged people of the north east to dialogue with government, those ones refused. Government then begged people of the south south to come and dialogue with them but, due to the resentment the federal government has for people of the south east, they said, we are not going to dialogue with you. We’ll only give you guns and bullets. You deserve only bullets. We are only going to send you python dancers to go and shoot you. That is very wrong. And then, the so-called Igbo leaders who are pretending that they are in charge of Igboland, my question to them is, what are they now doing? Yes, the army has been sent to go and shoot Nnamdi Kanu, so what are the Igbo leaders doing now? What? They are doing absolutely nothing. All they wanted was for Nnamdi Kanu to be out of the way. They were afraid for themselves, Nnamdi Kanu has come to upturn the whole place, to wake up the people. They were afraid they could lose their leadership positions, so everybody joined hands to crush Nnamdi Kanu, and after that, what? Nothing, absolutely nothing. We are still standing still, with the unemployment, with the misery, with the squalor, with the wrong, 36-state structure that depends on Paris Club refund so they can pay salaries. If there is no Paris Club refund, states cannot pay their civil servants. That’s the Nigeria we are living in today. It’s a shame. It’s a big shame. I have been waiting to see positive action from Mr. President about restructuring of the country. I’ve not seen any, making me to think that Mr. President has been misled that everywhere is peaceful and quiet and calm. It’s not true o, there’s no calm o. I’m sending a message to President Buhari, the people of the eastern region are very angry. They are very, very angry with Nigeria. There could be an implosion any day. They are angry. They are bitter. The continuing delay in embarking on restructuring Nigeria will not mean well for this country. If some people are telling him that everywhere is calm and good, I am warning him that those people are lying to him. There is anger and bitterness in eastern Nigeria. They are angry with the current structure of Nigeria, they are angry with the status quo, they are angry with the central government of Nigeria, they are angry with the whole system. Our people are angry. The theme of this my message is that our people are angry. Read Also: Biafra: The 10 percent Governor Only Rules Himself And His Cronies, Not The People I am talking about the falsehood that is Nigeria. Nigeria is a false entity. It’s a false enterprise, a bogus enterprise, built and anchored on falsehood. Our population figure is false, our revenue sharing formula is false, our glib mouthing of ‘One Nigeria, One Nigeria’ is false. Our mantra that our problem is corruption, corruption is false. Everything about Nigeria is false. Nigeria is false, and the falsehood has become sickening. The younger generation of Nigerians are tired of living a false life. This country was built on falsehood. It is tottering. Nigeria is tottering. And the cabal that always hold Nigeria hostage are pretending that they don’t know that the country is tottering. Our structure is unwieldy. So many states can’t pay salaries. States depend on Paris Club refund to pay salaries. If there is no Paris Club refund, states’ civil services would collapse. We are living a false life, and the oppressors in this country are simply prevaricating, deliberately prevaricating, and pretending that they do not know that they are building Nigeria on prebendalism. Prebendalism is the bane of Nigeria. This oppressive clique that’s holding Nigeria have been prevaricating, pretending that they don’t know that only a restructuring of the polity will save Nigeria. Instead, they tell you they don’t know what you mean by restructuring, they will tell you that what you need is restructuring of the heart, restructuring of the lungs, restructuring of the kidney, restructuring of the liver. They are just creating problems, prevaricating, and pretending. Our problems began 50 years ago, when a clique of ill-educated, young, unelected soldiers killed Ironsi in Ibadan, took the reins of power, prosecuted the civil war with the help of Britain, and then emerged victorious in 1970, and then ran Nigeria aground. They promptly ran Nigeria aground. All the countries at par with Nigeria in 1970, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, South Korea, Brazil, they are all light years ahead. We are just swimming round in ignorance and poverty. The political class in Nigeria remained relevant because they inflicted poverty, and they exploited the ignorance and poverty of the masses to use the country’s resources to now hold themselves in power. In the south east where I come from, political leaders are only relevant with their tons of money. They inflict poverty on the people then, to remain relevant, they give handouts. They build their own structure of otimkpus, and exploit hunger and poverty in the land, and they remain relevant with their stolen wealth. That is the bane of Nigeria, why Nigeria is going round in circles. The military destroyed this country. They created a false lifestyle. Nigeria is the only country in the world where people spend 300 to 400 million naira for a wedding in Dubai! They buy tickets for all their friends and relations. They fly in droves to Dubai, celebrate a wedding, and they come back home. No other country in the world, you know, can organize such madness. That will show you how sick we are. Read Also: Editorial: Buratai’s plea for court to quash suit compelling him to produce Kanu, illogical, perversive Under Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria deteriorated. Yakubu Gowon is a misnomer. He is unfit to run a local government area. At some point, the military governors he appointed didn’t listen to him anymore. Under Yakubu Gowon, Nigerians went crazy. Gowon went to the UK and told the Queen of England that Nigeria’s problem is not money, but how to spend it. Under Yakubu Gowon, Nigerians would troop to Shepherds Bush market in London to enrich Asian traders- the Lebanese, the Pakistanis, the Syrians-traders in lace materials. They had what is called Lagos socialites, who would take 4 or 5 of his wives for a shopping spree in London, who would come back home and organize a birthday party, splashed all over the pages of Lagos Weekend, for his 3rd wife, next week he will organize another birthday party for his 5th wife. Nigerians ran amok. Petro-dollars made us run mad. And Gowon was at the helm of affairs. That’s where our problem began. There were so many hotels, and beautiful, air-conditioned hall in hotels to organize parties but, no, no, no, not Nigerians. They would block the streets, and they invited Ebenezer Obey and Sunny Ade to dance ‘Ajala travelled all over the world’. The whole group would wear uniform. They would be dancing ‘Goard Member, Board Member, ah ah ah ah ah, alleluia’, for years and years. Nigerians went mad. Everybody ran amok under Yakubu Gowon. The culture Nigerians instituted in the 70s, under Gowon, is the bane of Nigeria. Everything in this country is fake. Now this perverted political culture has thrown up a hangover over recurring political leaders. Our culture is perverted. Our political culture is fake. Our elections are fake. Our campaign culture is fake. Our voting pattern is fake. Everything in Nigeria is fake. Population is fake. Our structure is fake. Everything in Nigeria is fake and sickening, and the young people where I come from, the eastern region, are tired of Nigeria. They’ve been crying for years that Nigeria should be restructured. Nobody listened to them. At some point they said, okay, alright, odimma. They want out. They no longer want to be part of Nigeria. What did Nigeria do? They sent Python Dance to shoot and kill them, with the active connivance of the so-called leaders. But nobody has solved the problem. The sickening structure is still there. The hunger in the land is still there. Unemployment in the land is still there. The government mistook the silence in the land for acquiescence. I’m informing the government that our people are angry. We are angry with Nigeria. We are very bitter with Nigeria. Nobody is happy with the way things are now. With the way things are now, I doubt if there will ever be any elections in eastern region. The youths of the eastern region will not vote. They say their only hero is Nnamdi Kanu, the man who cannot not be bought, the man who government has voted millions and billions of Nigeria to mount propaganda against. The man who soldiers went to his house to Read Also: Anambra Guber: IPOB tackles FG, media agents over illegal bloating of electorate figures, says accredited voters not up to 10,000 kill, and he hasn’t been seen till today. The man who millions of people follow and adore, and he doesn’t give them bags of rice, he doesn’t distribute money. He just tells them the truth and people follow him. He remains the eternal hero of the people of eastern Nigeria. We are angry with the country. IPOB is not a terrorist organization. Yesterday, December 4th, 2017, the list of terrorist organizations all over the world was published, and IPOB was not in it. IPOB has branches in over 80 countries of the world. They have offices. They communicate with governments in Europe, Asia, South America, in other African countries, all over the world, and it is only the Nigerian government that tagged them a terrorist organization, simply because the people who are defending this status quo, who are defending this perverted structure, who are defending this unwieldy, unworkable unitary structure want to crush them. The youth of the eastern region are angry and bitter in Nigeria. I’m sounding a note of warning. Those who are pretending that the youths who are tired of Nigeria and now want a separate country are suddenly raptured into heaven, they have not been raptured; they are still there o, very active in Nigeria. The only way to save Nigeria is to dialogue with the young people, and start the restructuring of Nigeria.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1566
__label__cc	0.615136	0.384864	Family trouble trumps Brown’s funeral January 12, 2007 12:00 am by The Editorial Board The godfather of soul, James Brown, died from heart failure Dec. 25, 2006. Brown was 73 years old. What could be considered even more unfortunate about his death is he has yet to receive a proper burial because his family is arguing over who inherits his fortune. Buddy Dallas, Brown’s attorney, said Brown’s will has yet to be filed. As Brown’s attorneys and children worked to settle issues surrounding his estate, Brown’s body was kept in his home on Beech Island in South Carolina. The parties finally decided to bury Brown this Saturday in Augusta, Ga. In addition to the family being unable to agree on where Brown should be buried and how his fortune should be distributed, Jacque Hollander, Brown’s publicist during the 1980s, has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her sexual harassment suit against Brown. Hollander said Brown raped her at gunpoint in 1988. She is seeking $106 million in damages. The decision on whether to hear the case is pending. A lower court ruled in 2006 that Hollander waited too long to file. Brown was one of the greatest entertainers the world had to offer. He touched an entire generation with hit songs such as “I’m Black, and I’m Proud” and “This is a Man’s World.” Brown’s unique vocals and original rhythms made him a founder of rap funk and disco. He aspired artist such as Michael Jackson and Prince and was admired for his legendary performances. Regardless of his faults and failures, James Brown will be remembered for his positive contributions to society and the black race. Although he will never put on his cape again, he will surely be missed by the music industry and his fans. Brent Hatchett for the Editorial Board.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1569
__label__cc	0.682941	0.317059	Cards/Invitations Corporate Stationary Brochures/ Catalogues Your privacy is very important to us. We want to make your experience on the Internet as enjoyable and rewarding as possible, and we want you to use the Internet’s vast array of information, tools, and opportunities with complete confidence. We have created this Privacy Policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy and security. This Privacy Policy describes how our company collects information from all end users of our Internet services (the “Services”)-those who access some of our Services but do not have accounts (“Visitors”) as well as those who may purchase Products and/or pay a monthly service fee to subscribe to the Service (“Members”)-what we do with the information we collect, and the choices Visitors and Members have concerning the collection and use of such information. We request that you read this Privacy Policy carefully. 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While we make every effort to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third-party “hackers” from illegally obtaining this information. Where to Direct Questions About Our Privacy Policy: If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the practices described herein, you may contact us through the contact information provided on this Web site. Revisions to This Policy: Our company reserves the right to revise, amend, or modify this policy, our Terms Of Service agreement, and our other policies and agreements at any time and in any manner, by updating this posting. Last updated: January15th 2007 Servicing All Industries/Areas Food Industries Contact Us \| Request a quote \| Privacy Policy \| Terms of Use \| Sitemap Copyright © 2017 Develop by : Wicked Web Design. All Rights Reserved.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1573
__label__cc	0.526228	0.473772	"I LOVE IT" Cheezy Music Video Legend tells that Bill Gates paid something like $14 million to the Rolling Stones to use their song “Start Me Up” in the very first Microsoft television commercial, created by Wieden+Kennedy. It was August 1995. The commercial was for Windows 95, and the story goes that Bill Gates got the idea from the “start button” feature on the launch screen. Gates was said to have personally asked Mick Jagger how much it would cost to use the song. Jagger, being a rock rebel to his core, tossed out a number in the millions, hoping to dissuade Gates. We now know that it was actually $3 million, according to now retired Microsoft chief operating officer Bob Herbold. And it was well worth the cost to launch a campaign that made Microsoft a household name at a time when only 3 percent of consumers even knew the company made software. Whatever the legend tells, the fact still remains: Because of that recognizable song, the Windows 95 campaign was the first grand celebration of the Microsoft brand, and still holds up as one of their most memorable. TATOO YOU Labels: MICK JAGGER KEItH RICHARDS, START ME UP THE ROLLING STONES MICROSOFT WINDOWS 95, Windows95 and The ROLLING STONES Commercial 13 MILLION DOLLARS	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1574
__label__cc	0.703077	0.296923	Academic with cats International Politics from a feminist perspective Trump, Putin and leadership masculinities April 17, 2017 / academicwithcats Recently I have been thinking a lot about masculinities, how they are constructed and maintained and how they operate in everyday politics and international relations. To a large extent this interest comes from a book I am co-editing with Veronica Kitchen at the University of Waterloo on heroism in global politics, and the chapter I am contributing to the volume, which is about how the military masculinities of the contemporary American warrior hero have been constructed through the narratives in medal citations. But as I have been reading, thinking and writing about these very specific military masculinities, I have also been watching Donald Trump construct the public face of his masculinity, first as candidate, then as president-elect and finally as sitting president. Towards the end of the presidential campaign, I wrote a blog post for the Huffington Post UK site by the way that candidate Trump combined some stereotypically “female” behaviours and traits, such as a reliance on emotion, perception and irrationality, with more traditionally macho actions and attitudes, especially in the way that he describes and relates to women. Since his inauguration, President Trump has continued on in this vein, with the added advantage that he can now command the use of military force – that most traditionally masculine of all institutions of the state. We have seen him call the US armed forces into action on several occasions already: spectacularly in Syria and Afghanistan, as well as in a lower-key but no less destructive way by increasing the frequency of drone strikes and reportedly considering changing the guidance for the use of drones in ways that would make “collateral damage” (the deaths of those who are not designated as targets for the drone strikes) more likely. As Sarah Kendzior has argued, Trump reaches for military force to deal with other countries because he craves praise and the media and the public will consistently admire him for this behaviour. To that I would add that he uses the military to demonstrate his personal strength, toughness and manliness, as well as the power of the country that he leads. As I see it, the only way that Trump can maintain his continued and excessive reliance on emotional and irrational behaviour without the risk of appearing “weak” is by balancing it with equally excessive demonstrations of the most extreme alpha male speech and actions. There is another aspect of Trump’s behaviour that has received more attention as a result of his use of military force against Syria, and that is his unpredictability. Repeatedly during the election campaign, Trump indicated that his foreign policy would take the world by surprise and that he did not intend to give away too much about his intentions, suggesting that this would make it more difficult for other countries to out manoeuvre the United States. In this Trump may be getting some inspiration from Vladimir Putin, who has repeatedly taken the West by surprise, for example by Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military intervention in Ukraine and Syria. The West has found Putin difficult to deal with, in part perhaps because he refuses to conform to the norms of the hegemonic masculinity of the international statesman. It seems to me that there is a recognised way of being an appropriately masculine international statesman, as defined by the major Western powers, and it involves a particular combination of diplomacy, alliance-building and enemy construction as well as the threat and measured use of force under certain circumstances and after appropriate warnings have been delivered. Putin breaks many of these conventions, particularly through his willingness to use force too quickly, without going through all the rhetorical steps that normally precede military operations. Western leaders find Putin too aggressive, too hyper-masculine and struggle to find ways of persuading him to conform to gender norms. So far Trump’s swift resort to military force in Syria and the reversal of his previous policy positions that this represents are largely being treated as standing outside the gender norms for Western world leaders. But what if that changes? Could Trump’s presidency be instrumental in redefining this particular form of hegemonic masculinity? ← Introduction Russia and the UK General Election →	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1577
__label__wiki	0.769972	0.769972	SMART Objectives for Closing the Gap The objectives promote achievement, attendance, and behavior. Closing the Gap objectives relate to an area where some demographic group (such as race, income, gender, etc.) has less success. The Closing the Gap Goal should be designed to close the gap between that group and the other groups. Select the areas that the School Data Profile indicate need to be improved. These are suggested areas for which you might want to write a general goal. You may have other ideas. Your School Data Profile should inform you. Select a goal related to literacy rate, or write your own. By the first semester, 90% of the low-income or minority students who scored at the highest level possible on their previous Reading/English standardized score will be enrolled in an Honors, AP, or IB English class. By the first semester, 90% of the low-income students who scored at the highest level possible on their previous Reading/English standardized score will be enrolled in an Honors, AP, or IB English class. By first semester, 100% of the low-income or minority students who are predicted to score at the highest level on the next standardized Reading test will enroll in Honors, AP, or IB English. By the end of the year, all low-income and minority students who scored at the highest level on the Reading/English standardized test will be recommended for the most advanced English/Reading class for the next year. Select a goal related to math proficiency rate, or write your own. By the first semester, 90% of the low-income or minority students who scored at the highest level possible on their previous Math standardized score will be enrolled in an Honors, AP, or IB Math class. By the first semester, 90% of the low-income students who scored at the highest level possible on their previous Math standardized score will be enrolled in an Honors, AP, or IB Math class. By first semester, 100% of the low-income or minority students who are predicted to score at the highest level on the next standardized Math test will enroll in Honors, AP, or IB Math. By the end of the year, all low-income and minority students who scored at the highest level on the Math standardized test will be recommended for the most advanced Math class for the next year. Select a goal related to college and career, or write your own. By the end of the first semester, all of the low-income first-generation-college seniors who scored above the benchmarks for college ready on composite and math and reading subscales of the ACT/SAT will have completed FAFSA and applied to at least two colleges. Other: Write your own Closing the Gap goal The Closing the Gap goals should address whole school, whole grade, or some other large group.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1578
__label__wiki	0.915042	0.915042	Trail Blazers Create Racial Injustice Fund trail blazers logo The Portland Trail Blazers and Trail Blazers Foundation announced the organization’s Racial Injustice Fund committed to fighting racial injustices, racial inequities and racism at a local and national level. An initial donation of $200,000 was split between both local and national organizations fighting for racial justice and police reform. The Racial Injustice Initiative will leverage the organization’s position, platform, resources and influence with the goal of creating a safe, secure quality of life for everyone in the communities they are a part of. Fans are invited to join the Trail Blazers, staff, and players, who seeded the initial donations, by making a financial contribution to the Trail Blazers Foundation Racial Injustice Fund. One hundred percent of donations in this fund will go to the nonprofit organizations working in this space and donations are tax-deductible. “The Trail Blazers and Rose Quarter are committed to fighting for racial justice and we will continue to use our platform to help create the safe, secure quality of life we all deserve,” said Chris McGowan, President & CEO of the Trail Blazers and Rose Quarter. “We have a responsibility to amplify the voices of our fans, players and staff to create positive change.” The following 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations and network have been chosen to receive the initial investment from the Trail Blazers Foundation’s Racial Injustice Fund: Local nonprofit recipients: Beyond Black – a culturally specific Black community development corporation focusing on creating healthy communities and working on projects that socially, physically, economically and culturally benefit the Black community in East Multnomah County Word is Bond – a local nonprofit working to rewrite the narrative between Black men and law enforcement through leadership development, critical dialogue and education with a vision for every young Black man to have the leadership skills to make a positive difference in their life and community Y.O.U.th – an organization with a mission to motivate, inspire, and empower youth, family and educators to dismantle the school to prison pipeline by challenging existing systems and structures through their program #BooksNotBarsOR in educational settings, parent engagement classes, events and raising awareness through a digital marketing campaign. National nonprofit recipients: Movement for Black Lives – The Movement for Black Lives is a national network of more than 150 leaders and organizations creating a home for Black people to learn, organize and take action. M4BL includes activists, organizers, academics, lawyers, educators, health workers, artists and more, all unified in a radical vision for Black liberation and working for equity, justice and healing Black Futures Lab – An organization that works with Black people to transform communities, build Black political power and change the way that power operates—locally, statewide and nationally with a mission to engage Black voters year-round; use its political strength to stop corporate influences from creeping into progressive policies and combine technology and traditional organizing methods to reach Black people anywhere and everywhere NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF)- America’s premier legal organization fighting for racial justice through litigation, advocacy and public education, LDF seeks structural changes to expand democracy, eliminate disparities and achieve racial justice in a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all Americans National Black Justice Coalition – The leading national Black LGBTQ/SGL civil rights organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and same gender loving (LGBTQ/SGL) people, including people living with HIV/AIDS with a mission is to end racism, homophobia and LGBTQ/SGL bias and stigma through federal public policy Since its inception in 2009, the Trail Blazers Foundation has donated more than $7 million to nonprofits across Oregon and SW Washington that positively impact the lives of children and families who have been historically underserved where they live, learn and play. In addition, the Trail Blazers have committed to empowering the Black community at a national level by partnering with the NBA Board of Governors and first-ever NBA Foundation. The NBA Foundation, launched in partnership with the National Basketball Players Association, will drive economic empowerment for Black communities through employment and career development by partnering with organizations that focus on three critical employment points: Obtaining a first job, securing employment after college and career advancement after employed. Over the next 10 years, the 30 NBA team owners will collectively contribute $300 million annually to establish this new, leaguewide charitable foundation. Jody Allen, Chair, Trail Blazers, has made the Trail Blazers’ initial $1 million donation and will continue to donate $1 million for the next nine years to enhance and grow the work of national and local organizations dedicated to education and employment. “We are committed to continue the fight against institutional and systemic racism within our community,” said Ashley Clinkscale, Senior Vice President of Communications, Community and Diversity. “We will continue to use our resources until we see change, and we encourage our fans and supporters to use their own voices to positively impact their communities.” Civic participation is one of the most critical components of democracy and voting is also an opportunity for fans to use their voice to help determine the future of the community, state and country. The Trail Blazers and Rose Quarter deems voting as a civic duty and has launched a voting initiative, providing resources for fans to make sure they are registered to vote, can sign up for election reminders and can be included in the 2020 census. Additional information can be found at trailblazers.com/vote. The Trail Blazers will work toward census and voting efforts in the following ways: Partner with non-partisan nonprofits and state and county agencies to amplify their outreach efforts Join Rally the Vote, a non-partisan coalition of professional sports teams, When We All Vote, and Rise to Vote to educate staff and fans on voting via various channels Create content series to share relevant content leading up to the national election and support with ongoing promotional messaging Engage Trail Blazers personalities in campaign videos and voting messaging Encourage and educate employees to participate by closing the office on November 3 and communicating important deadlines Source: Portland Trail Blazers	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1582
__label__wiki	0.691757	0.691757	Perfect Pilots: Counterpart in Perfect Pilots by Brien Allen May 9, 2019, 6:00 pm 2 Comments Counterpart is the best sci-fi drama you never saw. OK, maybe a few of you saw it. Truthfully, even I missed it, at least the first season. There I was, perusing a list of the best shows of 2019 so far and there was this entry for a show called Counterpart that was in the midst of its second season. I’d never heard of it, so I looked it up: some sort of espionage series with a sci-fi twist. Hmm. Could be good, and if it was, I wasn’t too far behind to get caught up. I decided to give it a try. I’m not alone in saying that this is a great series. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 100% critics rating for both season 1 and 2. The audience rating is a little lower at 86%, which I’d attribute to the complexity of the plot. Counterpart is a true water-cooler show. Each episode puts a new twist in the plot. You need that weekly space to absorb what happened, maybe even give you a chance to re-watch some bits. Rather than try to come up with my own synopsis, let me lean on the IMDB description, which is actually pretty good: “A hapless UN employee discovers the agency he works for is hiding a gateway to a parallel dimension that’s in a Cold War with our own, and where his other self is a top spy.” That’s the surface level plot, but the premise allows for amazing depths to be explored at the character level. In an interview for the 7 Days A Geek podcast, writer and show runner Justin Marks described it like this: It’s a show about identity. And it’s a show that sort of is an espionage show, but an espionage show in a very different theater, in parallel dimensions instead of east and west…Because at the end of the day it’s about identity more than anything else. It’s like an existential character play, more than it is about the guns and the chases. In 2015, the show’s star J.K. Simmons was just coming off his Oscar-winning performance in the 2014 movie Whiplash. (Though yes, you might know him better as the elder insurance guy showing his young recruits around the “Hall of Claims” in the Farmers Insurance commercials.) He was a hot commodity and, like many award-winning movie actors, he wanted to take a turn at doing television. Norwegian director Morten Tyldum was likewise coming off a 2015 Oscar nomination for the movie The Imitation Game. When the Starz network greenlit the project, both Simmons and Tyldum had other projects they were working on and could not coordinate their schedules to begin production right away. So the writers had time—like a year and a half—to really dig in to the worldbuilding for Counterpart. Marks told the 4 Quadrant podcast that they had seven whiteboards in the writers’ room, charting out the history and diverging timelines of both the “Alpha” (ours) and the “Prime” worlds. They turned that information into a show bible that was photocopied and handed out to everyone on the cast and crew. With all this setup, it would have been easy for the story to get lost in all the “gee whiz” of the sci-fi elements of the show, having characters drone on in endless exposition to explain all the cool stuff the writers thought up. But that’s not at all what happens. Marks uses the metaphor of a room: they built and fully furnished the room in full light, then they turned out the lights and handed the audience a flashlight. Whatever questions arise as you watch, you can trust that they have answers. But the show is not about the answers, it’s about the characters. Agent calls in on an unusual cell phone. The First Scene That said, the first scene of Counterpart is pure espionage thriller with a twist. Cops arrive on the scene of some sort of meeting gone bad. Everyone is dead except a call girl cowering in fear in the bathroom. Two agents dismiss the police and take charge of the scene, which was a trap set for an assassin named Baldwin. They take the woman and a duffel bag full of bait out to their car, hoping to at least get a description of Baldwin out of this mess. While one agent reports in, the other agent works on packing the woman into the car. She stumbles, and as the agent moves to help her, she pulls a knife and slits his throat. Taking his gun, she shoots the other agent as he turns around, stunned, realizing too late that this is the assassin Baldwin. There’s only one tiny element that gives away that there is something unusual about the setting of this scene. The cell phone that the agent uses is a flip phone, but it also appears to be made of some sort of back-lit Plexiglass material—both old tech and new tech in one. The bait in the bag is also revealed to be visa, credentials, and currency from the “Other Side.” Hold on to your flashlights. First image of the opening credits. I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a moment to talk about the theme song and opening credit montage. The composer, Jeff Russo, is also an award winner, having three Emmy nominations for his work on the television series Fargo (and finally winning in 2017). He has also composed for Legion, Altered Carbon, and The Umbrella Academy, among many others. The theme uses a lot of strings to give it a melancholy feel. Justin Marks wanted voices in the score for the show, but Russo instead chose to use a lot of cello, because the instrument lives in the same register as the human voice (which is an interesting tidbit I’ll never forget). Similarly, before meeting with the folks at Imaginary Forces who did the credits, Marks already had an idea of using the game Go as a metaphor for the show. The moves in Go are simpler and more constrained than, say, chess, but as a result, there are many more possible permutations—so many that it is said that no two games of Go are ever the same. In a similar manner, within the show a simple choice can wildly change the outcome of the characters’ lives between the two parallel dimensions. So, the opening credits start with the image of a single black Go stone that splits in two. From there, it goes on to roll through diverging animated Go boards, images of the Cold War era tech and architecture taken directly from the set, and 3-D images of two stark figures moving through abstract Berlin landscapes, seeking each other out. All of this led to the show’s Emmy award win for Outstanding Main Title Design in 2018. Criminally, this was the one and only Emmy nomination for the show. Howard points out a spot on his counterpart’s tie. We now get our first glimpse of Howard Silk, a Willy Loman-esque character who we quickly find out is a man of routines. He starts out his day with a game of Go against his younger friend who apparently always beats him. Though his friend wonders aloud if Howard might not be letting him win, hinting immediately at a superior ability that Howard may or may not possess behind his humble exterior. Next, we are introduced to the routine of Howard’s work. He passes through multiple checkpoints, which are guarded by men with guns, to receive a sealed briefcase and enter one of a dozen or so “Interface” rooms. The room is divided by a glass partition, like a prison visitation room. On the other side is his Interface counterpart with a similar briefcase. They read a series of nonsense call out/response code phrases to each other, and then pack it up to leave. As they do so, Howard calls to the other man to point out that he has a bit of food on his tie. Because, after all, Howard is a nice guy. Howard reads to Emily in the hospital. Broken Routines In the locker room (the Interface men all have to remove any identifying watches, rings, etc.), we find out that Howard is breaking his routine today. He is going “upstairs” to interview for a position in “Strategy.” It’s also notable that Howard is the oldest of the Interface men by quite a bit, surrounded by young men in their 20s and 30s. Interface is clearly an entry-level position, but Howard has been stuck here for quite some time. At the interview, we find out that there has been another break in Howard’s routine that may have precipitated his sudden ambition. His wife, Emily, is in the hospital in a coma (a victim of a hit and run six weeks prior, we later learn). She also works for the agency, although apparently at a higher level than Howard. The Strategy chief, Mr. Quail, notes that Howard has served in Interface “for quite some time now” and is “one of the best,” but the post has been filled. Quail also reviewed the tapes of Howard’s interface from that morning and admonishes him for the “non-approved exchange” when Howard pointed out the bit of food on the other man’s tie. With that, he shuts down any hopes Howard has for promotion, telling him that “it’s been 30 years, if it was gonna happen, it would have happened.” He returns to the locker room to find out that one of his young coworkers got the job and the guys are going out to celebrate. Howard waves off joining them, instead visiting Emily at the hospital as he does every night. He brings fresh flowers for her, stopping to deposit one in the vase at the nurses’ station. Howard’s return to the comfortable safety of routine is interrupted by a second visitor, his brother-in-law Eric. He has been sent by Emily’s mother to get Howard to sign papers authorizing a transfer. Emily’s mother is apparently a woman of some prominence and/or power, and she wants Emily “at home” and “surrounded by family.” Howard replies, with a hint of defeat, “I’m her family.” Eric leaves the papers and Howard settles in to read a book to Emily until visiting hours are over. Howard Prime explains why he’s come over. A Bit of a Situation The next morning, Howard’s routine is irrevocably broken. His badge is rejected at the security checkpoint and he is brought to a room where Aldrich from “Housekeeping” and Mr. Quail are waiting for him. Someone has walked in from the “Other Side” and is only willing to speak to Howard. This person is brought in with a bag over their head, sat down at the table, and then the big reveal: it’s Howard. He looks exactly like Howard, but he is nothing like Howard. This version is tough, hardened, and openly sarcastic. He scoffs at Howard Alpha only being an Interface man. He’s there because a kill order has come out from his side targeting people on their side. He implies their “4th Floor” might be compromised and their intelligence is “kind of a shit show” right now. His time is limited, so he moves to leave, with plans to return on a 12-hour visa the next day. Outside, Quail gives Howard an abbreviated brief about what is going on: 30 years ago, during the Cold War, there was an experiment, an accident, in this building. Eastern scientists…something went wrong. They opened up a passage directly beneath us. When you go through this door, you come out the other side, you’re in another world, identical to ours…Same events, same experiences. So, where this building stands, where we are now—this is called the Crossing…So, when this door opened, our paths began to branch off. More and more, over time. Aldrich returns and says that Howard Prime gave them a name of someone on the list: Emily Silk, Howard’s wife. They send Howard away, assuring him that they’ll handle it. Howard drops off a flower at the nurses’ station. That evening, Howard goes to visit Emily again while Baldwin tracks down the first of her marks: the young coworker of Howard’s who snagged the Strategy job from him. In the morning, Howard has his usual game of Go. Still obviously disturbed by his encounter with his counterpart the day before, he asks his opponent if he thinks “life is just a sum of our choices.” His friend espouses the view that there is no such thing as choice: “You are who you are. I am what I am. And the game only ends one way.” Howard Prime comes through the Crossing and is whisked away by Quail and Aldrich to Howard’s apartment. Howard is reduced to playing host while the other three talk. Howard Prime explains that there has been infighting on his side and that a hard-line ideological faction may be trying to take over. He doesn’t know why this faction is now targeting people on the other side, but it isn’t random. Howard asks why his Emily is on the hit list and Howard Prime supposes that they are trying to send him a message. “Why not target his Emily?” Howard asks. “Because she’s dead,” Howard Prime replies. Cancer. Howard explains that Emily is in the hospital, hit crossing the street six weeks ago by a kid not paying attention. Howard Prime jumps at the chance to use her as bait. He will switch places with Howard and kill Baldwin himself when she shows up. Quail and Aldrich leave the two Howards alone to “get acquainted” while they make arrangements. Howard tries to get Howard Prime to try something from the bakery downstairs. The next scene is probably the highlight of the pilot, and possibly the entire season. It is also a remarkable feat of acting and editing. Five solid minutes of only J.K. Simmons on screen, playing the dual roles of Howard Alpha and Howard Prime. Even though they are now dressed nearly identical, you never have a problem discerning the one from the other. Simmons embodies the entire history of each character: the placid defeat of Howard Alpha, the relentless loneliness of Howard Prime. As Marks puts it so well, “This isn’t a fake mustache parallel dimension.” Howard Prime comes out of the bedroom, having changed into one of Howard Alpha’s suits. He marvels at the tie, his favorite which he had lost years ago. Howard Alpha tells him to keep it because he hasn’t worn it in years. This first interaction sums up everything about them: the same, yet different. Nonetheless, Howard Alpha is giddy with excitement at the opportunity to discuss memories and feelings he’s had his whole life that only belonged to him. He tries to get Howard Prime to try a dessert from the bakery downstairs because it reminds him of his childhood—now their childhood. Prime waves it off, though, because he has high cholesterol. Doesn’t Alpha? “I…I…I don’t think so,” he answers. “Okay,” Prime deadpans. For his part, Howard Prime only wants to know one thing: how come Howard Alpha never got out of Interface? What held him back? Alpha replies, “Just, uh, life, I guess.” Prime is just baffled that Alpha appears not to regret where he’s ended up in his life. Howard Prime: “See, this is what’s so fucked up. Genetics, childhood. Doesn’t matter. We’re helpless to our experience. Difference between you and me could be a single moment, one little thing gone wrong. Howard Alpha: “Or right.” They exchange some details about Howard’s routine at the hospital, critically leaving out the flowers. This eventually leads them to talking about Emily. In the end, the one thing they agree upon is that they both have some regrets. Aldrich returns and brings their exchange to a close with one of the funniest lines of the pilot: Aldrich: “Which one are you?” Howard Prime: “Fuck off.” Aldrich: “It’s time.” Baldwin rests for a moment. On the way to the hospital, Howard Alpha remembers the flowers and has them pull over to buy some. Howard Prime goes up to the hospital room, but does not stop to drop off one in the vase at the nurses’ station. Aldrich asks Howard Alpha what they talked about and he replies, “cholesterol.” A visitor arrives at the hospital, but it’s not the assassin; it’s Emily’s brother, Eric. Howard Prime quickly brings his counterpart up to speed on the situation. Quail urges him to just sign the paperwork and get rid of Eric. Eric warns that his mother will sue Howard until he submits. Alpha thinks about it for a few seconds and then calmly says “no.” He has the reins of Alpha’s life and he takes charge. He tells Eric off and makes his own implied threat that they don’t want him, “with nothing left to say.” After all, he is the Howard of action, not the Howard of words. Just then another visitor is spotted—a woman. It’s Baldwin. Howard Prime pulls his gun and tells Eric to stay put and shut up. He hides in a janitor’s closet just before Emily’s room. Baldwin strolls confidently past the nurses’ station but pauses when she notices the empty vase. She moves to backtrack her way out when a helpful nurse asks if she can help her. Howard bursts out and Baldwin turns to run; they exchange gun fire and a nurse is shot. Quail and Aldrich rush in, leaving Howard Alpha handcuffed in the car. A chase ensues as the Strategy men close in on Baldwin within the hospital. She leaps out a window and ends up toppling down on top of the car Howard Alpha is sitting in. As she closes her eyes and catches her breath, Howard Alpha and his wife’s would-be assassin are face-to-face for a moment. When she opens her eyes and sees Howard, she moves to shoot him, but Howard Prime hits her from afar. However, he is out of bullets, and Baldwin flees the scene. Aldrich removes Howard’s handcuffs and he races up to check on his wife. Emily meets with Howard. So What Happens Next? Later, back at the agency, Quail asks Howard Prime what happens next. Howard states matter-of-factly that Baldwin will try again. He’ll work on getting another visa, but they’re going to need his counterpart again. Quail says he’ll talk to him. After Prime leaves, Quail drives Alpha home. On the way, he tells Howard: You know, I remember when I first found out. It doesn’t normally happen like this, you know. There’s…there’s people you have to talk to. There’s, like, doctors and psychiatrists. You’re read in. There’s this whole process. And you…you…[he chuckles]. Here again is the implication of Howard’s secret inner strength. This is the kind of thing that could break a man mentally—has, in fact, according to Howard Prime earlier—and he had no preparation whatsoever. Quail asks if they can count on him to continue to help and Howard just turns to walk away. Quail stops him and asks what he wants. Howard finds a little of his counterpart’s boldness within him. He tells Quail that he wants the promotion he should have had three days ago, with real access and real knowledge of what’s going on. They need him now, so Quail will need to figure it out. The pilot concludes following Howard Prime through the Crossing. He exits on his side, and walks to a nearby bar. He wades through the crowd to a table towards the back and sits down. Across from him…is Emily Silk. His Emily—Emily Prime—is apparently very much alive. She asks, “What on earth have you been doing over there?” The pilot serves as the perfect introduction to this rich and well thought out universe—or rather, universes. Howard is just the first of many characters who meet and interact with their counterpart, but J.K. Simmons sets a high bar with his initial performance. There are characters who cooperate with their other, who work against their other, and who even kill their other. At this point, our flashlights have barely illuminated a sliver of what the writers have to offer. Each subsequent episode shows us a bit more and leaves us with a new twist in the story. Eventually, in Season 2, we even get a very satisfying flashback episode that tells the origin story of the Crossing and the scientists responsible for it. We now know that Counterpart will forever be limited to the two seasons that aired on Starz. As one user on the r/counterpart Reddit commented: “Starz is to TV shows what Fox was in the 90s. Can’t stay out of their own way, underpromoting all of their shows to the point where no one seems to know they are even airing and then cancelling them once fans get hooked.” While the writers had plans for the show that would have needed five seasons minimum, the intent was always that the first two seasons were the “Berlin chapter” of the story. So in that way, what we have is a perfect series that itself has two identities: one that is complete and another that will be forever open-ended. Written by Brien Allen Brien Allen is the last of the original crazy people who responded to this nutjob on Facebook wanting to start an online blog prior to Twin Peaks S3. Some of his other favorite shows have been Vr.5, Buffy, Lost, Stargate: Universe, The OA, and Counterpart. He's an OG BBSer, Trekkie, Blue Blaze Irregular, and former semi-professional improviser. He is also a staunch defender of putting two spaces after a period, but has been told to shut up and color. I loved Counterpart. I too stumbled across it halfway through the first season. Never saw any advertisements for it. I would be awesome if either Netflix or Amazon picked it up. People browse both for new content all the time–I have no doubt that Counterpart would find a big audience on either streaming service. Jacqueline Crosby says: I too loved this show. My husband and I were devastated when we found out it was cancelled. Why do they always have to cancel the truly intelligent, gripping, that are rich in plot, character development and make you sit and think for ages after an episode is over? Counterpart was too good for tv I guess. I was really looking forward to the next chapter. Cold WarCounterpartespionageGoJ.K. SimmonsJeff RussoJustin MarksMorten Tyldumparallel universesPerfect Pilots More From: Perfect Pilots Perfect Pilots: Charlie’s Angels Uncover a Murder by Kacie Lillejord October 8, 2020, 12:00 am in Hawaii Five-0, Perfect Pilots Hawaii Five-0: Action in Paradise Makes a Serious Comeback by Kacie Lillejord December 19, 2019, 12:00 am HBO’s The Night Of Pilot Is Filled with Tension and Dread by Bryan O'Donnell November 21, 2019, 12:00 am in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Perfect Pilots Welcome to the Hellmouth—and to Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Natasha B.C. Smith November 13, 2019, 12:00 am in Lost, Perfect Pilots They’re Looking for Us in the Wrong Place: On the Pilot of Lost by Caemeron Crain September 22, 2019, 12:00 am in ER, Perfect Pilots, PopCulture25YL The ER Pilot is a Clinic on How to Make Perfect TV by John Bernardy September 19, 2019, 12:00 am in Film News, New Film Reviews BFI London Film Festival 2020 Part Two: Alienation and Togetherness in Star Trek: Picard Star Trek: Picard S1E3 “The End Is the Beginning” in Art of the Finale The Americans Series Finale Is Masterful While Leaving Questions Open There is More to Life than Watching TV; You Can Write About It, Too! The Best of the Decade in Film You’re Coming With Me Creep: Robocop and A.I. 13 Reasons Why and Its Effect on My Mental Health	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1583
__label__wiki	0.99393	0.99393	Florida Georgia Line Rock the 2020 ACM Awards With ‘I Love My Country’ Carena Liptak Florida Georgia Line's "I Love My Country" is the kind of raucous, loud-and-proud single that was made to be performed live at one of the superstar duo's action-packed shows. Unfortunately, since the song was released in March of 2020 — right at the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic — not many fans have gotten the chance to hear "I Love My Country" live yet, which made FGL's raucous 2020 ACM Awards performance all the more invigorating. The duo of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley hit the stage in Nashville to deliver a rocking version of the single, with Hubbard — who's been on the injured list since a dirt bike wreck in late August caused him to have surgery after injuring his ankle — sporting a cast. Hubbard didn't let it slow him down, though, scooting around the stage on a specially-made combination of scooter and microphone stand. The pair managed to keep energy levels high, despite Hubbard's broken ankle bone and a ruptured Achilles tendon. He announced the injury in late August, adding that the timing couldn't be worse. See the Best Pictures from the 2020 ACM Awards Not only did it force him to perform at the 2020 ACMs in a cast, but it also coincides with his wife's due date. Tyler and Hayley Hubbard are currently expecting their third child, a boy. They announced the exciting news in March. The couple are also parents to two-year-old daughter Olivia and a son, Luca, who was born last August. "I Love My Country" is included in FGL's newest EP, 6-Pack, which they dropped this summer. It's also their latest chart-topping country radio hit. The pair were also nominated at this year's ACM Awards ceremony: Florida Georgia Line were in the running for Vocal Duo of the Year, vying for the trophy against Brothers Osborne, Brooks & Dunn, Maddie & Tae and Dan + Shay. That award went to Dan + Shay. See Pictures from the 2020 ACM Awards Red Carpet See the Best of the Best Dressed at the ACM Awards: Source: Florida Georgia Line Rock the 2020 ACM Awards With ‘I Love My Country’	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1586
__label__wiki	0.803271	0.803271	Adelanto siblings, 10 and 12 years old, killed in Victorville crash Teresa Basua, 10, and Pedro Basua Jr., 12, are seen in photos provided their family. (Photos courtesy Basua family) VICTORVILLE, Calif. (KABC) -- A 10-year-old Adelanto girl and her 12-year-old brother were killed in a two-vehicle crash in Victorville. The wreck was reported Saturday around 8:30 p.m. near the intersection of Mojave Drive and Amethyst Road. San Bernardino County sheriff's officials said a 1996 Ford Taurus was traveling east on Mojave Drive, approaching the Amethyst Road intersection. Around the same time, a 2003 Hyundai Elantra was traveling northbound on Amethyst Road and attempted to take a left turn onto Mojave Drive, in front of the path of the Taurus. The front of the Taurus collided with the driver's side of the Elantra when both vehicles attempted to cross the intersection, investigators said. The Elantra had five occupants: the driver, 35-year-old Pedro Basua; 38-year-old Gloria Basua; 10-year-old Teresa Basua; 12-year-old Pedro Basua Jr.; and an unnamed 11-year-old juvenile. Teresa and Pedro Basua Jr. were pronounced dead at the scene. The 11-year-old juvenile and the two adults were transported to an area hospital to be treated for moderate injuries, according to San Bernardino County sheriff's officials. The Taurus had three occupants: the driver, 18-year-old Jeremy Cannon of Adelanto; 18-year-old Katelyn Garrett of Victorville; and 18-year-old Marco Amparo of Adelanto. Cannon and Amparo were transported to an area hospital to be treated for moderate to minor injuries. Garrett was picked up at the scene by family members. Sheriff's officials said investigators do not believe drugs or alcohol were involved in the incident. Gloria Basua's sister-in-law started a GoFundMe account for the family. To donate, visit https://www.gofundme.com/memorial-for-pedrojr-teresa-basua. The crash was under investigation by the Victorville Police Major Accident Investigation Team. If you have any information about this incident, you're urged to contact authorities at (760) 241-2911. victorvillesan bernardino countyadelantotraffic fatalitiescar crashchildrentraffic accident	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1590
__label__cc	0.717776	0.282224	‘Socialism will never be the same again’: Re-imagining British left-wing ideas for the ‘New Times’ Alexandre Campsie (Corresponding Author) History (Research Theme) This article examines left-wing ideas about social change in the 1980s. It focuses on the ‘New Times’ debates, a series of discussions held in the Communist Party of Great Britain theoretical journal Marxism Today. The journal’s key contributors contended that the profoundly transformed nature of 1980s Britain necessitated the adoption of revised political strategies. I historicise these claims by situating them within a longer tradition of British New Left analysis, and an engagement with post-1968 ‘new social movements’. I illustrate how Marxism Today’s vision of modernity was highly stylised. The journal’s iconoclastic proclamations about apprehend the most strikingly modern forms. The 1980s were thus not entirely foreclosed by the parameters imposed by socio-economic transformations—a whole range of alternative ideas were on offer in this period. That this vibrant moment would give way to more reductive political solutions in the 1990s and beyond was not inevitable. Contemporary British History new social movements 10.1080/13619462.2017.1306211Licence: Unspecified Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of '‘Socialism will never be the same again’: Re-imagining British left-wing ideas for the ‘New Times’'. Together they form a unique fingerprint. Marxism Earth & Environmental Sciences socialism Earth & Environmental Sciences Socialism Arts & Humanities Imagining Arts & Humanities social movement Earth & Environmental Sciences modernity Earth & Environmental Sciences Proclamation Social Sciences Campsie, A. (2017). ‘Socialism will never be the same again’: Re-imagining British left-wing ideas for the ‘New Times’ . Contemporary British History, 31(2), 166-188. https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2017.1306211 ‘Socialism will never be the same again’ : Re-imagining British left-wing ideas for the ‘New Times’ . / Campsie, Alexandre (Corresponding Author). In: Contemporary British History, Vol. 31, No. 2, 20.04.2017, p. 166-188. Campsie, A 2017, '‘Socialism will never be the same again’: Re-imagining British left-wing ideas for the ‘New Times’ ', Contemporary British History, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 166-188. https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2017.1306211 Campsie A. ‘Socialism will never be the same again’: Re-imagining British left-wing ideas for the ‘New Times’ . Contemporary British History. 2017 Apr 20;31(2):166-188. https://doi.org/10.1080/13619462.2017.1306211 Campsie, Alexandre. / ‘Socialism will never be the same again’ : Re-imagining British left-wing ideas for the ‘New Times’ . In: Contemporary British History. 2017 ; Vol. 31, No. 2. pp. 166-188. @article{fc510fe2886540129e994940e4b5dd28, title = "{\textquoteleft}Socialism will never be the same again{\textquoteright}: Re-imagining British left-wing ideas for the {\textquoteleft}New Times{\textquoteright} ", abstract = "This article examines left-wing ideas about social change in the 1980s. It focuses on the {\textquoteleft}New Times{\textquoteright} debates, a series of discussions held in the Communist Party of Great Britain theoretical journal Marxism Today. The journal{\textquoteright}s key contributors contended that the profoundly transformed nature of 1980s Britain necessitated the adoption of revised political strategies. I historicise these claims by situating them within a longer tradition of British New Left analysis, and an engagement with post-1968 {\textquoteleft}new social movements{\textquoteright}. I illustrate how Marxism Today{\textquoteright}s vision of modernity was highly stylised. 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The journal’s key contributors contended that the profoundly transformed nature of 1980s Britain necessitated the adoption of revised political strategies. I historicise these claims by situating them within a longer tradition of British New Left analysis, and an engagement with post-1968 ‘new social movements’. I illustrate how Marxism Today’s vision of modernity was highly stylised. The journal’s iconoclastic proclamations about apprehend the most strikingly modern forms. The 1980s were thus not entirely foreclosed by the parameters imposed by socio-economic transformations—a whole range of alternative ideas were on offer in this period. That this vibrant moment would give way to more reductive political solutions in the 1990s and beyond was not inevitable. AB - This article examines left-wing ideas about social change in the 1980s. It focuses on the ‘New Times’ debates, a series of discussions held in the Communist Party of Great Britain theoretical journal Marxism Today. The journal’s key contributors contended that the profoundly transformed nature of 1980s Britain necessitated the adoption of revised political strategies. I historicise these claims by situating them within a longer tradition of British New Left analysis, and an engagement with post-1968 ‘new social movements’. I illustrate how Marxism Today’s vision of modernity was highly stylised. The journal’s iconoclastic proclamations about apprehend the most strikingly modern forms. The 1980s were thus not entirely foreclosed by the parameters imposed by socio-economic transformations—a whole range of alternative ideas were on offer in this period. That this vibrant moment would give way to more reductive political solutions in the 1990s and beyond was not inevitable. KW - left KW - Marxism KW - social change KW - new social movements KW - 1980s JO - Contemporary British History JF - Contemporary British History	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1591
__label__cc	0.726305	0.273695	Home » Uncategorized » The Beautiful, Picturesque and Sublime The Beautiful, Picturesque and Sublime Distinctions between these three concepts — beauty, picturesqueness and sublimity — are at the heart of Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, an 18th century philosophical treatise important to understanding the Romantic period. In each case, an emotional response is evoked from the viewer. I’ve found more utility in applications of the picturesque, where it can be found in literature, fine art (most directly, for me, in painting), as well as in architecture and landscape design: In the novel, a new literary form of the late 18th century, strong words create vivid mental images: verbal depictions of settings where the action takes place. Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), the first Gothic novel, permits its readers to travel in both space and time by means of these word pictures. Landscape painting was also “invented” about the same time, a new genre where dabs of pigment stand in for words; where raw natural landscape dominates and human presence (and influence) is minimized. Previously, painted contours, water features, incidental buildings, trees and shrubs were there to fill embarrassing voids between and among heroically composed figures engaged in dramatic action. From Claude Lorain to John Constable, the landscape itself became the active element. Eventually, the emerging profession of landscape design reconfigures actual contours, manipulates lakes and streams, positions trees, shrubs, flowers and strategic architectonic features to create living examples of the static landscape painting. Visit the gardens at Stourhead (as I did with my friend Dennis Colliton almost twenty years ago) for a consciously choreographed series of spatial experiences that may approach the sublime. Curious, how long it’s taken to see Edmund Burke’s trinity in even the earliest phases of the Agincourt Project. Especially the picturesque. Despite Rene Descartes and the Enlightenment rationality of the original townsite — or, more probably, as a reaction to it — I’ve subconsciously framed public space with religious (i.e., spiritual) imagery; allowed our institutions to generated axes of tension and movement; and permitted an organic evolution of the vistas that knit neighborhoods together. I am neither painter nor writer, yet those media have been my tools. Agincourt has been a product of the late 19th century and the early 20th. I’m comfortable drawing real characters like Frederick Law Olmsted and Lawrence Buck and even Europeans Adolf Loos and Sigmund Freud into the narrative. So it’s a stretch to invoke an 18th century personality like Nicholas Hawksmoor, assistant to Sir Christopher Wren and collaborator with Sir John Vanbrugh yet overshadowed by both of those giants. I wonder if dabbling in the 18th century’s issues cleanses my palette for the 19th and 20th. Nicholas Hawksmoor [1661-1736] In 1985 Peter Ackroyd won the Whitbread Award for the Best Novel of the year. I bought and devoured it in a single week. I also remember waking one morning with vivid mental pictures of having visited Nicholas Hawksmoor’s church of Little St Hugh, a design from about 1736. Dream-walking through the London’s streets, lanes, and courts, I popped through an “Alice-like” constriction and there it was before me. I was alone in the square while late afternoon light played on its rounded apse. Once inside, ribbons of orange rippled over wood pew boxes. All of this is unremarkably ordinary, except that Nicholas Hawksmoor designed just six London churches, not the seven discussed in Ackroyd’s book. His depiction of the imaginary #7 triggered something in me: I saw the place he described. So detailed (relatively) were those mental pictures that I rushed to school, taped a piece of white tracing paper to the desk and drew (i.e., draughted) as quickly as I could the building’s plan still in my mind’s eye. Now, more than thirty years later, I need to complete the church of Little St Hugh. Let it not be said that I have a short attention span. The “empty” part of the plan was the chancel, which concerned me because I doubted being able to install an adequate choir. Things are going better than I’d hoped and soon I’ll be giving much needed attention to the elevations and sections. Let’d hope it doesn’t take another thirty years to get this done. I haven’t got the time. [#839] By agincourtiowa in Uncategorized on Monday/10/October/2016 . ← “The smith, a mighty man is he…” Patent Pending →	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1594
__label__wiki	0.866488	0.866488	Kansas vs. Kansas State Football Prediction and Preview By J.P. Scott, 10/22/20, 1:20 PM EDT An in-state rivalry between two programs heading in different directions is renewed on Saturday The Kansas Jayhawks and Kansas State Wildcats head into Saturday's matchup with completely different outlooks on the 2020 season, both to date and moving forward. Kansas sits at 0-3 in Big 12 play and 0-4 overall. They are in the conversation for the worst team in the Power 5, and possibly all of FBS. The Kansas State Wildcats have rebounded from an opening weekend loss and now sit at 3-0 in conference play and 3-1 overall. Two of those three wins were over Oklahoma and TCU, and those results have the Wildcats ranked No. 20 in the AP poll. The two programs will write the next chapter in their in-state rivalry this weekend in Manhattan. The Jayhawks lead the series overall (65-47-5) but Kansas State has won the last 11 meetings. Kansas at No. 20 Kansas State Kickoff: Saturday, Oct. 24 at 12 p.m. ET TV: FS1 Spread: Kansas State -20 When Kansas Has the Ball One of the only bright spots for the Jayhawks this season has been running back Velton Gardner and his 4.8 yards per carry. Like most Kansas football games, this one is not expected to be close, and head coach Les Miles is going to want to run the ball and keep the clock moving to shorten the game. Gardner will carry even more of the load on offense with backfield mate Pooka Williams Jr. announcing on Monday that he was opting out of the rest of this season for personal reasons. The Jayhawks will need to find a way to make plays with its passing game, whether by choice or out of necessity should they fall behind early. When Kansas takes to the air, wide receiver Kwamie Lassiter (15 receptions, 171 yards, 11.4 ypr) is the closest thing Kansas has to a game-breaker, and they'll look to force the ball his way. Fellow wideout Andrew Parchment leads the team with two touchdown catches. When Kansas State Has the Ball The Wildcats bring a balanced offensive attack buoyed by solid offensive line play. Head coach Chris Klieman knows his team has the ability to dominate in the trenches, so look for him to test the Jayhawks' run defense early in hopes of wearing them down and putting the game away in the first half. Running backs Harry Trotter and Deuce Vaughn should both log a bunch of touches, between the tackles and on short passes that effectively double as runs. Vaughn, who is averaging 4.8 yards per carry and 31.0 yards per catch (nine rec.) might be the most underrated player in the Big 12, and he'll cause matchup problems everywhere he lines up. Kansas State also may use this game to work on their passing in the red zone, not in an effort to run up the score, but to shore up some things as they move forward in what is shaping up to be a heated race for the two spots in the Big 12 Championship Game. Final Analysis Nobody expects this game to be close, and anything but a double-digit Kansas State win is going to either be a Kansas upset or a moral victory for the Jayhawks. This Wildcats team is firing on all cylinders and has now had two weeks to prepare for an inferior opponent. There are simply too many weapons on one side of the field and not enough on the other for this to be a competitive matchup. The only concern that the Kansas State faithful should have is their team looking past this game mentally and turning in a sloppy performance with games against tougher opponents, including Oklahoma State, Iowa State, and Texas, still to go. Prediction: Kansas State 42, Kansas 9 Podcast: Week 8 Preview and Predictions — Written by J.P. Scott, who is part of the Athlon Contributor Network. His work has appeared on SI.com, FoxSports.com, Yahoo!, SBNation, USA Today and Bleacher Report. He is a three-time FWAA writing contest award winner. Follow him on Twitter @TheJPScott. Event Sport: Saturday, October 24, 2020 - 12:00 Bill Snyder Family Stadium, 2201 Kimball Ave, Manhattan, KS 66502 Away Team: Home Team: Include in Acu Data Feed: Exclude from Acu-data Feed College Football Picks: Expert Predictions for Every Game in Week 8 Seven-Step Drop: COVID, Chaos and Ohio State All That Stand in the Way of Clemson-Alabama V Big 12 Football: Predicting the Biggest Upsets in 2020	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1601
__label__cc	0.512758	0.487242	States Dodge “Responsibility to Protect” in Syria The interests of the nations involved thwart the case for an international responsibility to protect civilians in Syria. Sean Matthew Tuohy July 11, 2012 December 31, 2019 British foreign secretary William Hague and American secretary of state Hillary Clinton attend a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York, January 31 (State Department) With the high-profile defection of Brigadier General Manaf Tlas, an elite member of the Syrian regime and close personal friend of President Bashar al-Assad’s, comes the renewed sense that the conflict in Syria is beginning to mirror developments in previous “Arab Spring” uprisings. As Muammar Gaddafi’s inner circle fractured and defected around him and opposition forces consolidated their gains in the rebel stronghold city of Benghazi, the international community invoked the principle of the “responsibility to protect” and mobilized for a military intervention that was spearheaded by NATO forces. This event represents the most recent case of intervention justified by the moral and ethical concepts encapsulated within the “responsibility to protect” doctrine. Though the principle itself is only a decade old, it has come under considerable scrutiny and criticism within the international community and has undergone several reinterpretations since its normative inception in 2001. The recent uprisings in Syria have further served to highlight the operational deficiencies of the concept in practice, as it has failed to be called upon despite the atrocities and breaches of human rights as recorded by official United Nations inspectors. Setting aside the principle’s primary axis of consternation — the integrity of national sovereignty versus the responsibilities of the international community — there is another, more central reason why, in the case of the Syrian conflict, the principle cannot and will not be operationalized despite the escalating nature of the violence as the conflict develops — the interests of the states involved. A fundamental criticism of the principle is that it allows geopolitical objectives to masquerade as humanitarian protection. In the Libyan instance, the operation suffered from “mission slip,” as NATO actions quickly (and some might argue, inevitably) shifted focus from humanitarian protection of civilians to that of regime change, in which NATO effectively became the air force of the rebellion. This serves as a crystal clear example of the very real and present disconnect between the principle as theory — an undisputedly positive notion — and the effects of the principle in practice, which are misguided and ineffective or downright inapplicable. The “CNN effect” that influences the opinions of domestic populations that witness and see for themselves the horrors of violent conflict abroad often generates an international consensus that “something must be done” to alleviate the suffering of the afflicted people, none more so than when that suffering is caused at the hands of the leaders of the nation state itself, as was the case in Libya and is currently the case in Syria. The questions that naturally follow such outcry are who will intervene and at what cost? However, the more pertinent (and, albeit cynical) question in relation to the “responsibility to protect” doctrine being applied to Syria is, why should there be an intervention at all? Powerful though the diffusion of human rights norms have been within the international community and loud may the damning outcry of both public and political figures to the abhorrent level of violence in Syria be, the moral notion that something must be done remains in the shadow of state power and relationships related to interest. Multilateral organizations, such as the United Nations, can articulate morally sound ideas and norms but they essentially lack the cohesive power to enforce them onto the international community. The structural effect of Kenneth Waltz’ “anarchic order” inhibits, and will continue to inhibit, the principle in practice. The prominent realist thinker John Mearsheimer also asserted that “institutions are basically a reflection of the distribution of power in the world” and we understand that the United Nations Security Council is no different to this. Whether or not the “responsibility to protect” doctrine has been invoked or not has largely depended on the political will of members of the permanent five to do so. The political will “to do something” is not always precipitated by the humanitarian need but by their own concerns for self-interest. The convoluted and myriad convergence of the national interests of several powerful regional and international actors in the Syrian case all but guarantee that the UN will fail to implement a resolution pertaining to a humanitarian intervention through military means in the conflict. This has been illustrated clearly by the Russian and to a lesser extent Chinese stance within the Security Council, in opposition to other members, and also by NATO’s reaction and posture since the downing of the Turkish F-4 fighter jet in June. The notion that the “responsibility to protect” should be invoked by the international community as the catalyst for an armed intervention and possible solution to the conflict is one square, which in this case, cannot be circled. Read more: Political Theory, Syria, Syrian War, United Nations Amelia Mae Wolf says: The Responsibility to Protect is not a norm involving only military intervention. All the steps that have been taken by the international community to resolve the crisis in Syria (sanctions, revoking diplomats, negotiations, monitoring, etc) are considered tools under R2P. R2P was invoked months ago in Syria. Simply because military intervention is not being used does not mean it is an unsuccessful case, as there are many reasons that military intervention would not be successful in Syria, especially in comparison to Libya. This does not mean that there isn’t more that states can do, that I agree with. But, it is necessary to state that R2P has been invoked and progress has been made – although small. One of the main obstacles that R2P faces is it’s association with military intervention when, in reality, military tools are only a small part of R2P and a last resort. I would be more than willing to clarify any points made in more detail as I wanted to keep this comment short. Nick Ottens says: And how have all the nonmilitary steps been working out? Not so well, I would say. Assad doesn’t seem to mind the sanctions nor, frankly, care about the diplomatic efforts. If major powers aren’t willing to back up their words with force, they’re not altogether but quite meaningless. Assad has demonstrated that. You’re correct in that the steps have not worked as well as one would have hoped, but that does not mean that resorting to force is the answer. Military intervention worked well in Libya because there were two distinct sides for an array of reasons that are not existent in Syria. (2 distinct sides, an imminent threat against Benghazi, geographically feasible, political will etc.) In Syria, political will is not existent (Russia and China) which therefore prevents a Security Council resolution to authorize the use of force. If the use of force was to be invoked, at this point it would be a last resort. But, it would also have to fit other criteria such as proportional means and reasonable prospects. Being that there are numerous opposition groups, strongholds throughout the country, and Syria demonstrated it’s military capabilities along it’s borders, it may not be a feasible solution. Assad has held on to power must stronger than Gaddafi did. I cannot present a solution as that will be up to the international community. But it should be understood that this is not a failure of R2P. Libya was a perfect test case but every situation is different and R2P is applied in a different manner, although using the same tools, to every R2P situation. In the case of Syria, different tools are applicable and have been utilized. For Assad to step down from power and allow for a political transition will be a success of R2P, although not the most successful we have seen, I’m not saying we should resort to force. Quite to the contrary. I think we shouldn’t intervene in Syria at all, because I see no good way out for Western interests. I would regard the present stalemate a failure of “responsibility to protect” however and I’m not sure how anyone can see it differently. Assad remains in power, Syrians are dying every day, in spite of what you say is a pretty complete deployment of R2P methods short of military intervention. For which, indeed, there isn’t the will. If this isn’t failure for R2P, what is? I see where you’re coming from. I see Syria as a successful (and frustrating) application of R2P, not necessary a successful case; meaning that the tools applied did not have the outcome that the international community desired. Personally, I do believe it was in the interest of the international community to intervene but that is a personal judgement as my field is mass atrocity prevention. Whether or not we went about it the right way is a whole other question. The only resolve I see possible is for Assad to step down. I don’t think military intervention is feasible or would be successful. Unfortunately, Assad’s stepping down will inevitably cast a bad light on R2P being that it is regime-change. But if it would bring a resolve to the conflict and halt mass atrocities, then I believe it is a necessary step and would not be possible without intervention. It will obviously have a negative impact as well but I’m speaking strictly in regards to mass atrocity crime prevention. I don’t see how the application of tools can be considered “successful” if it didn’t have the desired outcome. Isn’t that the definition of success? Achieving the desired outcome. The reason I say that is because R2P is still young and hasn’t really been effectively applied over the past eight years. Of course the true goal of R2P is to effectively halt or prevent mass atrocities, but I do think that at least applying tools in a timely and decisive manner is a step for R2P because it is not something that we have seen in the past. That’s not quite true, just not in this fashion. It seems very little reason to be optimistic but OK. Sean Tuohy says: First of all thank you for taking the time to read the article and to provide some constructive feedback. I am however, fully aware that the tool set available to the international community to act in situations where the R2P principle is relevant, is much more comprehensive than just military intervention. I am also not abdicating the use of just military force. The purpose of the article was to highlight the fact that, despite the continued escalation of the violence, that for a number of reasons, there will not be a military intervention. Am I saying that this is what should happen? No, simply illustrating that if States were to fully adhere to the moral and ethical principles encapsulated within the R2P doctrine, then there would have to be a military intervention. The violence is, and will continue without one. The Syrian State has failed in its responsibility to protect for its own citizens, and therefore according to UN principles should forfeit its right to national sovereignty. R2P is an emerging norm, and has yet to attain the ‘norm cascade’ required for it to be respected and adhered to in the way that national sovereignty is, so this will not happen, therefore it has failed to in its mission statement in regards to Syria. To state that Libya was a success is also, in my opinion, incorrect. The mandate was for the protection of civilians not regime change. Was an atrocity prevented in Benghazi? more than likely, but because the principle ended up being used as a tool of state interest, and not a transparent moral principle for the prevention of atrocity crimes, it undermines its legitimacy within the international community. Add to this the deaths attributed to the bombing campaign itself and continued instability in the country, and it doesn’t look particularly successful. I hope for further development of the ‘prevention’ element within the doctrine, as this could perhaps reinforce the non military aspects of the tool set available. I heard, just yesterday from NATO themselves whilst at their SHAPE headquarters, that it is incredibly difficult to measure the success of sanctions, deterrence, etc, but I think that as there is continued violence and the Assad regime is still in power, that they have not been very successful at all in the Syrian case. Comments are automatically closed after one year.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1602
__label__cc	0.555346	0.444654	Home/Blogs The Chinese a Red Hot People? Save to My Colloquies sex, China, East and West, Serve the People, Populist A healthy government or nation or culture should be of the people, by the people and for the people. But does the concept of the people as a democratic, social entity still count? Yesterday I went to the Annual Modern Language Association Meeting in Los Angeles and on a panel of professors of East Asian and comparative studies in the US, I discussed how English and European studies can and should try to have a share of Chinese culture. Not that Western professors or cultural establishments at large have not been paying attention to Chinese or Asian culture. With ups and downs, the scholarly study of Asian literatures and languages has been going on for more than a century in Europe and the US. With the rise of China in the globalized network, Chinese culture is constantly stepping into the spotlight these days. Yet more communication, more study does not mean more understanding--if the communicator only wants to see what he sets out to see: his own self-image reflected in other people. Ironically, the gaps in understanding and in sharable interests seem to be widening in the age of globalization and economic interdependence. Recently I taught Chinese writer Yan Lianke’s novel Serve the People. In the story a peasant soldier is forced to provide sexual service for the wife of an impotent army commander and their affair is carried on in the name of serving the people. “Serve the People” meant, officially, service for the Party, the nation, and ideology. So the story evidently debunks the slogan. But it also had a genuine vocation and a cultural agenda. It was a rallying call in revolutionary China in the 1940s to democratize the traditional high culture and elitist legacy, so that cultural production could be in people’s, especially peasants’ hands. Later this notion became a guiding principle for creating a new culture and for judging works of writers’ and artists. Good writers are those who put their heart and talent into serving the people’s intellectual and spiritual needs. This populist principle, active in much of modern Chinese history, is now junked and forgotten. And the whole history associated with this socio-democratic agenda is seen as having gone to the dinosaurs. To Western eyes, a blank page is sandwiched between the colonial, capitalist glamour of Shanghai in the 1930s and the globalized 1990s, as if China today just fell out of the sky in the last two decades. It is in this mindset of junking of history that Yan’s novel is celebrated by the Western media and critics. It is read as a Chinese Lady Chatterley’s Lover and as a satirical tale of sexual transgression and political subversion. The blurb of the English translation raves that the novel is overflowing with sex. It is both red and hot, a red, hot love story that is funny, satiric, and irreverent of the dominant ideology. Does Yan the novelist only want to display sex? Or more generally, what happens to the understanding of a culture if all that matters is sexual abandon? “Red and hot” may recall “Red and Expert,” another slogan in revolutionary China that encouraged writers to serve the people with really good and expert writing. The critical taste in the West and in China, however, declares this mission is dead and we can celebrate. Red means nothing but hot. This recalls the American couple in the movie Reds, who, amidst their activities in the Russian Revolution, have sex intensified to the accompaniment of the stirring music of International. Yan’s novel surely reveals “Serve the People” is abused and that it is rhetoric for private gains and carnal desire. On the other hand, this Chinese writer, from pleasant stock and of the army, ponders a legitimate concern. He holds on to the idea that politics and literature are of the people, by the people, and for the people. For him literature needs to inject a public spirit, to serve people as citizens, as masters of Chinese society—a revolutionary tradition. This people-oriented notion has been corrupted by the bureaucratic and technocrats of the current regime, by market power, by Western and Chinese critics out of touch with the current reality. The peasant workers, the unemployed, the homeless, and downtrodden are completely under the radar of privileged critics in the West. Yet many people oriented writers in China today still try to serve the people by writing about their plight, suffering, and worries, their hunger and anger in the crisis of global economy. Faced with ruthlessly market and naked exploitation of the lowest stratum of the population, red and expert writers still hold dear the socio-democratic agenda and egalitarian ideals contained in Serve the People. The red, hot writers, in contrast, pursue the glamour of consumption, the sexy appeal of urban youth, and imperial grandeur of power and capital, the wasteful lifesyle in Shanghai’s glitzy hotels. This trumped up array of money, sex, and power hardly touches 95% of the Chinese people. It ignores that fact that it is owing to the people’s labor, initiative, and blood that China is able to step into to the spotlight of international attention. Ban Wang's blog by Ban Wang Wang Ban is the William Haas Professor in Chinese Studies at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in comparative literature at UCLA. In addition to his research on Chinese and comparative literature, he has written on English and French literatures, psychoanalysis, international politics, and cinema. He has been a recipient of research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. He taught at Beijing Foreign Studies University, SUNY-Stony Brook, Harvard University, and Rutgers University before he came to Stanford. His current project is tentatively entitled China and the World: Geopolitics, Aesthetics, and Cosmopolitanism. His interests include modern Chinese literature and film, comparative literature (East and West), aesthetics, intellectual history, psychoanalysis, transnational politics and culture.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1612
__label__wiki	0.838629	0.838629	Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus Will Return in ‘Spider-Man 3’ It’s not quite a full Sinister Six yet, but Tom Holland’s Spider-Man sure has his hands full. Internet sleuths had already figured out that Jamie Foxx’s Electro from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 would return in Marvel and Sony’s third Spider-Man film — this one set in a totally different Spider-Man continuity from The Amazing Spider-Man, and featuring a totally different Spider-Man and supporting cast. Now it looks like another villain from yet another Spider-Verse will appear as well: Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus, who first appeared in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 back in 2004. That’s the word from The Hollywood Reporter, who suggest that the film may indeed tie all three Spider-Man movie franchises into a single universe: Molina's involvement ties together three generations of Spider-Man movies. Jamie Foxx is returning as Electro after playing the role in 2014's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which starred Andrew Garfield as the wallcrawler, while Molina's Doc Oc terrorized Maguire's version of Spidey. In October, Foxx suggested in a since-deleted Instagram post that three different Spider-Men could appear in the film. Molina is not the first actor from the Sami Raimi Spider-Man films to appear in the current franchise; Spider-Man: Far From Home ended with a cameo from J.K. Simmons, reprising his role as Daily Bugle publisher J. Jonah Jameson. The MCU’s Jonah was a bit different than the earlier version; this one was bald and hosted a talk show, as opposed to running a newspaper. It’s not clear yet whether Molina will be playing the MCU’s Doctor Octopus, or the exact same guy from the Raimi movies somehow transported to the MCU. However they bring in Doc Ock, Molina’s interpretation of the character is probably the most popular Spider-Man villain in any of the movies to date. So his involvement is exciting news. Spider-Man 3 is scheduled to premiere in theaters on December 17, 2021. Gallery — Every Spider-Man Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best: Source: Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus Will Return in ‘Spider-Man 3’ Filed Under: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Holland	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1617
__label__cc	0.604946	0.395054	Category: Laban Filed under: Laban, Who was Laban in the Bible? — Leave a comment The Bible first mentions Laban in Genesis 24:29. Laban was the brother of Isaac’s wife, Rebekah. Abraham had sent his trusted servant back to his home country to find a wife for Isaac among his relatives (Genesis 24:2–4). When the servant found Rebekah, he made the purpose of his visit known, and she ran and told her father’s household the news. Her brother Laban came out to welcome the servant and invited him to stay with them. Laban was involved in the decision to allow his sister to travel to a foreign land and marry a man she had never met (Genesis 24:50, 55). Laban may have been the eldest son in his family, as the Bible records specifically that he played the role of host to Abraham’s servant and had the right to voice an opinion on his sister’s future (Genesis 24:29, 50, 55). We hear nothing more of Laban until many years later when Isaac and Rebekah send their son Jacob back to those same relatives to find a wife (Genesis 28:1–2). Jacob returned to his mother’s homeland and met Laban’s daughter Rachel, with whom he fell madly in love (Genesis 29:18). Laban promised to give Rachel to Jacob if he would work for him for seven years (Genesis 29:19–20). However, Laban proved to be as duplicitous as Jacob himself. After Jacob had served the time agreed upon, Laban tricked Jacob and switched brides on the wedding night. When Jacob awoke the next morning, he found he had spent the night with Laban’s older daughter, Leah (Genesis 29:25). Infuriated, Jacob demanded an explanation. Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work” (Genesis 29:26–27). Laban continued to connive throughout his and Jacob’s twenty-year relationship (Genesis 31:38). However, God blessed Jacob because Jacob was His choice to carry on the covenant He had made with his grandfather Abraham (Genesis 28:11–15). Genesis 31:1–3 indicates that Laban’s sons were jealous of Jacob because of how much God had prospered him. They said, “‘Jacob has taken everything our father owned and has gained all this wealth from what belonged to our father.’ And Jacob noticed that Laban’s attitude toward him was not what it had been. Then the Lord said to Jacob, ‘Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.’” Fearful that Laban would take his wives, children, and everything he had, Jacob fled in the night, taking what he owned. However, unbeknownst to Jacob, Rachel had stolen her father’s household idols (Genesis 31:19, 34). When Laban learned of the departure of Jacob and his family, he pursued them. He caught up with them, and he rebuked Jacob for sneaking off. Then the idolater Laban demanded the return of his pagan images. But Jacob knew nothing of Rachel’s theft, and he scolded Laban for accusing him. Laban never found his idols. The last mention of Laban in the Bible is after he had rebuked Jacob for disappearing without notice. After their exchange of angry words, Laban suggested that they make a covenant (Genesis 31:44). This overture appears to have been motivated by fear that Jacob might return to harm him (verse 52). Although there is no indication that Laban worshiped the Lord, he did hold a healthy fear of Him and invoked the name of Jacob’s God in forming the covenant between them (Genesis 31:49–50). Laban and his son-in-law shared a meal, and then Laban kissed his children and grandchildren and returned home. After Laban said good-bye, Jacob and his family were free to continue their journey to the land God had given them. Whether he knew it or not, Laban played a large part in God’s plan for humanity, as his grandsons would grow up to head six of the twelve tribes known as Israel (Genesis 49:28; Revelation 21:12).	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1620
__label__wiki	0.594778	0.594778	bat020.com bat020 = Anindya Bhattacharyya, writer/activist based in London. philosophy, revolutionary socialism, mathematics, technology, dance music. bat020.tumblr.com \| @bat020 \| facebook.com/bat020 \| obvious gmail address Breivik: What is fascism? [The following is my contribution to the ebook On Utøya edited Elizabeth Humphrys, Guy Rundle and Tad Tietze. It also includes contributions from Richard Seymour of Lenin’s Tomb fame and various antipodean left activists around the Left Flank blog. And you can get hold of it for under a fiver. Bargain.] The reporting of Anders Behring Breivik’s massacre on 22 July 2011 proceeded in two distinct phases. Initially the bombing of government buildings in Oslo and the shooting spree on Utøya were assumed to be the work of Islamists. The airwaves were full of terrorism “experts” pontificating on why jihadis had chosen to target Norway. But once it became clear that the perpetrator was a Norwegian with far right sympathies, the narrative quickly changed. Discussion of the political drive behind the atrocities became muddled, if not muted altogether. Breivik was typically presented as lone madman whose inner working could not be rationally fathomed. Some even argued that to ascribe a political motivation to his actions was tantamount to disrespect for the dead. Others made fitful attempts to preserve the trope of religious fanaticism: true, Breivik was no Muslim, but perhaps he was a “Christian fundamentalist”. Yet Breivik’s “manifesto” explicitly repudiated that label, insisting that his was primarily a “cultural Christianity” that did not depend upon any specific religious commitment. Above all, we saw a systematic obfuscation of Breivik’s fascism. While Breivik’s affinities with far right ideology could scarcely be denied, the emphasis fell upon apparent divergences between his position and those traditionally held by fascists. The effect of this was to yet again cut Breivik off from any familiar political reference points and present him as an unfathomable enigma. What is going on here? Why is there this reluctance to discuss Breivik’s politics, either in general terms or as specifically fascist? One reason is undoubtedly a certain ideological embarrassment. David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel may condemn Breivik, but all three have drawn from the same well as he. To bring attention to Breivik’s politics thus risks bringing attention to the fact that his position merely intensifies common themes of today’s mainstream discourse: that multiculturalism is dysfunctional, and that Europe’s Muslims are an alien intrusion into Christendom. The same coyness over the question of fascism characterises the mainstream media’s approach to a whole series of far right phenomena. Take the English Defence League, for example – an organisation much praised by Breivik. Their emergence has prompted a great deal of breast-beating from politicians. We are told the EDL is a product of “white working class alienation” and a lamentable “loss of national identity”. The EDL’s racism is more or less ignored, as are its documented links to a long British tradition of fascist street thuggery. But there is more going on here than liberal ideology simply not wanting to recognise Breivik’s fascism, or that of the EDL. There is also a deeper sense in which liberal ideology cannot recognise fascism even if it wanted to. For it starts off from assumptions that prevent it from ever constructing an effective answer to the question: what is fascism? The basic flaw of liberal approaches to specifying fascism is the notion that one can find an answer to this question on the plane of ideology alone. The liberal political taxonomy is based upon “schools of thought”. A political current can be more or less identified with what its proponents say, with their “views”. It follows that political struggle is in essence the exchange of these views. This exchange can be civil or fractious, more or less regulated, but the fundamental model of politics as a rational discussion, a debate between competing views, remains fixed. The problems with this approach become evident the moment one tries to apply it to fascism. To start with, fascist ideology – if such a thing can be said to coherently exist – is wildly contradictory and unstable, held together in the last instance by mysticism rather than rationality. Moreover, the notion that politics can be boiled down to a debate between rival proponents espousing their positions assumes that the statement of position is an honest one. But what if the proponent is lying? This is not merely an abstract possibility: fascism elevates opportunism to a principle and makes a point of misrepresenting itself in the public sphere. The notion that you say one thing to the general public while reserving an esoteric truth to a party hardcore is part of the basic strategy of organisations such as the British National Party or France’s Front National. The liberal model of more or less honest debate is unable to cope with this kind of systematic deception. Finally, the net effect of trying to situate fascism ideologically is to find it everywhere and nowhere. Everywhere, in the sense that no firm dividing line can be drawn between the declarations of fascists and everyday reactionary sloganeering. Nowhere, in the sense that central tranches of classical fascism – eugenic race science, the corporate state – were once commonplace features across the political spectrum but are now almost universally discredited. This “everywhere and nowhere” effect appears in debates around the popular usage of the terms “fascist” or “Nazi”. On the one hand conservative pedants insist the terms can only be used to refer to historical political phenomena associated with Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler respectively. This consigns fascism to the historical past and makes the notion of a contemporary fascism a contradiction in terms. On the other hand we see a hyperbolic inflation of the term fascism to encompass anything anyone might find remotely authoritarian or unpleasant. Thus Islamism, socialism, anarchism, the struggles of the Palestinians or the people of Latin American – all of this becomes “fascist”. Frequently the two positions are combined in a kind of absurd synthesis whereby fascism is omnipresent across the political spectrum with the exception of the politics that actually exhibits a demonstrable filiation to the tradition of Hitler and Mussolini. Needless to say, this line of argument is particularly popular among fascists themselves, who are keen to displace accusations of fascism onto their accusers. So what happens once we move beyond this liberal approach to political taxonomy and start thinking of political currents in terms of what they do, not just what they say – as forces in a material struggle rather than as stances in an idealised debate? This approach is taken by the historian Robert O Paxton in his illuminating 2004 work The Anatomy of Fascism. Paxton analyses fascism first and foremost as a political movement, with a programme and trajectory, rather than as a mode of government or a set of ideological beliefs. He also specifies the historical context for the emergence of fascism: it was a reaction to the revolutionary wave that swept Europe in the early 20th century. Traditional means of repression were of limited use in the face of these mass uprisings. The police force was too small and the army too prone to mutiny. What was needed was a reactionary political movement with a mass base, and fascism arose to fulfil that need. Paxton’s approach to fascism is a great improvement over the usual historical vagaries. In particular, he grasps how nationalist movements with superficially different ideological preoccupations can nevertheless share a common programme and method, and it is these commonalities that characterise their fascist nature. But Paxton is weak on the question of class. He rightly rejects the Stalinist definition of fascism as simply the most reactionary form of capitalist domination. But he doesn’t consider alternative Marxist analyses of fascism, notably those of Leon Trotsky, despite independently arriving at many of the same conclusions. Trotsky’s analysis of fascism, developed in the 1920s and 1930s, takes pains to distinguish it from earlier and less sophisticated forms of reaction. He singles out three key features of fascist movements that characterise them and set them apart from superficially similar political strains. First, fascism has a dual character. It acts as both a mass street movement and an “official” political organisation, claiming to abide by the norms of democratic politics while simultaneously organising terror gangs on the ground against the left and minorities. We see this pattern today with the EDL’s disingenuous insistence that it is “peacefully protesting against militant Islam”, or in the British National Party’s specious claims to have cast aside its previous racism in a bid for electoral respectability. Second, fascism’s mass base is rooted in the petty bourgeoisie. It appeals not to the very poorest in society, but to those in the middle, who have been typically lifted up during economic booms but face the prospect of crashing back down to earth in an economic crisis. These are people whose lives are structured by competition rather than traditions of solidarity found in the workplace. Hence the appeal of racist theories that blame economic woes on foreigners gobbling up resources – and hence the importance of radical nationalism to weld them together. Again we see this pattern in the EDL and BNP today. Contrary to the fashionable notion that these groups represent the “white working class”, the empirical evidence suggests they are disproportionately middle income and self-employed. Third, fascism’s aim is to seize state power by crushing the left on the streets and by undermining democratic rights and institutions from within. Hitler and Mussolini both posed as democratic politicians only to destroy every kind of democratic or progressive right once they had seized state power. Persecuting ethnic minorities is a means to this end, rather than an end itself. And the total character of fascism’s counter-revolution means it is a threat to social democrats and liberals, not just to the far left. Breivik’s targeting of Norway’s social democrats is in line with this general fascist paranoia that sees “cultural Marxism” across the progressive political spectrum. With this characterisation in mind we can revisit and clarify the question of Breivik’s fascism. To start with, the milieu he operated in – his network of contacts on Facebook and other internet channels – are clearly dominated by fascist organisations, the EDL being the most prominent of them. Breivik – who is himself a stereotypically petty bourgeois, with a string of failed businesses and moneymaking schemes to his name – is a product of fascist movements. He identifies politically as a “nationalist” – the preferred term used by fascists to describe themselves. And much of his “manifesto” is spent pondering and considering the different strains of nationalist ideology currently prevalent on the fascist scene. Far from representing a serious choice between rival political currents, Breivik is clear that the choice of ideology is at bottom a tactical question. He rejects Hitler-style overt antisemitism, not out of any principled objection to Jew-hatred, but because it is more effective to target Muslims and feign support for Jews against Muslims. Indeed, at points Breivik baldly states that Britain and France still have a “Jewish problem”. These are not the words of a “post-fascist”, but of a fascist taking a thoroughly instrumental attitude to the contemporary ideological landscape, and adopting his preoccupations to fit. We also see the dual character of his pronouncement, on the one hand paying lip service to “secular democracy” (conceived as a European tradition under threat from Muslim immigrants) and sexual liberalism (ditto), while on the other hand personally professing thoroughly reactionary attitudes on these and other issues. In particular we can see how Breivik’s “Christianity” is again little more than an ideological shell, a series of tropes and themes marshalled together for the purposes of justifying his hatred of Muslims, multiculturalism and “cultural Marxists”. Finally we can see the warning and challenge that Breivik poses to all forms of democratic and progressive politics in the West. His massacre should have prompted widespread contrition among politicians that have fuelled the pan-European anti-Muslim agenda. Or if not contrition, at least a pause for thought. Instead the BBC saw fit to invite the EDL’s repulsive leader Tommy Robinson onto its flagship Newsnight programme, where Robinson proceeded to threaten many more Breiviks if his band of Islamophobic thugs were not appeased and allowed to hold their “peaceful protests”. We have been here before. In the 1920s it was a commonplace among German politicians that while Hitler’s “extreme” antisemitism should be decried, he was responding to genuine concerns and that a “moderate antisemitism” should be practiced to prevent the Nazis from growing. History records that this policy had the opposite effect. Similarly attempts by mainstream politicians today to throw sops to the racists by attacking Muslims, immigrants, multiculturalism etc will only fuel the rise of groups like the EDL. And if they continue to rise we will face not just one or two more Breiviks, but dozens. The lessons from the bloody history of fascism are clear. The question is who is willing to listen and act. This entry was posted on 28 August 2012 by bat020 in Marxism and tagged bnp, breivik, edl, fascism. https://wp.me/puRxs-4i	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1624
__label__cc	0.501284	0.498716	Impeachment Talk Doesn’t Slow the Trump Train, as The President’s Approval Rating Hits a Two-Year High Trump is gaining in popularity while the Democrats are trying to impeach him. President Donald Trump’s popularity is soaring, much to the chagrin of Democrats out to impeach him, based largely off the strength of his economic policies. According to a new Harvard-Harris poll, 48 percent of registered voters support Trump right now. This is a two-year high as voters are understanding that his policies are making America a more prosperous nation. Backing up Trump’s increase in popularity is another poll from Rasmussen showing similar numbers, showing that this increase in support is far from an outlier. Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers showed data indicating that the unemployment rate had dropped to 3.6 percent in April. That is the lowest unemployment number the country has seen in five decades. Trump’s policies are giving serious economic gains to women and Hispanics, two demographics that the fake news media likes to paint as being at odds with Trump. The President’s policies are also helping workers who are not college educated, as they are unemployed at the lowest rate in nearly two decades. “The unemployment rate for adult women (20+) reached 3.1 percent in April, its lowest rate since 1953,” the CEA said. “The unemployment rate for Hispanics fell to 4.2 percent, the lowest rate since the series began in 1973. The unemployment rate for individuals with only a high school degree fell to 3.5 percent, matching the lowest rate since 2000.” Hispanics, women, and high-school-educated individuals are not the only groups of individuals benefiting from the Trump boom. “The unemployment rate for those with a disability fell to 6.3 percent in April, the lowest rate since the series began in 2008. Additionally, the unemployment rate for veterans fell to 2.3 percent, the lowest rate since the series began in 2000,” the CEA said. “When you have the best employment numbers in history, when you have the best unemployment numbers in history, when you have the best economy probably that we’ve ever had, I don’t know – how the hell do you lose this election, right?” Trump said at a Pennsylvania rally in May. While Trump’s numbers are spiking, he still has some room for improvement. Only 37 percent of respondents claim that they will definitely or probably vote for Trump in 2020, and only 39 percent of respondents believe the U.S. is back on the right track. With the fake news and the deep state out to sabotage Trump, he will need to have some tricks up his sleeve to ensure re-election. With announcements that liberal Big Tech monopolies are being investigated for anti-trust and the origins of the Russian collusion hoax are being investigated by Attorney General Bill Barr, Trump appears to have his torpedoes ready to clear a path toward victory in 2020. Report: Senate Republicans Threaten President Trump with Impeachment to Prevent Him From Pardoning Assange, Snowden The deep state wins again. President Donald Trump is not expected to pardon whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange before leaving office tomorrow, with Senate Republicans holding impeachment over his head to stop him from striking back against the deep state. The Mercury News has reported that “Trump is also not expected to pardon Edward Snowden or Julian Assange, whose roles in revealing US secrets infuriated official Washington.” “While he had once entertained the idea, Trump decided against it because he did not want to anger Senate Republicans who will soon determine whether he’s convicted during his Senate trial. Multiple GOP lawmakers had sent messages through aides that they felt strongly about not granting clemency to Assange or Snowden,” they wrote. President Trump will reportedly not pardon Assange and Snowden because he wants to placate the GOP swamp following the Jan.6 siege on the U.S. Capitol, which has caused many prominent Republicans to turn on the president and blame him for the violence that occurred. “As he departs office, Trump has expressed real concern that Republicans could turn on him. A conviction in the Senate impeachment trial would limit his future political activities and strip him of some of the government perks of being an ex-president,” the Mercury News stated. “Trump is less worried about being barred from running from office again, and more concerned with the optics of being convicted by the Senate, people familiar with the matter said,” the report continued. President Trump will be letting down his most fervent supporters, who have joined a large bipartisan coalition to urge the president to pardon Assange and Snowden, as Big League Politics has reported: President Donald Trump is being urged by a bipartisan coalition to pardon whistleblowers’ advocate Julian Assange, who is facing charges under the Espionage Act for reporting accurately on war crimes and other heinous government and corporate abuses. The WikiLeaks founder has been brutalized in a hellish super-max prison in Britain awaiting possible extradition to the U.S. for nearly two years now. Trump has a chance to foil the deep state’s plans to make an example of Assange and set the precedent for other journalists to be attacked in a similar manner. An eclectic mix of individuals, including hardcore Trump backers, far-left civil liberties activists, former Nobel Prize winners, and current and former heads of state, have signed onto a letter imploring the president to pardon Assange. The letter, which was delivered in December, urges President Trump to put a “defining stamp on your presidential legacy by pardoning Julian Assange or stopping his extradition.” It was signed by veteran right-wing operatives Roger Stone and Dinesh D’Souza, both of whom received pardons from the president. The former presidents of the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Switzerland, Columbia and Brazil also signed the letter. Other signatories include former Nobel Laureates Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi and Rigoberta Menchú. “The US prosecution of Assange is unprecedented: he faces 175 years in prison for the same publications for which he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This prosecution threatens the constitutional protections that Americans hold dear. By offering a pardon, to put a stop to the prosecution of Assange, your presidency will be remembered for having saved First Amendment protections for all Americans,” the letter stated. President Trump will be leaving the White House with the deep state stronger than ever, having failed in every sense to restore accountability to the so-called intelligence community. So much for “trust the plan,” eh?	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1633
__label__wiki	0.766809	0.766809	Vatsan Raman Earns Shaw Award Vatsan Raman, a CALS assistant professor of biochemistry, is one of two University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists selected to receive a 2016 Shaw Scientist Award from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Ian Windsor Honored for Teaching and Mentoring The 2016 Denton Award for Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring This award honors IPiB graduate students who have consistently demonstrated commitment to quality, innovative classroom teaching and mentoring in a laboratory setting. Congratulations Ian! Bill Reznikoff's Tn5 Legacy “It’s quite a story,” says Caruccio. “UW-Madison had a researcher who spent his career trying to understand this strange and unexpected phenomenon — DNA jumping from place to place inside a single cell. Eventually, Bill Reznikoff discovered the enzyme responsible for that, which would have been a landmark by itself. But then this small biotech company in Madison picked up on the enzyme, made an improvement, used it to speed up next-generation sequencing, and was sold to the maker of the fastest gene sequencers on the market." Rebecca Phillips Earns the 2016 Denton Award for Graduate Student Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Made possible by the generosity of Arnold E. and Catherine M. Denton Congratulations Becky! Kim Haupt Earns 2016 Sigrid Leirmo Memorial Award This award recognizes a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow who best exemplifies the spirit of Sigrid Leirmo, who received her Ph.D. degree in the Department of Biochemistry in 1989 and was a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Bacteriology when she died tragically in an accident in October 1990. Dr. Leirmo was widely acknowledged among her fellow students and colleagues as both a promising researcher and an enthusiastic friend and mentor. Congratulations Kim! Rick Amasino Participates in National Academies' GMO Report Last May, biochemistry professor Rick Amasino and life sciences communication professor Dominique Brossard traveled to Washington D.C. to participate in the congressional and public briefings associated with the release of a new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report on GMOs. Both were members of the committee tasked with assembling the report, titled “Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects.” The report has since been released and can be found here. Brossard and Amasino were at the 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science... Laura Kiessling Awarded 2016 Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship Recognizing distinguished scholarship as well as standout efforts in teaching and service. Congratulations Laura. William Rutter to receive honorary degree Dr. William J. Rutter, will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin–Madison on Friday, May 13, 2016. Rutter is a founder of the field of biotechnology, having made seminal contributions in both academia and industry. He received pivotal training here at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with Prof. Henry Lardy, one of many eminent scientists at our renowned Institute for Enzyme Research. His research group made many extraordinary contributions, including the first cloning of genes encoding insulin and growth hormones, development of the first recombinant... Gene Editing in the Wildonger Lab From the Wisconsin State Journal 05/08/2016 UW-Madison researchers are joining scientists around the world in using a powerful gene editing tool that is transforming biology and could improve human health In fruit flies, Wildonger is altering nerve cell proteins that control movement, mirroring human conditions collectively known as spastic paraplegia. She’s also studying mutations associated with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Since CRISPR has been available for only a few years, it may take a while for the general public to see any tangible benefits. But for... Biochemistry Logistics Tool Team Receives UW Administrative Improvement Award Charlie Lor, Cathy Michael, David Parker and Kerry Tobin have been selected as one of five teams to receive UW-Madison's 2016 Administrative Improvement Award for their work developing the Biochemistry Logistics Tool (BLT). Katie Brenner's Promising Innovation Doubts about their ability to become pregnant affect as many as 25 percent of American women, and solving that problem is the basic business plan for BluDiagnostics. Although the startup company was born in the University of Wisconsin—Madison Biochemistry Department, co-founder Katie Brenner (Weibel Lab) says the idea came directly from her own difficulty with conception. Biochemistry Undergrad Stephen Early Awarded Wisconsin Idea Fellowship UW-Madison sophomore Stephen Early, in partnership with the the Goodman Community Center in Madison, WI, has been awarded a 2016-17 Wisconsin Idea Fellowship to support an open and all-inclusive scientific community-partnership with underserved communities in the Madison area. The project was one of nine selected for the 18th annual Wisconsin Idea Fellowships, a program that awards undergraduate projects working to solve issues identified by local or global communities. Fellowships are awarded to semester-long or year-long projects designed by an undergraduate student or group of... James Ntambi Receives Peter Bosscher Award Professor James Ntambi has been honored with one of eight 2016 Wisconsin Without Borders Awards. Professor Ntambi was part of the Village Health Project team honored with the Peter Bosscher Award. The Wisconsin Without Borders Awards Ceremony is on Thursday, April 21 fro 4-5:30pm in the Wisconsin Idea Room at the Education Building on Bascom. UW-Madison Biochem Represents at ASBMB UW-Madison Bochemistry students traveled to San Diego for this years American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology annual meeting. From left to right: Matt Stefely (Pagliarini), Brexton Turner (Hoskins), Alina Zdechlik (Ntambi), Sara Bugliosi (Landick), Lindsey Felth, Mary Menhart (Cox), Bowon Joung (Cox), George Luo (Hoskins), Matt Lammers (Weibel), Serena Wan (Cox), and Willey Lin (Eisenstein) We had 11 students from the department compete in the undergraduate research poster competition here this past Saturday. There were about 230 students from across the... Hannah Mast Earns Goldwater Scholarship The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program was established by Congress in 1986 to honor Senator Barry Goldwater, who served his country for 56 years as a soldier and statesman, including 30 years of service in the U.S. Senate. Congratulations to Hannah Mast from the Aaron Hoskins lab. Biochemistry in the Age of Big Data Biochemistry's State-of-the-Art Imaging Facilities Benefit Campus Researchers and Students David Nelson: Madison Science Museum	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1634
__label__wiki	0.525406	0.525406	Oscars 2019: Brie Larson among first batch of presenters Written by Marilia on Tuesday, February 5th, 2019 No comments The Academy has announced its first batch of presenters for the 2019 Oscars. Jennifer Lopez, Awkwafina, Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg, Brie Larson, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Amandla Stenberg, Charlize Theron, Tessa Thompson, and Constance Wu are all set to present at the ceremony on 24 February, with more presenters to be announced closer to the time. The news follows confirmation from the Academy that this year’s ceremony will have no official host for the first time in 30 years. The Academy also confirmed in a press release that Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Philharmonic will perform during the traditional In Memoriam, honouring the industry figures who have died in the past year.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1651
__label__cc	0.518902	0.481098	Carol Burnett & Brian Dennhey in Postcards from Love Letters Love Letters celebrated its opening night on Broadway on September 18 and has received stellar reviews from the critics! A beloved play by A.R. Gurney, Love Letters is a disarmingly funny and unforgettably emotional portrait about the powerful connection of love. In this new series, Postcards from Love Letters, Broadway Direct asks five questions of the upcoming cast. First up are stage and screen legends Carol Burnett & Brian Dennhey, who will appear in Love Letters October 11-November 8th at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre. Get tickets. What is it about your character that attracted you to this role in Love Letters? Carol Burnett: Her feisty, humorous personality and her drive. Brian Dennehy: Everyone asks me that question. It’s a well-made piece of theater with wonderful dialogue and great lines with significance, meaning, and depth. Andrew is just a guy trying to get along who was kind of born through achievement. He realizes too late, as many of us do, that there is achievement and “achievement,” and he went after the wrong kind. It’s very American and a mistake many Americans have made when they realize they have sacrificed a certain emotional appropriateness for success. It was written at a time where the measurement of success was one of the problems in the world. Now we are just all trying to get jobs. I am surprised that the audiences are so grabbed by this piece. Do you think letter-writing is associated with romance? CB: It most certainly can be. BD: It’s much easier to tweet or twoot or insta-something these days. We live in a world where any kind of appropriate, complicated piece of prose seems to be beyond us all. It is wonderful and it is old and writing is really a labor of love, but most people just don’t have patience for it these days. What is your “first love” story and are you still in contact? CB: My “first love” was Eddie. We were in grammar school. I was thrilled one day when he threw my sweater up a tree, because it meant he noticed me! I had lunch with him and our sixth-grade teacher years ago, and he was still adorable. I haven’t seen or heard from him since. BD: I remember one girl in grammar school who actually was my age and she and her husband have actually shown up at a lot of my plays. It was a Catholic grammar school, it was the ’40s, and a whole different environment existed. You had the yearning and the awareness that something new and exciting was happening to you and it was the first rumblings of that. But no letters, of course — just yearning looks and short conversations. She was not aware that I was interested in a new way in her. It was a different time, and the phrase hook up did not exist except in terms of cars and trailers, and I’m glad it was what it was, which was completely innocent. Do you write letters? If so, what occasions inspire you to put pen to paper, versus email? And do you intend for the recipient to save the correspondence? CB: Often I will answer a particular fan letter that resonates with me. I also write thank-you notes. BD: The funny thing is, I do write letters, but in an email. I carefully think about what I want to say and compose a thoughtful and amusing and maybe somewhat flowering kind of prose — at least something that’s well-written. When I write, I do take the time to entertain or get a reaction. I like to avoid a boring shorthand. People don’t even use prepositions in text messages. I find even a text from me has a tendency to be more elaborate. With my handwriting, a letter would just be a setback. Do you think letter-writing is a vanishing art? If so, do you think that audiences seeing Love Letters will be inspired to rediscover this once important form of communication? CB: Because of technology, I’m afraid letter-writing is definitely a lost art. I wouldn’t be surprised if penmanship might bite the dust also! I hope people who see Love Letters will be inspired to put pen to paper more often. BD: I think that is way too much to hope for. I don’t think people care about their participation in literature these days, or that they are inspired to be challenged in that way. It is the world that we made and live in, so we are responsible for this state of affairs. It is one reason when I sit down to write anything I take my time to make sure I entertain, provoke, chastise, whatever the purpose of the note is — I want to express myself in a well thought-out manner. Chekhov was a doctor and still had time to write thousands of letters and he felt he didn’t write enough. When you read Chekhov’s letters, you realize we have lost something. Carol Burnett and Brian Dennehy appear in Love Letters October 11-November 8th. Buy tickets now. Full Schedule: BRIAN DENNEHY & MIA FARROW Sept. 13 – Oct. 10 ~ 31 performances only CAROL BURNETT & BRIAN DENNEHY Oct. 11 – Nov. 8 ~ 34 performances only ALAN ALDA & CANDICE BERGEN Nov. 9 – Dec. 5 ~ 26 performances only STACY KEACH & DIANA RIGG Dec. 6 – Jan. 9 ~ 40 performances only ANJELICA HUSTON & MARTIN SHEEN Jan. 10 – Feb. 15 ~ 43 performances only And many more brilliant casts to be announced! Dominique Morisseau’s Skeleton Crew Is Headed to Broadway The Lehman Trilogy On Broadway Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Returns to the Spotlight on Netflix	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1652
__label__wiki	0.89787	0.89787	Kentucky’s Mark Stoops Takes Honest Shot At Tennessee Following News Of Vols’ Recruiting Scandal New Text Messages Reveal Vince McMahon Blackballed Johnny Manziel From The XFL #Vince McMahon by Connor Toole January 8, 2021 Shortly before 2020 came to a merciful end, we were informed of #TheComebackOfComebackSZN after Johnny Manziel revealed he wasn’t actually done with football as he’d previously claimed when he announced he’d agreed to a deal with Fan Controlled Football, providing a league you’d probably never heard of with some of the publicity it was obviously craving. This move is just the latest of the many attempts Johnny Football has made to resurrect his career after burning out of the NFL in spectacular fashion before doing the same following a rocky stint in Canada only to see his opportunity to turn things around in the AAF come to an abrupt end after the league imploded. Manziel had previously lobbied to get a second chance with the XFL almost immediately after Vince McMahon announced he was bringing back his ill-fated league in 2018, and while the WWE chairman said he had no interest in allowing anyone with a criminal record to join the rebooted organization, it initially appeared there was a chance they’d make an exception for him. Commissioner Oliver Luck didn’t do much to dispel those initial rumors before making it very clear Manziel was not welcome a couple of months before the XFL’s (second) inaugural season got underway last February, but based on the text messages that recently surfaced as a result of the contentious $23.8 million lawsuit McMahon filed against his former commish, the former Brown never had a shot. Per The Athletic, the man who was prepared to invest $375 million in a venture whose assets were eventually sold to a group of investors that included Dwayne Johnson for $15 million in a firesale texted Luck in June 2019 to demand he quash rumors concerning a potential Manziel signing, saying: “How long R U going to play this game Oliver? U know there is NO CHANCE IN HELL for Manziel to play for us. I will NOT change my mind. So what’s Ur plan??” Luck apparently attempted to put his mind at ease after admitting he was simply playing along to drum up publicity in a response that read: “Vince—we have no intention of signing him, none whatsoever. We’re just milking the story to stay in the news. I’m happy to categorically rule him out but both Jeffrey and I think it is worthwhile to milk it until the showcases are finished (July 12). At that point we can say he doesn’t fit into our plans.” I for one am shocked that a league associated with a professional wrestling company would engage in manufactured drama like this. Connor Toole is a Senior Editor at BroBible based in Brooklyn, NY who embodies more of the stereotypes associated with the borough than he's comfortable with. Frequently described as "freakishly tall," he once used his 6'10" frame to sneak in the NBA Draft before walking around the streets of NYC masquerading as the newest member of the Utah Jazz. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to land him a contract, so he was forced to settle for writing on the internet for a living instead. If you're mad about something he wrote, be sure that any angry tweets you send note the similarity between his last name and a popular insult, as no one has ever done that before. Tags Clean NewsFootballJohnny ManzielVince McMahonxfl	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1653
__label__wiki	0.655068	0.655068	Edgar Barrier Edgar Barrier (March 4, 1907 – June 20, 1964) was an American actor who appeared on radio, stage, and screen. In the 1930s he was a member of Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre and played Simon Templar on The Saint radio show. He was a guest star on a few episodes of Disney's Zorro as Don Cornelio Esperon. Barrier was born in New York City and died in Hollywood, California. In 1938, three years before CITIZEN KANE, New York theater tyro Orson Welles filmed comedy sequences for his stage production of TOO MUCH JOHNSON, a rapid-fire farce of mistaken identities. The slapstick prologue features Joseph Cotten doing Harold Lloyd antics through the... "Ladies and gentlemen, presenting the slapstick stylings of Orson Welles, the... Too Much Johnson [workprint] In 1938, three years before CITIZEN KANE, New York theater tyro Orson Welles filmed comedy sequences for his stage production of TOO MUCH JOHNSON, a rapid-fire farce of mistaken identities. Long assumed lost, the reels were found in 2008 and preserved through an international... In 1938, three years before CITIZEN KANE, New York theater tyro Orson Welles... Source: Edgar Barrier on Freebase, licensed under CC-BY	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1659
__label__wiki	0.892747	0.892747	An act to enable the people of WisconsIn territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state Into the Union... The Assembly Manual of the Wisconsin Legislature: Annotated - Էջ 69 Ամբողջությամբ դիտվող - Այս գրքի մասին THE STATE OF WISCONSIN CHARLES R. TUTTLE - 1875 ...words, " with the boundaries prescribed by the act of Congress, approved Aug. 6, 1846, entitled, 4 An Act to enable the People of Wisconsin Territory to form a Constitution and State Government, and for the Admission of such State into the Union.' " Mr. Smith of Illinois proposed to... Wisconsin Session Laws: 1875, Հատոր 1875 Wisconsin - 1875 ...respectfull}' represents to your honorable bodies: The act of Congress of August 6th, 1846, entitled "An act to enable the people of Wisconsin Territory to form a constitution and state government,'1 Revised Statutes of 1858, page 1081, by its 3d section provides ''that the said state... Annual Report of the Secretary of State of the State of Wisconsin for the ... Wisconsin. Office of the Secretary of State - 1877 ...university, two entire townships of land, in all seventy-two sections; and by section 7 of an act entitled " An act to enable the people of Wisconsin territory...admission of such state into the Union," approved August 6, 1846, there was granted all salt springs, not exceeding twelve in number, with six sections of land... The Legislative Manual of the State of Wisconsin ...and declared that the State of Wisconsin doth consent and accept of the boundaries prescribed in the act of Congress entitled "an act to enable the people...to wit:— beginning at the northeast corner of the Stato of Illinois, that is to say, at a point in the center of lake Michigan where the line of forty-two... Public Documents of the State of Wisconsin: Being the Reports of ..., Հատոր 1 ...university, two entire townships of land, in all seventy-two sections; and by section 7 of an act en titled " An act to enable the people of Wisconsin territory...admission of such state into the Union," approved August 6, 1846, there was granted all salt springs, not exceeding twelve in number, with six sections of land... United States Reports, Supreme Court: Cases Argued and ..., Հատոր 5,Հատոր 95 United States. Supreme Court - 1878 ...the period of two years, and until the President should notify them i-hat the same were wanted. The act to enable the people of Wisconsin Territory to...the admission of such State into the Union, approved Aug. 6, 1846, id. 56, provides " that section numbered 16 in every township of the public lauds in... Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin ...enable the people of Wisconsin Territory to form a Con stitntion and State Government, and for the admission of such State into the Union; " approved...State of Illinois, that is to say, at a point in the center of Lnke Michigan where the line of forty-two degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude crosses... The Blue Book of the State of Wisconsin for ... ...declared, that the St.nte of Wisconsin doth consent and accept of the boundaries prescribed In the net of Congress entitled "An act to enable the people of Wisconsin Territory to form a Constitution anil State government, and for the admission of such State into the Union," approved August sixth,... History of the University of Wisconsin, from Its First Organization to 1879 ... Consul Willshire Butterfield - 1879 - 233 էջ ...which appraisal was not to be less than three dollars an acre for any tract. Bv the act ot congress to enable the people of Wisconsin territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of the state into the union, approved August 6, 1846, there were... ...enable the people of Wisconsin Territory to form a Con stltntlon and State Government, and for the admission of such State Into the Union ; " approved...eight hundred and forty-six, to wit : beginning at tho northeast corner of the Stnto of Illinois, that is to say, at a point in the center of Lnke Michigan...	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1660
__label__cc	0.667331	0.332669	Family Music Out and About Say YES! to Jason Mraz As my mission to do as many free things around the city continues, I bring you a post about an awesome free event that I attended with my mom and older sister Friday morning: the Jason Mraz TODAY Show summer concert at Rockefeller Center. Now, there aren’t many artists that I would either: a) Wake up super early to see b) Wait in long lines for hours for or c) All of the above, but every once in a while there are those that I make an exception and Jason Mraz is one of them. Many people may know him as the guitar-wielding, sensitive guy who sings “I’m Yours”, but I’ve been a fan of his since I was about 13-years-old. I remember when his song “The Remedy” from his first album Waiting on my Rocket to Come, came out and it was such a catchy tune and definitely perfect for those rides to the beach in the summer. My taste in music has changed since then (at least that’s what I’d like to believe), but my love for his music has remained a constant. His music has also evolved throughout the years, but what seems to remain the same is the positivity that is radiated throughout each album. Instead of simply focusing on the bad things in life or on the materialistic, he tries to send a message of love and enjoying the simple things in life. One of my favorite songs from his last album, LOVE is a Four Letter Word, is “Living in the Moment”, because it reminds you to do just that, which is so important. Now, with Mraz’s fifth (!) studio album, Yes!, released this week, he’s making his promotional rounds, and I knew that I wanted to check out his morning concert. We arrived around 6am, feeling sleepy, but excited, and the line already super long. Nevertheless, we were luckily able to score an awesome spot towards the right side of the stage. Everyone was super nice and NBC gave out a ton of promotional material including t-shirts, hats, paper fans, Styrofoam microphones, and sunglasses. I probably didn’t need half of those things, but hey, free is free! The warm-up began around 6:45, if I’m not mistaken, and Jason and his band, the Raining Janes, sang “I’m Yours”, “Lucky”, and “When You Love Someone”, the only song from his latest album. After that, 3 of the band members came over to our section to take photos and sign autographs. I was able to get my Yes! CD signed by them, so that was a definite bonus. They were extremely sweet and I think still getting used to this “fame” thing; I really hope that they don’t change the more well-known that they become. Jason also came over to our section, but he wonderfully focused all of his attention on two girls in wheelchairs who also came to see the show. I wish I could’ve gotten the opportunity to speak with him as well, but I’m sure that there will be other times. My signed copy Finally, the real show began and it was great! I’ve seen Jason Mraz live once before and he sounds just as great, if not better, live. He puts all of his heart and soul into his performances and really makes an effort to connect with the audience, which I really appreciate. Before we knew it, the show was all over, but I am grateful to have had the experience. My sisters and I will be seeing him and the Raining Janes perform again in September at Brooklyn College because they’ll be doing this awesome 5-borough tour (yep, even Staten Island isn’t forgotten about this time), so I really look forward to that. Apparently only two other artists have ever done this before, so this should be great. If you are also a Jason Mraz fan, I’d love to hear what your favorite songs are. Yes! is now available for purchase, so I’d suggest checking it out. Thanks for reading! #SpreadYesFreeFree ConcertJason MrazMusicNew AlbumNew York CityRaining JanesThe TODAY Show Holi Hai 2015 Cool Things to do in Brooklyn This Week: Aug 17-23 Return to the Vendy Awards! Francis C Song for a Friend is a great one.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1663
__label__cc	0.623377	0.376623	3-Star D-End Trevon Hill Verbally Commits to Virginia Tech campussportswriter \| Jul 6, 2014 4:14 pm A in-conference battle for 3-Star Salem High School (Virginia Beach, Virginia) defensive end Trevon Hill abruptly ended Saturday when Hill chose Virginia Tech over North Carolina. Hill decided the time was right to stay in-state after knocking down his top five to the final two at the start of the month. Via VirginaPreps.com. Hill announced his decision on ESPN Radio 94.1 with Coach Ed Young and Matthew Hatfield. “Trevon Hill will be taking his talents to the lunch-pail defense of Virginia Tech,” he stated on the program, adding that his visit to Blacksburg on the final weekend of June helped seal the deal. “I’m not even going to lie, May 27th my heart was set for UNC to be honest. But talking to my parents and things like that, they told me you’ve got to take your time in the process,” Hill said. “You haven’t seen everything yet, and I really didn’t get to see Virginia Tech except on the Junior Day. I got some one-on-one time with the coaches and it was amazing.” “Of course, the defense Bud Foster runs, you can’t go wrong with it. That pro-style defense is going to have you NFL ready. You have to have that winning mentality. That’s what we have at Salem and that’s what I like about Virginia Tech.” Hill had a tremendous junior season, racking up 23 sacks and was awarded a spot on the First Team All-State and All-Region teams. He is the sixth player to join Tech’s 2015 class. Shane Battier joins ESPN as College Basketball Analyst ACC,FootballACC Football,Football Recruiting,Virginia Tech Hokies	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1666
__label__wiki	0.607938	0.607938	As the voice of Canada’s paint and coatings industry since 1913, CPCA continues advocating for the three pillars of sustainability: economic, environmental and social. Why CPCA CPCA Technical Committees CPCA Sustainability Policy CPCA member companies contribute $12.3 billion annually to Canada’s economy, directly and indirectly creating 86,000 jobs. Adding Value to Canada’s Economy Coatings Industry Value Chain Going Beyond Colour Types of Paint and Coatings The industry has long been on the cutting edge of environmental sustainability and an early adopter of product stewardship and recycling. Leaders in Product Stewardship Environmental Benefits of Coatings Post-Consumer Paint Recycling Program Guidelines for PaintCare Advocating for an evidence-based approach to regulations to ensure full industry compliance for better protection of human health and the environment. Canadian Coatings Regulations Chemicals Management in Canada VOC Emissions & Air Quality Biocide Preservatives CEPA Legislative Review Code of Practice for MEKO Treated Articles Policy Trade Policy & Regulations International Government Initiatives Canada-US Regulatory Cooperation Stay connected to what matters most for the Canadian coatings industry with regular, insightful CPCA publications and news. CPCA INSIGHT Become a member of CPCA to stay informed on the many evolving issues impacting your business and support ongoing efforts to sustain a vibrant Canadian coatings industry. Canada CoatingsHUB Publication Links Enroll today in CPCA’s online Coatings Technology Program and learn about the fundamentals of a multi-dimensional industry, leading to a Diploma in Coatings Technology. CoatingsTECH Online Course CPCA’s Scholarship Program View the Course Brochure (PDF) PAINT-IT-YOURSELF CPCA’s Paint-it-Yourself Centre is curated with leading industry information and tutorials to inspire DIYers! Exterior Inspiration NEW Paint Job Boat & Marine Antique Autos What’s in Your Paint Reduce Reuse Recycle Colour Theory Common Paint Problems Alkyd Paint Use in Refinishing Painting a Room Kitchen Tutorial Bathroom Tutorial Refinish a Chair Exterior Walls Tutorial Sheds & Deck Tutorial Concrete Tutorial Refinish a Car Federal & Provincial Government Support & Programs for Business Related to COVID-19 Chemicals Management Phase 1 Chemicals Management Phase Post-2020 Policy or Program Case Implication Coatings, Adhesives, Sealants, and Elastomers Paint and Coatings Only Adhesives and Sealants Only Allied Products Only (i.e. diluters, cleaners) Other (i.e. lab equipment, mixers, grinders) Member Attention Required The information within will provide members with a detailed description of all Federal and Provincial actions being taken by the Canadian government to support business during the COVID-19 pandemic. The following information will be updated as CPCA follows the ongoing changes and decisions being made across Canada at the Federal and Provincial levels to support businesses during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Member Attention Required Deadline This document is the first attempt to provide the current status of all federal and provincial programs of support for the economy and businesses in Canada in one place for members. It has evolved significantly over the past two weeks and is likely to continue to evolve and be updated by governments. As such please be sure to click the links provided to all governments for the most updated and available support for your business and ensure you take full advantage of the substantial support available via your respective levels of government. CPCA will assist where it can in exceptional cases related to access to funding, but we have limited resources to take on individual accounts for specific funding support as there will be challenges in accessing certain support in a timely manner. In some cases, various support initiatives already announced are still being defined in terms of benefit and who it applies to in some cases. Further information will be provided via the links provided below. CPCA will also monitor more specific actions taken, new announcements and report on them when they become available. This resource will be provided on the website and updated as required and members will be altered when updates are made. We hope the information provided below will assist members in developing a checklist of those support programs that are relevant for your company to access in the coming days. Please note the resources at the end of this Bulletin that will help companies deal with business disruption, provided by Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton and Deloitte. Federal Support for Business Related to COVID-19 Resources for Canadian Businesses – COVID-19 Response: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/business/maintaingrowimprovebusiness/resources-for-canadian-businesses.html NOTE: Please consult the links for ongoing federal government announcements which occur regularly and which may be of benefit to member companies. Canadian Economic Response Plan The federal government has announced the following economic relief measures. For more information on Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, announced on March 18, 2020, please visit the Department of Finance Canada’s website, here. Resources for Canadian Businesses Small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of the Canadian economy. During this extraordinary time, the Government of Canada is taking strong action to help Canadian businesses as COVID-19 is affecting them, their employees and their families. View all resources here. Federal Government Support Announced for Small Businesses in Canada Canada’s Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) are one of the key platforms for economic development in Canada and help to address key economic challenges by providing regionally tailored programs, services, knowledge and expertise. FedDev Ontario is closely monitoring the COVID-19 global challenge and the potential impact it could have on business and workers, as well as the broader economy. New measures The Government of Canada has announced a number of measures to help stabilize the economy. These measures, delivered as part of the Government of Canada’s COVID-19 Economic Response Plan, will provide up to $27 billion in direct support to Canadian workers and businesses. Support includes: Temporary wage subsidies for small businesses; Access to credit through the Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP); Deferral of income tax payments owing on or after March 18; An Insured Mortgage Purchase Program; Augmenting credit available to farmers and the agri-food sector through Farm Credit Canada; Flexibility in the Canada Account limit to allow for additional support to Canadian businesses in exceptional circumstances; Enhancing the Work-Sharing Program to help employers who are experiencing a downturn in business due to COVID-19, and their workers; Introducing an Emergency Care Benefit to provide income support to workers who must stay home and do not have access to paid sick leave; Introducing an Emergency Support Benefit to support workers who are not eligible for EI and are facing unemployment. Federal Announcement for Small Businesses Announced on March 27, 2020 NOTE: This is separate from the eligibility all workers currently have to access Employment Insurance programs when temporarily laid off and can access up to 55% of their salary. The announcement below allows access to 75% of current earnings up to a maximum of approximately $58,000. While the announcement below is for small business it may apply to ALL businesses in Canada that qualify. Current details note that businesses can qualify if experiencing a 30 percent reduction in current business. It applies as noted below. Announcement of a 75 per cent wage subsidy for qualifying businesses, for up to 3 months, retroactive to March 15, 2020. This will help businesses to keep and return workers to the payroll. More details on eligibility criteria will start with the impact of COVID-19 on sales, and will be shared before the end of the month. Allow businesses, including self-employed individuals, to defer all Goods and Services Tax/Harmonized Sales Tax (GST/HST) payments until June, as well as customs duties owed for imports. This measure is the equivalent of providing up to $30 billion in interest-free loans to Canadian businesses. It will help businesses so they can continue to pay their employees and their bills, and help ease cash-flow challenges across the country. Launch the new Canada Emergency Business Account. This program will provide up to $25 billion to eligible financial institutions so they can provide interest-free loans to small businesses. These loans – guaranteed and funded by the Government of Canada – will ensure that small businesses have access to the capital they need, at a zero per cent interest rate, so they can pay for rent and other important costs over the next number of months. Launch the new Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Loan and Guarantee program that will enable up to $40 billion in lending, supported through Export Development Canada and Business Development Bank, for guaranteed loans when small businesses go to their financial institutions to help weather the impacts of COVID-19. This is intended for small and medium-sized companies that require greater help to meet their operational cash flow requirements. These new investments will help Canada’s financial institutions provide the credit and liquidity options that a range of Canadian businesses need immediately. The Government of Canada understands that some sectors have been disproportionally impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We will continue to carefully monitor all developments, and take further action in the near term. We’re all in this together, and the Government of Canada will continue to work around the clock to ensure all Canadians and small businesses get the support they need to weather this crisis. The deferral to June of GST/HST payments, as well as customs duties owing on imports, will generally apply to remittances that become due in March, April, and May. These amounts would normally have been due to the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency as early as the end of this month. This measure will take effect immediately, through existing authorities. The Canada Revenue Agency is introducing a series of administrative measures to remove some of the burden on businesses experiencing financial hardship. The new Canada Emergency Business Account will provide funding to eligible financial institutions so that they can provide interest-free loans in the form of lines of credit of up to $40,000 to businesses with payrolls of less than $1 million. A quarter of this loan (up to $10,000) is eligible for complete forgiveness. The new Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Loan and Guarantee program will operate as follows: Export Development Canada will provide guarantees to financial institutions so that they can issue new operating credit and cash flow term loans of up to $6.25 million to small and medium-sized businesses. These loans will be 80 per cent guaranteed by Export Development Canada, to be repaid within one year. Small and medium-sized businesses can also get support through a new Co-Lending Program that will bring the Business Development Bank of Canada together with financial institutions to co-lend term loans to these businesses for their operational cash flow requirements. Eligible businesses may obtain incremental credit amounts of up to $6.25 million through the program, which will be risk-shared at 80 per cent between the Business Development Bank of Canada and the financial institutions. Eligible financial institutions will conduct the underwriting and funding directly for customers. The government has already introduced several measures to support businesses affected by COVID-19: Providing eligible small employers a temporary wage subsidy for a period of three months. The subsidy will be equal to 10 per cent of remuneration paid during that period, up to a maximum subsidy of $1,375 per employee and $25,000 per employer. Businesses will be able to benefit immediately from this support by reducing their remittances of income tax withheld on their employees’ remuneration. Extending the maximum duration of the Work-Sharing program, from 38 weeks to 76 weeks, for workers who agree to reduce their normal working hours because of developments beyond the control of their employers. Establishing a Business Credit Availability Program, largely targeted to small and medium-sized businesses, through the Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Canada. These organizations are working closely with private sector lenders to coordinate on credit solutions for individual businesses, including in sectors such as oil and gas, air transportation, and tourism. Increasing credit available for farmers and the agri-food sector through Farm Credit Canada. Deferring the payment of income taxes. The government is allowing all taxpayers to defer, until after August 31, 2020, the payment of income tax amounts owed on or after March 18 and before September 2020. This relief would apply to tax balances due, as well as instalments, under Part I of the Income Tax Act. No interest or penalties will accumulate on these amounts during this period. Additional support for Canadian businesses from the economic impact of COVID-19 Prime Minister outlines Canada’s COVID-19 response Government of Canada takes action on COVID-19 Canada outlines measures to support the economy and the financial sector Export Development Canada (EDC) Canada Account business support The Minister of Finance will now be able to determine the limit of the Canada Account in order to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. The Canada Account is used to support exporters when necessary and in the national interest. Exporters can receive support through loans, guarantees or insurance policies. Announced on March 18, 2020. EDC’s Coronavirus Campaign website may be found here. To contact EDC directly, call 1-800-229-0575 or e-mail tradeadvisor-conseiller@edc.ca Business Credit Availability Program The Business Credit Availability Program (BCAP) is targeted at small and medium-sized businesses. It will provide more than $10 billion in support. The program is a collaboration between EDC, the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), and private sector lenders. The goal is to provide credit solutions for individual businesses in sectors such as oil and gas, air transportation, and tourism. Farm Credit Canada (FCC) On March 23, 2020, the Prime Minister announced that the FCC has received an enhancement to its capital base that will allow for an additional $5 billion in lending capacity. Initially, the focus will be on assisting the industry in addressing cash flow challenges so that businesses can remain focus on business-critical functions. The FCC is asking existing customers who have financial concerns to contact the organization to discuss alternatives. For more information, see the FCC news release of March 23, 2020. To contact the FCC Customer Service Centre, call 1-888-332-3301. Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) OSFI announced in a press release on March 13, 2020, that it has taken a number of actions to build resilience of federally regulated financial institutions during the COVID-19 crisis. These measures include: Lowering the Domestic Stability Buffer by 1.25% of Risk Weighted Assets, effective immediately; Suspending consultation on the minimum qualifying rate for uninsured mortgages; and Reviewing its supervisory and regulatory priorities to align with current conditions. Broadening of eligible collateral liquidity facility On March 18, 2020, the Bank of Canada announced the following interventions, which are effective immediately: Providing liquidity on a daily basis to participating financial institutions in the payments systems operated by Payments Canada under its Standing Liquidity Facility (SLF). Loans made by the Bank of Canada must be fully collateralized. Allowing Large Value Transfer System (LVTS) participants to assign 100 per cent of their non-mortgage loan portfolio (NMLP) as pledged collateral for the SLF, giving institutions greater flexibility in managing their collateral. LVTS participants who do not use their NMLP will be able to hold up to 100% of their pledged collateral for the SLF in securities that are currently subject to concentration limits. The Bank of Canada has also lowered its target for the overnight rate by 50 basis points to 0.75%, effective Monday, March 16, 2020. For more information, see the Bank of Canada’s Market Notice of March 18, 2020. Broadening of eligible collateral under term repo facility On March 16, 2020, the Bank of Canada announced that it is broadening eligible collateral for its term repo facility to include the full range of collateral eligible under the Standing Liquidity Facility, as well as own-name covered bonds. This change was effective immediately. For more information, see the Bank of Canada’s Market Notices of March 16 and March 18, 2020. Support to Canada mortgage bond market On March 16, 2020, the Bank of Canada announced that it stands ready, as a proactive measure, to provide support to the Canada Mortgage Bond (CMB) market so that this important funding market continues to function well. This may include purchases of CMBs in the secondary market, similar to the increase in Government of Canada bond buybacks. Further operational details, including the effective date, will follow. Bank of Canada’s bond buyback program On March 18, 2020, the Bank of Canada announced: A switch buyback operation on Thursday, March 19th in the 10-year sector. A switch buyback operation on Monday, March 23rd in the 5-year sector. A switch buyback operation on Wednesday, March 25th in the 30-year sector. The Bank will announce the specific operational details (e.g., timing and maximum size of a replacement Bond and Buyback basket) ahead of each operation through its regular Call for Tenders process. Bank of Canada’s Banker’s Acceptance Purchase Facility (BAPF) Beginning on March 23, 2020, the Bank of Canada will conduct secondary market purchases of one-month Bankers’ Acceptances issued and guaranteed by any Canadian bank of sufficiently high quality. For more information, see the Bank of Canada’s Market Notice of March 18, 2020, or the BAPF Operational Details. Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) Under this program, announced on March 16, 2020, the government will purchase up to $50 billion of insured mortgage pools through CMHC. This will provide stable funding to banks and mortgage lenders, so they can continue to lend to Canadian consumers and businesses. Details of the terms of the purchase operations are forthcoming. For more information, see CMHC’s press release of March 16, 2020. Helping Businesses Keep Their Workers Wage Subsidy On March 18, 2020, Prime Minister Trudeau announced a “Helping Businesses Keep Their Workers Wage Subsidy”. This is targeted at small businesses, non-profits, and charities. This program is designed to support businesses that are facing revenue losses and to help prevent lay-offs. The wage subsidy proposed will be equal to 10% of remuneration paid during that period, up to a maximum subsidy of $1,375 per employee and $25,000 per employer. Businesses will be able to benefit immediately from this support by reducing their remittances of income tax withheld on their employees’ remuneration. Eligible employers include non-profit organizations, corporations eligible for the small business deduction (i.e. Canadian-controlled private corporations) and registered charities. For more information, see the Department of Finance Canada’s press release of March 18, 2020. Flexibility for business tax filings As announced on March 18, 2020, the federal government’s COVID-19 Response Plan contains measures that will allow businesses to defer the payment of any income tax that becomes owing between March 18, 2020, and August 31, 2020, until September 1st, 2020. Interest and penalties will not apply or be computed to these unpaid tax balances during this period. This measure will apply to both monthly instalments and year-end tax balances due under Part I of the Income Tax Act. The CRA will temporarily suspend audit interactions with taxpayers and their representatives. The CRA will also refrain from initiating any post-assessment GST/HST or income tax audits with small or medium-sized businesses for the next four weeks. No collection activities will be initiated on new debts until further notice, and the CRA undertakes to make flexible payment arrangements available Extending the Work-Sharing program The Work-Sharing program is provided for workers who agree to reduce their normal working hours because of developments beyond the control of their employers. The federal government is extending the maximum duration of the Work-Sharing program from 38 to 76 weeks. For more information, see the Government of Canada’s “Support to Businesses” webpage. Applications can be made here. Support for people facing unemployment This benefit replaces the Emergency Care Benefit and the Emergency Support Benefit that were announced by the Department of Finance Canada’s press release of March 18, 2020. From now on, the federal government will provide a taxable benefit of $2,000 a month for up to 4 months. The benefit will be available to the following individuals: Workers who do not have access to income support and who must stop working due to COVID-19; Working parents who must stay home without pay to care for children that are sick or need additional care because of school and daycare closures; Workers who are sick, quarantined, or taking care of someone who is sick with COVID-19; Workers who still have their employment but are not being paid because their employer has asked them not to come to work since there is not sufficient work; Wage-earners and self-employed individuals, including contract workers, who would not otherwise be eligible for Employment Insurance. For more information, see the Government of Canada’s “Support for Individuals” webpage. Application details will be available through My CRA and My Service Canada, beginning the first week of April. Income support for individuals The response plan also includes certain measures to boost assistance to low and modest-income families through $7.5 billion of additional payments which will be made under existing benefit programs. This includes a one-time special payment of a GST/HST credit to be paid by early-May, and an increase to the maximum annual Canada Child Benefit (CCB) of $300 per child for the 2019-2020 benefit year. This is expected to be paid as part of the May 20, 2020, CCB payment date. In recognition of the volatility in stock market conditions, the Response Plan also includes a measure to reduce required minimum withdrawals from Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs) by 25% for 2020, to provide flexibility to annuitants who might otherwise be forced to liquidate investments to meet minimum RRIF withdrawal requirements. The Response Plan also notes that similar rules will apply to individuals who are receiving variable benefit payments under defined contribution registered pension plans. Please note that on March 25, 2020, the federal government passed legislation reducing this 2020 RRIF Minimum Payment by 25%. While the Response Plan contemplates expanding the tools that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and other mortgage insurers offer to lenders to increase flexibility for homeowners to defer mortgage payments on CMHC-insured mortgage loans, there is no suggestion that the Government of Canada intends to introduce measures to defer repayments of amounts withdrawn from registered retirement savings plans under the home buyers’ plan. Flexibility for taxpayers The CRA will defer the filing due date for 2019 tax returns until June 1, 2020, for individuals, and until May 1, 2020, for trusts having a taxation year ending on December 31, 2019. Any income tax that becomes owing by the taxpayers between March 18, 2020, and August 31, 2020, under Part I of the Income Tax Act (ITA) will be deferred until September 1st, 2020. To reduce the administrative burdens, the CRA will recognize electronic signatures as having met the signature requirements of the ITA on a temporary basis. The Government of Canada is placing a six-month interest-free moratorium on the repayment of Canada Student Loans for all student loan borrowers. During this period, no payment will be required and interest will not accrue. For more information, see the Government of Canada’s “Support for Individuals” webpage. Support for vulnerable populations The federal government will provide: $305 million for a new distinctions-based Indigenous Community Support Fund; $157.5 million to the Reaching Home initiative; $50 million to women’s shelters and sexual assault centres. Flexibility for registered charities The filing deadline for all charities with a Form T3010, Registered Charity Information Return, due between March 18, 2020, and December 31, 2020, is postponed to December 31, 2020. Tax Court of Canada The Tax Court of Canada has cancelled all sittings and conference calls scheduled between March 16, 2020, and May 1, 2020, inclusively. The Court will reassess on April 14, 2020. The Registry will contact affected parties directly. The Registry offices of the Tax Court of Canada are closed for all other business until further notice. Canadian Sales Taxes (GST/HST/QST, and PST of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) The Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec have yet to announce relief measures from a sales tax perspective for GST/HST/QST for registrants who are directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that every person who is registered for GST/HST/QST purposes must act with diligence in filing their sales tax returns, and meet any applicable deadlines despite the hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Each of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan have announced certain relief measures with respect to PST in the respective provinces. Please see the detailed discussion below for additional information on specific PST measures. Customs Notice 20-08 provides information on the relief of duty and taxes for goods required for an emergency (as defined in the Goods for Emergency Use Remission Order (C.R.C., c. 768)) (the “Order”) and imported by or on behalf of federal, provincial or municipal entities, as well as by or on behalf of members of first response organizations, such as police, fire, and local civil defence groups including medical response teams. Other parties are not eligible for this relief. As these goods are required on site quickly, the CBSA will endeavour to expedite the clearance when possible. As a result, this notice is likely to have limited impact for non-government entities, including most private importers, unless they have registered to import goods required for an emergency on behalf of federal, provincial, or municipal entities (such as masks, personal protective equipment, ventilators, hand-sanitizing gel, etc.) To apply for relief of duty and taxes, the importer must fill out a Form B3-3 and enter special authorization code “73-2529” in field 26 and “9993” in field 28. No security deposit will be collected. Customs Notice 20-09, issued March 18, 2020: effective immediately, the usual 90 day period for submitting corrections following a CBSA trade compliance verification where errors were found has been extended by 30 days (for a total of 120 days). No end date for these measures has been announced and it is likely that it will continue for the duration of the emergency. Customs Notice 20-11, issued March 27, 2020: for the extension of timeframes for the payment of customs duties and GST. As of now, the all payments due to the CBSA (including customs duties and GST on regular imports, re-assessments, penalties, etc.) are extended to June 30, 2020. This also includes charges on the statement of account of March due on April 1, 2020. Importers are still obligated to submit accounting declarations for imported goods released on minimum documentation within prescribed timeframes. Customs Notice 20-10, issued March 29, 2020: for transactions released by the CBSA from March 11, 2020 to May 14, 2020, importers will receive a 45-business-day grace period for late accounting penalties. Importers will not need to submit individual applications to have late accounting penalties waived for this period. The grace period is subject to review as matters evolve, and an update will be posted if it is extended. Provincial Government Announcements Related to COVID-19 NOTE: Please consult the links for each Province highlighted in red below, as new announcements occur regularly that may be of benefit to member companies. Government LINK: https://news.ontario.ca/mof/en/2020/3/ontarios-action-plan-responding-to-covid-19.html Ontario has declared a provincial state of emergency under the province’s Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act. For more information about this legislation and the government’s powers under it, see our “explainer”, here. On March 17, 2020, the provincial Cabinet promulgated three Orders in Council. These closed certain establishments and prohibited gatherings of greater than 50 people. On March 25th, the Ontario Minister of Finance announced Ontario’s Action Plan: Responding to COVID-19. The programs outlined in this action plan are included below. COVID-19 contingency fund The Minister of Finance announced on March 25, 2020 that the provincial government is committing to a dedicated $1.0 billion COVID-19 contingency fund for emerging needs related to the COVID-19 outbreak. For more information, see the Government of Ontario’s news release of March 25, 2020. Health sector relief The Minister of Finance announced on March 25, 2020 that the provincial government is investing $935 million for the hospital sector. This includes $594 million to address capacity issues, as well as $341 million for an additional 1,000 acute care and 500 critical care beds. The Minister of Finance also announced increased public health funding by $160 million to support COVID-19 monitoring, surveillance, and laboratory and home testing, while also investing in virtual care and Telehealth Ontario. The province is investing $243 million to increase surge capacity in the long-term care sector, fund 24/7 screening, send more staffing to support infection control, and provide supplies and equipment. The province is investing $75 million to supply personal protective equipment and critical medical supplies to front-line staff. Support for individual and jobs The Minister of Finance also announced that the Government of Ontario is providing $3.7 billion for individuals and job protection. This includes: A one-time payment help families pay for the extra costs associated with school and daycare closures during the COVID-19 outbreak. The Government of Ontario will provide a one-time payment of $200 per child up to 12 years of age, and $250 for those with special needs, including children enrolled in private schools; Doubling the Guaranteed Annual Income System (GAINS) payment for low-income seniors for six months; Support more affordable electricity bills for eligible residential, farm and small business consumers, by providing approximately $5.6 billion for electricity cost relief programs in 2020-21. See the “electricity rate relief” section below for details; Cutting taxes by $355 million for about 57,000 employers through a proposed temporary increase to the Employer Health Tax (EHT) exemption; Providing $9 million in direct support to families for their energy bills by expanding eligibility for the Low-income Energy Assistance Program (LEAP) and ensuring that their electricity and natural gas services are not disconnected for nonpayment; Emergency child care options to support parents working on the front lines; Expanding access to Ontario Works to help more people meet basic needs such as food and rent; Enhancing funding by $148 million for charitable and non-profit social service organizations; Providing six months of OSAP loan and interest accrual relief for students; Proposing a new Corporate income tax credit, the “Regional Opportunities Investment Tax Credit”, to help try to support employment growth; Providing an additional $26 million to indigenous peoples and communities, including emergency financial assistance and health care; Supporting businesses to improve cash flow The Minister of Finance announced on March 25, 2020 the Government of Ontario will be making available $6 billion by providing five months of interest and penalty relief for businesses to file and make tax payments. Over $1.8 billion will be made available to businesses by deferring the upcoming municipal remittance of education property tax. $1.9 billion will be devoted to the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), allowing employers to defer payments. New legislation protecting workers Ontario recalled its provincial legislature on March 19, 2020. The legislature unanimously passed the Employment Standards Amendment Act (Infectious Disease Emergencies), 2020 to provide “job-protected leave” to workers during the COVID-19 crisis. The legislation provides job-protected leave for employees who are in isolation or quarantine due to COVID-19, or employees that need to be away from work to care for children or relatives. The legislation is retroactive to January 25, 2020. The legislation is clear that employees cannot be required to show sick notes. Note that “emergency leave” is already available to many Ontario workers under s. 50.1 of the Employment Standards Act. For more information, see our blog post, here. For more information about the legislation, see the Government of Ontario’s news release of March 19, 2020. New legislation ensuring the delivery of goods On March 19, 2020, the legislature also passed the Municipal Emergency Act, 2020, ensuring that delivery of goods to Ontario’s businesses and consumers is not impacted by municipal noise by-laws. The legislation also gives municipalities the ability to fully conduct Council, local board and committee meetings electronically in emergencies. Front-line justice services On March 19th, the Ontario Attorney General announced that Ontario courts and tribunals are limiting in-person proceedings and making use of audio and video conferencing to hear priority matters remotely. Critical matters such as criminal and child protection proceedings are prioritized. All in-person proceedings are postponed and will be rescheduled at a later date, including: The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, Landlord and Tenant Board, and Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario; The Superior Court of Justice, except for urgent matters; The Small Claims Court; All Provincial Offences Act hearings; and The Court of Appeal, except for urgent appeals. For more information, see the Ministry of the Attorney General news release of March 19, 2020. Municipal measures On March 20, 2020, the Mayor of Toronto announced municipal tax relief measures. These measures provide businesses and property owners with a 60-day grace period on their City of Toronto property tax, Toronto Water, and Solid Waste bill payments, as of March 16, 2020. Additionally, late payment penalties on business properties will be waived for 60 days, starting on March 16, 2020. For property owners on the 11-instalment pre-authorized payment plan, Interim 2020 instalment due dates will be extended by 60 days. Late payment penalties for residential properties will be waived for 60 days, starting March 16, 2020. For more information, see the City of Toronto website or Municipal Tax Measures Summary Hub – COVID-19. $200 million social services relief funding The province will be providing municipalities and organizations that administer social services with $200 million in relief funding to support them in their response to COVID-19. The funding will help municipalities and social service providers continue to deliver critical services and promote social distancing and self-isolation. Specifics of electricity rate relief to families and small businesses The Government of Ontario is providing immediate electricity rate relief for families, small businesses and farms paying time-of-use (TOU) rates. The Government of Ontario is working to suspend TOU electricity rates for a 45-day period, holding electricity prices to the off-peak rate of 10.1 cents-per-kilowatt-hour. The discount is applied automatically to electricity bills and is effective immediately. Government LINK: https://www.quebec.ca/en/health/health-issues/a-z/2019-coronavirus/essential-services-commercial-activities-covid19/ Québec declared a public health emergency on March 13, 2020, and has issued a number of instructions and directives that can be found on the government’s website. The government’s business-focused initiatives are outlined below. Temporary Aid for Workers Program (PATT COVID-19) Announced on March 17, 2020, this program grants a lump sum of $573 per week to an eligible person, for a period of 14 days of isolation. If justified, the coverage period could be extended to a maximum of 28 days. Beginning on March 19, 2020, workers could apply to PATT COVID-19 if they were (or are) in isolation because they had contracted the virus or are showing symptoms, had been in contact with an infected person or had returned from abroad. Workers are not eligible if: They are being compensated by their employer; They have private insurance; They are covered by another government program, including federal employment insurance. For more information, see the Government of Québec’s “PATT COVID-19” website. Applications can be made here. Flexibility measures for individuals and businesses The deadline for individuals for filing provincial income tax returns for the 2019 taxation year is postponed to June 1, 2020, from April 30, 2020. For individuals and individuals in business, the deadline to pay any balances due related to income tax returns for the 2019 taxation year is postponed to September 1, 2020. The deadline to make instalment payments for the 2020 taxation year is postponed to September 1, 2020. The deadline to pay any Québec Pension Plan, Québec Parental Insurance Plan, Health Service Fund, and Québec drug insurance plan contributions for the 2019 taxation year is postponed to September 1, 2020. The minimum withdrawal by annuitants from their registered retirement income funds (RRIFs) is reduced by 25% for 2020. The deadline for businesses to pay tax instalments and the balance of tax otherwise due between March 18, 2020, and September 1, 2020, is suspended until September 1, 2020. The deadline to file a trust return will be postponed to May 1, 2020, for trusts (other than Specified Investment Flow-Through Trusts (SIFT)) whose tax return filing-due date, for the 2019 taxation year, is March 30, 2020. The deadline for a trust (other than a SIFT) to pay any balance of tax otherwise due no later than March 30, 2020, for the 2019 taxation year will be postponed to September 1, 2020 (Note that the March 19th press release applies the September 1 deadline to “individuals”, which we interpret to include trusts; in the alternative, the due date is August 31, 2020). The payment of tax instalments and the balance of tax otherwise due by SIFTs between March 17, 2020, and September 1, 2020, will be postponed to September 1, 2020 (Note that the March 19 press release applies the September 1 deadline to “businesses”, which we interpret to include SIFTs; in the alternative, the due date is August 31, 2020). Partnerships that had to file a Partnership Information Return (form TP-600-V) for 2019 by March 31, 2020, now have until May 1, 2020, to file the return. The payment of tax instalments and the balance of tax otherwise due by specified investment flow-through partnerships between March 17, 2020, and September 1, 2020, will be postponed to September 1, 2020(Note that the March 19 press release applies the September 1 deadline to “businesses”, which we interpret to include partnerships; in the alternative, the due date is August 31, 2020). To limit in-person contact, Revenu Québec will allow tax preparers to use an electronic signature on certain forms. The forms in question are form TP-1000.TE-V (for individuals) and form CO-1000.TE (for corporations). Revenu Québec will also limit its audits and collection activities. Concerning collection measures, Revenu Québec has indicated that it will be amenable, on a case-by-case basis, to extending payment agreements. For more information, see the Minister of Finance’s March 18th Press Releaseand a March 19th Press Release and the Ministry of Finance’s Bulletins 2020-3 and 2020-4 Announced on March 19, 2020, by the Mayor of Montréal, the owners of residential and commercial properties will have an extra month to make their second instalment of property taxes so that the deadline is postponed from June 1, 2020, to July 2, 2020. Also, effective March 19, 2020, private and social economy businesses who have received a loan through the PME MTL fund, Fonds Locaux de Solidarité, and Fonds de commercialisation des innovations will benefit from an automatic, six-month moratorium on capital and interest. The City will pay interest during this period. In addition to measures taken by the provincial and federal government, the City of Montréal is placing $5 million in an assistance fund for businesses to support targeted industries such as commerce, social economy and arts/creative industries. For more information, see the City of Montréal’s press release of March 21, 2020. Announced on March 20, 2020, for Québec City businesses and individuals: May 4, 2020, municipal tax payment has been postponed to August 4, 2020; July 3, 2020, municipal tax payment has been postponed to September 3, 2020; and September 3, 2020, municipal tax payment has been postponed to November 3, 2020. Québec City will process all cheques on the appropriate date and for taxpayers who have agreed to pre-authorized payments over 12 months with interest, the City will hold to the agreed direct debit and will adjust the costs downward for the last payment in February 2021. For more information, see Québec City’s press release of March 20, 2020. For more information regarding other municipal measures, see the press releases of the City of Laval, Longueuil and Lévis (in French only). Student loans repayment deferral The Government of Québec announced that it is postponing the student loan debt repayments. According to this measure, individuals who have loan debt repayment will not have to make any payment during the next six months. Interest will not accrue during this period. Furthermore, students do not need to apply for the repayment deferral. This measure automatically applies to all Aide financière aux études For more information, see the Government of Québec’s “Repayment of a student loan” web page. $2.5 billion program to help businesses The Government of Québec announced the Programme d’action concertée temporaire pour les entreprises (PACTE). The government is committing at least $2.5 billion to help companies overcome liquidity issues connected to the pandemic. This program is intended to support business’ working capital to help them continue operations. All industries will be eligible for this emergency program. Businesses will have to demonstrate that they are likely to be profitable after the crisis. The financial assistance is a minimum amount of $50,000, provided in the form of a loan guarantee, but may also take the form of a loan. For more information, see the Government of Québec’s “Financial assistance for Quebec businesses” website (in French only). Investissement Québec is currently evaluating requests for financial assistance. To make a request, visit Investissement Québec’s website (in French only). Loans and loan guarantees In order to support businesses affected by the impacts of COVID-19, flexibility for outstanding loans and loan guarantees are being put in place by the Fonds local d’investissement (“FLI”). A three-month moratorium has been put in place for the repayment (principal and interest) of loans already granted through the FLI. Interest accrued during this period will be added to the loan balance. This measure is in addition to the moratorium already in place under most investment policies in effect, which can be as long as twelve months. For more information, see the Government of Québec’s “Ministère de l’Économie” website (in French only). Hydro-Québec measures On March 22, 2020, Hydro-Québec announced that, starting March 23, 2020, it will suspend the application of charges for unpaid invoices for all its customers (individuals and businesses) until further notice. Customers who expect to have difficulties paying their bill are invited to make a payment arrangement with Hydro-Québec. For more information, see Hydro-Québec’s website. The payment arrangement can be here. Government LINK: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/emergency-preparedness-response-recovery/covid-19-provincial-support British Columbia (“B.C.”) declared a provincial state of emergency under the Emergency Program Act on March 18, 2020. For more information about this legislation and the government’s powers under it, see our “explainer”, here. The government is expected to roll out additional economic measures in the coming days. Review of federal programs On March 18, 2020, the Premier of British Columbia announced that the provincial government will conduct a full review of the federal support package as it works on the details of the province’s own plan. The Premier has committed to “expand on the federal government’s efforts to offer immediate relief for people and businesses, and build our longer-term plan for economic recovery in collaboration with the business community”. Changes to the Employment Standards Act On March 17, 2020, the Premier of British Columbia announced that the government is looking to amend B.C.’s employment standards act to enable greater worker support. Specific relief to the agricultural sector On March 22, 2020, the Minister of Agriculture announced that they are working with the Federal Government to insure seasonal labour can still enter Canada to support the agriculture industry. In addition, the Minister of Agriculture stated that it will be providing financial support to develop an operating model for a farmer’s market better suited to times of a pandemic. For more information, please see the Minister of Agriculture’s press release of March 22, 2020. B.C. Emergency Benefit for Workers The B.C. Emergency Benefit for Workers program provides a one-time $1,000 payment to people who lost income because of COVID-19. Residents of B.C. who receive federal Employment Insurance or the new Canada Emergency Response Benefit (replacing the federal Emergency Care Benefit and the federal Emergency Support Benefit) are eligible or, if the workers are not eligible for these benefits, based on certain criteria such as lay-offs, self-employment, voluntary quarantine, etc. Applications will open in April 2020, and the one-time payment will be made in May 2020. For more information, please see the Government of British Columbia’s “Financial Supports in Response to COVID-19” website. Climate action tax credit In July 2020, a one-time enhancement to the climate action tax credit will be paid for moderate to low-income families. Adults receive up to $218.00, and children receive $64.00. Funding for housing supports Funding for housing supports is increased to ensure people can maintain their housing in the event of job or income loss. Further, B.C. housing has temporarily suspended evictions of tenants in subsidized and affordable housing due to non-payment of rent. B.C. monthly bills and student loan payments C. Hydro customers can defer bill payments or arrange for flexible payment plans with no penalty. Grants up to $600 are available to B.C. Hydro customers experiencing job loss, illness or lost wages due to COVID-19. These grants are available through the Customer Crisis Fund. Insurance Company of British Columbia (ICBC) customers on a monthly payment plan who are facing financial challenges due to COVID-19 may defer their payment for up to 90 days with no penalty. Starting March 30, 2020, B.C. student loan payments are automatically frozen for six months. Tax relief for businesses The Government of British Columbia is extending filing and payment deadlines until September 30, 2020, for the employer health tax, provincial sales tax, municipal and regional district tax on short-term accommodation, carbon tax, motor fuel tax, and tobacco tax. The following tax changes for the 2020 budget announced on February 18, 2020 are postponed until at least September 30, 2020: eliminating the PST exemption for carbonated beverages that contain sugar, natural sweeteners or artificial sweeteners. expanded registration requirements for Canadian sellers of goods, along with Canadian and foreign sellers of software and telecommunication services. carbon tax rates will remain at their current levels until further notice. School tax rates for commercial properties are reduced by 50% for the 2020 tax year. In July 2020, an additional one-time payment will be made on top of the regular climate action tax credit. For more information, see the Government of British Columbia’s “Provincial Tax Changes” webpage. Government LINK: https://www.alberta.ca/covid-19-support-for-employers.aspx Alberta declared a provincial public health emergency on March 17, 2020, under the province’s Public Health Act. For more information about this legislation and the government’s powers under it, see our “explainer”, here. The provincial government has announced a number of emergency support programs. The business-focused initiatives are outlined below, and the Alberta Government “COVID-19 Employer Fact Sheet” is linked here. Emergency Isolation Support Program Under the Emergency Isolation Support Program (EISP), announced on March 18, 2020, Albertans will receive a $1,146 payment for self-isolation. This is similar to the PATT COVID-19 program initiated by the government of Quebec, discussed above. EISP will be distributed in one payment instalment and will bridge the gap until federal emergency payments begin in April. The Government of Alberta expects EISP to be available through a simple online application on alberta.ca as of March 23, 2020, and that funds will be deposited in the accounts of eligible recipients beginning at that time. For more information, see the Government of Alberta’s “COVID-19 Info for Albertans” website. Applications can be made here. Utility payment deferral Residential, farm and small commercial customers can defer electricity and natural gas bill payments for the next 90 days, regardless of their service provider to ensure no one will be cut off, regardless of the service provider. The payment deferral is also available to Albertans who are experiencing financial hardship as a direct result of COVID-19. For more information, see the Government of Alberta’s “COVID-19 support for employers and employees” website. The Government of Alberta announced on March 17, 2020, that it is implementing a six-month, interest free moratorium on Alberta student loan payments. Interest will not accrue during this period. Furthermore, students do not need to apply for the repayment pause. Students may, however, decide to continue to make payments during this period if they choose. This will not affect their eligibility to receive the benefit. For more information, see the Government of Alberta’s “COVID-19 Info for Albertans” website. Banks and credit unions Effective immediately, Alberta Treasury Branches (ATB Financial) customers can apply for a deferral on their ATB Financial loans, lines of credit, and mortgages for up to six months. Credit union members will have access to a broad range of programs and solutions designed to facilitate loan payments and short-term cash flow. In order to take advantage of this measure, credit union members need to contact their credit union to work out a plan, which will be tailored to each member’s personal situation. Corporate income tax changes The Alberta government announced on March 18, 2020, that corporate income tax balances and instalment payments coming due between March 18 until August 31, 2020 will be defer until September 1st, 2020. This measure will allow employers to increase their access to cash so they can pay employees, address debts, and continue operations. Although penalties and interest are waived for this period of time, businesses must continue to file their Alberta corporate tax returns as required. Also, the deferral does not apply in respect of tax balances or instalment payments made prior to March 18, 2020. The Alberta Tax and Revenue Administration (“TRA”) also announced that it will modify its corporate income tax audit and collection practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. WCB premium payment deferral Small, medium and large private-sector employers can defer Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB) premium payments until 2021. For small and medium businesses, the government will cover 50% of the 2020 premium when it is due in 2021 and large employers will have their 2020 WCB premium payments deferred until 2021, at which time their premiums will be due. Employers who have already paid the WCB premiums in 2020 are eligible for a rebate or credit. Job-protected leave The Government of Alberta announced on March 18, 2020, that it will amend the Employment Standards Code to allow full- and part-time employees to take 14 days of job-protected leave. To be eligible, the claimant employee: Must either be required to self-isolate or caring for a child or dependent adult who is required to self-isolate; Does not require a medical note; and Does not need to have worked for an employer for 90 days. This measure covers the 14-day self-isolation period recommended by Alberta’s chief medical officer. This leave may be extended by Albert’s chief medical officer. For more detailed information, please see this blog from our Calgary Labour and Employment group. Relief for the energy sector On March 20, 2020, the Government of Alberta announced the following initiatives to provide economic relief to Alberta’s energy industry: $113 million in industry relief to fund the Alberta Energy Regulator; and a $100 million loan extended to the Orphan Well Association to create up to 500 direct and indirect jobs through reclamation efforts, decommissioning about 1,000 wells, and starting more than 1,000 environmental assessments. For more detailed information, please see the Government of Alberta’s press release of March 20, 2020. Establishing an Economic Recovery Council The Premier of Alberta has appointed an Economic Recovery Council to provide insight and expert advice on protecting jobs during the economic crisis, as well as strategies for long term recovery from the crisis. For more detailed information and a list of Council members, please see the Government of Alberta’s press release of March 20, 2020. Education property tax freeze Residential education property tax rates will be frozen at last year’s level, reversing the planned 3.4% increase that had been added in the 2020 budget. For more information see the Government of Alberta’s “COVID-19 supports for Albertans” website Government LINK: https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/health-care-administration-and-provider-resources/treatment-procedures-and-guidelines/emerging-public-health-issues/~/link.aspx?_id=6C6BF971659346E0B8E9DE4AE3B2AFF9&_z=z Saskatchewan declared a provincial state of emergency under the Emergency Planning Act on March 18, 2020. For more information about this legislation and the government’s powers under it, see our “explainer”, here. The Government of Saskatchewan has established “Support for Business” and “Support for Workers” pages outlining many available federal and provincial supports. Penalty and interest waiver for businesses On March 20, 2020, the Premier of Saskatchewan announced a penalty and interest waiver program. Businesses who have cash flow concerns and that are unable to remit their PST will have relief from penalty and interest charges for three months. Businesses directly impacted by COVID-19 and that are unable to file their provincial tax returns by the due date may submit a request for relief from interest or penalties that would otherwise apply to such late filings. Penalty and interest waiver requests can be submitted electronically through the Saskatchewan eTax Service (SETS) located at sets.saskatchewan.ca, by email (sasktaxinfo@gov.sk.ca) or at the following address: Ministry of Finance (Revenue Division), PO Box 200, Regina, SK, S4P 2Z6. For more information, see the Government of Saskatchewan’s information notice. Audit programs and compliance activities have been suspended. For more information, see the Government of Saskatchewan’s press release of March 20, 2020. Establishing a Business Response Team On March 23, 2020, the Government of Saskatchewan launched a Business Response Team to support businesses in the province dealing with the economic challenges resulting from COVID-19. The Business Response Team will be led by the Ministry of Trade and Export Development and will work to identify program supports relevant to particular businesses. For more information, see the Government of Saskatchewan’s press releaseof March 23, 2020. Businesses can contact the Business Response Team directly, call 1-844-800-8688 or e-mail supportforbusiness@gov.sk.ca. Amendments to the Saskatchewan Employment Act On March 20, 2020, the Saskatchewan Employment Act was amended to introduce a new unpaid public health emergency leave and remove the 13-week employment requirement to access sick leave and the requirement for a doctor’s note to access sick leave. The Employment Standard Regulations have been amended to provide that: Businesses will not have to provide notice or pay in lieu of notice when they lay-off staff if it is for a period of 12 weeks or less in a 16-week period. If an employer lays off employees periodically for a total of more than 12 weeks in a 16-week period, the employees are considered to be terminated and are entitled to pay instead of notice. Self-Isolation Support Program On March 20, 2020, the Premier of Saskatchewan announced a support plan for employers and employees. The Self-Isolation Support Program will provide $450 per week for a maximum of two weeks (or $900) for residents who are forced to self-isolate. Workers can apply to the program if they were (or are) in isolation because they had contracted the virus or are showing symptoms, had been in contact with an infected person or had returned from abroad. Workers are not eligible if they are being compensated by their employer (including sick leave and vacation leave), they have private insurance, or if they are covered by another government program, including federal employment insurance. Crown utility interest deferral The Crown utility interest deferral program waives interest on late crown utility bill payments for up to six months. The program is effective immediately and is available to all crown utility customers. The Government of Saskatchewan announced on March 20, 2020, that it is implementing a six-month, interest free moratorium on Saskatchewan student loan payments. Government Link: https://gov.mb.ca/search/?q=business+support+for+COVID+19 Manitoba declared a provincial state of emergency under the Emergency Measures Act on March 20, 2020. Child care for essential workers On March 20, 2020, The Manitoba government announced the following measures to help provide child care to essential front-line workers: Establish a new $18-million grant program to help early childhood educators begin independently offering child-care services at their homes or in the community; Continue to provide licensed child-care centres with their full operating grants and subsidies; Create a $2 million trust to provide capital gains to child-care providers; and Encourage all centres to reimburse prepaid fees to parents for child care they can no longer access at this time. For more information, see the Government of Manitoba’s news release of March 20, 2020. Extended tax filing deadlines for businesses On March 22, 2020, the Premier of Manitoba and Minister of Finance announced that the province will extend the April and May filing deadlines for small and medium-sized business with monthly remittances of not more than $10,000. Businesses will have up to two additional months to remit retail sales taxes, and the Health and Post-Secondary Education Tax Levy. The Minister of Finance also noted that it will work with businesses regarding flexible repayment options above the $10,000 cap. In person service at the Taxation Division Offices is not available. Services are continuing by telephone and online. Postpone eviction hearings and freeze rent increases On March 24, 2020, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister and Finance Minister Scott Fielding announced that the Government of Manitoba is postponing eviction hearings and freezing rent increases. Government Link: https://novascotia.ca/coronavirus/ Nova Scotia has taken a number of measures under the Health Protection Act in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. On March 20, 2020, the province’s chief medical officer of health and Minister of Business jointly announced economic measures to help Nova Scotia businesses and students. Measures to support vulnerable Nova Scotians Every individual and family member on income assistance will receive an additional $50. $1 million to Feed Nova Scotia to purchase food and hire more staff Emergency funding of $230,000 to help vulnerable older adults through Senior Safety Programs and Community Links. For more information, see the “Support for individual, families, and businesses” section of the Government of Nova Scotia website. Deferred government loan payments, suspended student loan payments, and small business renewal fee payments The Government will defer payments for all government loans and small business fees (including business renewal fees and workers compensation premiums) until June 30th. The Government will suspend payments on Nova Scotia student loans for six months, until September 30th. The Government will defer payments for small business renewal fees, including business registration renewal fees and workers compensation premiums, until June 30th. Small businesses that do business with the government will be paid within five days instead of the standard 30 days. Changes to the Small Business Loan Guarantee Program The program is enhanced to make it easier for businesses to access credit up to $500,000 and for those who might not qualify for a loan, the government will guarantee the first $100,000. Internet for Nova Scotia Initiative To ensure that more Nova Scotians can access the internet to work from home, the government is providing $15 million as an incentive to providers to speed up projects under the Internet for Nova Scotia initiative and complete them as soon as possible. For more information, see the “Support for individual, families, and businesses” section of the Government of Nova Scotia website Government Link: https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/ocmoh/cdc/content/respiratory_diseases/coronavirus.html New Brunswick declared a provincial state of emergency under the Emergency Measures Act on March 19, 2020. Relief on co-pay for drug plans Patients with drug coverage under New Brunswick’s public drug plans will only be responsible for the initial co-payment on a prescription fill or refill. For example, a patient with a 90-day prescription made up of three 30-day fills will only have a co-payment for the first 30-day fill payment. For more information, see the Government of New Brunswick news release of March 21, 2020. Child care for those who lost income and essential workers The Government of New Brunswick has committed to covering the child-care fees of anyone who has lost their income due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. The Government of New Brunswick will also cover any “double fees” for child care services for essential workers. This includes workers paying to reserve a space at their usual child care facility, but whose child is attending one of the emergency child care facilities. One-time income benefit for unemployed workers The Government of New Brunswick will provide a one-time $900 income benefit to either workers or self-employed people in New Brunswick who have lost their job due to the pandemic. The benefit will be administered through the Red Cross and is meant to bridge the time between the when people lose their employment and when they receive their federal benefits. For more information, see the Government of New Brunswick’s Update on Covid-19 of March 24, 2020. Government Link: https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/topic/covid-19 Prince Edward Island declared a state of public health emergency under the Public Health Act on March 16, 2020. $25 million COVID-19 Emergency Contingency Fund On March 16, 2020, the Government of Prince Edward Island announced the establishment of a $25 million COVID-19 Emergency Contingency Fund to support Island workers and small businesses who are affected by COVID-19. For more information, see the Government of Prince Edward Island’s news release of March 16, 2020. The Island businesses can call the phone number 1-866-222-1751 to share the effect COVID-19 has had on their finances. Support for small businesses and employees On March 18, 2020, the Government of Prince Edward Island announced the following measures: The scheduled loan payments are deferred for the next 3 months for clients of Finance PEI, Island Investment Development Inc., and the PEI Century Fund; $4.5 million will be provided to Community Business Development Corporations across the province to deliver financing to small business and entrepreneurs; and A temporary allowance of $200 per week for employees that have a significant drop in their working hours. For more information, see the Government of Prince Edward Island’s news release of March 18, 2020. Educational and financial supports for Islanders Creating a fund of up to $2 million to support early learning centres, maintain child care spaces and ensure parents do not pay fees during the period of closures; Deferring repayments for provincial student loans for the next six months; and providing home learning activities for students. Emergency Income Relief for the Self-Employed On March 16, 2020, the Government of Prince Edward Island announced a program for the self-employed individuals that consists of a maximum of $500 per week for the period of March 16 to March 29, 2020. The government notes that this period will be reviewed if necessary. To be illegible to the program, the individuals must have declared business income on their most recent tax return, business income must be their primary source of income, must be able to demonstrate direct financial losses related to COVID-19 isolation measures and don’t receive any other income support. For more information, see the Government of Prince Edward Island’s “Emergency Income Relief for the Self-Employed” website. Worker Assistance Program The Worker Assistance Program is a temporary program aimed at providing financial support to employers to assist their employed workers. The employers eligible will receive a maximum of $250 per week for each employed worker that experienced a reduction of at least 8 hours per week during the two week period March 16-29, 2020. The eligible employers include the registered private sector businesses in Prince Edward Island and they are encouraged to complete one application for the two week period. For more information and to apply to the program, see the Government of Prince Edward Island’s “Emergency Relief – Worker Assistance Program” website. Online applications can be submitted until April 15, 2020. Emergency Working Capital Financing The Emergency Working Capital Financing program is a temporary program aimed at providing emergency working capital financing to assist small business to maintain normal business operations during the economic disruption caused by COVID-19. Applicants to the program can receive a working capital loan of up to $100,000 with a fixed interest rate of 4% per annum to be used to assist with fixed operating costs with principal and interest payments deferred for a minimum of 12 months. In order to be eligible, companies must be: Existing small businesses (start-ups not eligible) located and operating in the Province of PEI, that have been generating revenue in PEI; Registered to conduct business within the Province of PEI; and In possession of a satisfactory credit rating and must not have any defaulted outstanding debt obligation on file in the Province’s Central Default Registry. For more information and to apply to the program, see the Government of Prince Edward Island’s “Emergency Working Capital Financing” website. Employee Gift Card Program The Employee Gift Card Program is a temporary program aimed at providing a $100 Sobeys gift value to any employee, living and working on Prince Edward Island, who has received a lay-off notice as a direct result of the impacts associated with COVID-19. The employer is responsible to complete the application form and distribute the gift card letters to affected employees. To be eligible, the employer must: Have issued lay-off notice(s) to 1 or more employee(s) as a result of COVID-19, between March 13 and March 31, 2020; and Have affected employees with a salary of $25/hour or less. For more information and to apply to the program, see the Government of Prince Edward Island’s “Employee Gift Card Program” website Government Link: https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/resources-2/ For Businesses and Workplaces The Federal Government has a framework for risk-informed decision making about public health actions for workplaces/businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The tool can be used by employers and business owners to consider risks associated with their workplace/business, the implementation of risk mitigation strategies, and in consultation with local public health authorities regarding decisions to close workplaces. The tool can be found at the following link: Information Sheet for Workplaces (578 KB) COVID-19 and the Construction Industry (455 KB) Risk-Informed Decision Making Guidance for Construction Sites (345 KB) COVID-19 Guidance for Funeral Homes (488 KB) Alternative Service Delivery for Retail Stores (407 KB) Alternative Service Delivery for Craft and Microbreweries (395 KB) Guidance for Traveling in Vehicles (320 KB) Resources for Companies in Addressing Business Disruption Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Tax Returns: Flexibility Measures Announced COVID-19: Support measures for businesses Maintain your business activities despite the ups and downs Coronavirus: Effective supply chain management during a crisis Acting for a better recovery: reassessing your business model Three tips for effective cash management in a crisis Engaging Your Workforce in a Crisis Context Cybersecurity in the Coronavirus Era: More Important than Ever COVID-19 and Teleworking: Adapting Your Business Practices Coronavirus: The ABCs of Sound Health Practices for Your Workers COVID-19: Preparing a Contingency and Business Continuity Plan Orchestrating the Recovery of Organizations and Supply Chains Government Financing Programs for Canadian SMEs Practical Steps for Pandemic Preparedness Managing Supply Chain Risk and Disruption Managing Cash Flow During a Crisis Practical Workforce Strategies that Put Your People First Canadian Tax Alert Enhance YOUR Compliance Mitigate Risk Recycle Today Join CPCA Canadian Paint & Coatings Association 900-170 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa ON K1P 5V5 \| 613-231-3604 © Canadian Paint and Coatings Association, 2020, All Rights Reserved. CPCA Member Companies gain insight and information they need to sell their products in Canada.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1668
__label__wiki	0.712457	0.712457	Tuesday in Hawkville: Eying the opener Head Coach Pete Carroll holds a record of 1-1 in season openers in two years at the helm with the Seahawks. A recap of the day’s activities at Virginia Mason Athletic Center for Sept. 4: Season openers. The Seahawks are 13-23 in their previous season openers, for a winning percentage of .361 that ranks ahead of only the Saints (16-29, .356) and Panthers (6-11, .353). But since 2003, the Seahawks are 6-3 in their openers – including 1-1 under coach Pete Carroll. During the month of September, the Seahawks are 20-12 the past 10 seasons, for a .625 winning percentage that ties for fifth-best in the league. During that span, only the Colts (24-8), Patriots (22-9), Broncos (23-11) and Cowboys (21-11) have had better Septembers to remember than the Seahawks – who play the Cowboys next week in their home opener. And the Seahawks have won eight of their past nine home openers, including three in a row. The eight victories have been by a combined score of 195-60 and include two shutouts – 28-0 over the Rams in 2009 and 34-0 over the 49ers in 2004. The lone loss during this run came in 2008 to the 49ers, 33-30 in overtime. The Seahawks reduced their roster to 53 players on Friday, but where are the 17 players who were waived? Seven were signed to the practice squad: linebackers Allen Bradford and Korey Toomer, guard Rishaw Johnson, wide receivers Jermaine Kearse and Ricardo Lockette, quarterback Josh Portis and safety DeShawn Shead. Lineman Edawn Coughman, the eighth member, had been released on the roster cut to 75 players. Cornerback Phillip Adams was claimed off waivers by the Raiders, while wide receiver Kris Durham was signed to the Lions’ practice squad. Cornerback Ron Parker, who was waived on the cut to 75, has been signed to the Panthers’ practice squad; while guard Deuce Lutui (Titans), also among the cuts to 75, and tight end Kellen Winslow (Patriots), who was waived Saturday, have drawn interest from other teams. That leaves eight players from those waived on the cut to 53 who remain free agents: defensive ends Pierre Allen and Cordarro Law, wide receivers Deon Butler and Lavasier Tuinei, guard Paul Fanaika, linebacker Kyle Knox, tight end Sean McGrath and center Kris O’Dowd. TURN UP THE HEAT The Seahawks will practice this week in seasonably warm temperatures, but nothing like what awaits them in Arizona. The forecast for Sunday’s game is 102 degrees, with a low of 85. Thankfully, the Cardinals now play their home games in a dome – University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale – rather than at Sun Devil Stadium on the Arizona State campus in Tempe. Shaun Alexander, the Seahawks’ all-time leading rusher, will unveil the team’s 2012 season flag as part of the NFL Kickoff Show at Rockefeller Center in New York City on Wednesday. The event starts at 4:30 p.m. PDT leads into the season opener between the Giants and Cowboys, which will be televised on NBC. Joining Alexander will be a fan who submitted a design for the Seahawks’ flag that includes elements representing Seattle. One fan and alumni will unveil the flag for each of the 32 teams. The players return from their “off” day to continue preparing for Sunday’s opener against the Cardinals. The players and coaches also move into their regular-season schedule, with practices on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. “It’s a matter of getting him back in the playbook and back into drills. And getting his confidence to where we know he’s ready to play football again. That’s really what the plan is right now.” – offensive line coach Tom Cable on James Carpenter, last year’s first-round draft choice who practiced Monday for the first time since sustaining a season-ending knee injury last November September 4, 2012 – 4:35 pm Tags: Hawkville, James Carpenter, Pete Carroll, Shaun Alexander, Tom Cable Comments Off on Tuesday in Hawkville: Eying the opener	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1675
__label__cc	0.733545	0.266455	A response to Dr. Subbarao's comments on systemic risk regulation in the draft Indian Financial Code by Sowmya Rao. At a recent conference organised by the Indian Merchants Chamber, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor, Mr. Duvvuri Subbarao, shared his views on lessons learnt from the global financial crisis. The full text of his speech is available here. While discussing financial stability, Mr. Subbarao discussed the recommendations of the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) on the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC). This post is a pointwise response to his text. The big picture of FSLRC The draft Indian Financial Code deals with all aspects of financial law, including consumer protection, microprudential regulation, resolution, systemic risk, and monetary policy. Accountability mechanisms and clarity of regulatory objectives are key themes of the recommendations. The recommended regulatory architecture consists of a Resolution Corporation which will manage the resolution of failing firms, while regulators (RBI and the proposed Unified Financial Agency (UFA)) will pursue consumer protection and microprudential regulation. RBI (as the central bank) will perform monetary policy functions. Since the legislative mandate of regulators will define their perspective and information access, an individual regulator dealing with say, banking, is likely to focus its operations on banking alone, and not the entire financial system. Systemic risk analysis, in contrast, requires a bird's eye view of the entire financial system, especially to identify interconnections or trace interdependencies. The heart of systemic risk thinking is to look at the woods and not the trees, while the instinct of micro-prudential regulation is to look at trees. Hence, FSLRC recommended that systemic risk oversight was best executed by a council of regulatory agencies - the FSDC - assisted by a technical secretariat. The board of the FSDC comprises the Minister of Finance (Chairman), the Chairman of RBI, the Chairman of the UFA, the Chairman of the Resolution Corporation, the Chief Executive of the FSDC and an Administrative Law Member of FSDC. Responses to Dr. D. Subbarao What are the relative roles of monetary policy and macroprudential policies? While terms such as financial stability, macroprudential regulation and systemic risk oversight are often used synonymously, the most technically sound term is 'systemic risk'. FSLRC views monetary policy and systemic oversight as distinct, to be employed by relevant agencies best suited for each. The draft Indian Financial Code (IFC) clearly lays out the process of defining monetary policy objectives alongside quantified medium-term targets (government's responsibility), as well as that of implementing the objectives (RBI's responsibility). This would create accountability in monetary policy, which can then make possible monetary policy independence. Similarly, the IFC also clearly defines the scope and extent of systemic oversight which is the responsibility of the FSDC. The FSLRC recommendations specifically note that there ought to be strict separation between microprudential regulation (the domain of regulators alone) and systemic oversight. Under what circumstances should one, rather than the other, be invoked? How do these policies interact with each other? If institutional synergy between monetary policy and systemic risk is emphasised, this leads to a blurring of accountability. Instead of placing multiple objectives within the same institution, which could cause a conflict of interest, FSLRC has recommended that there be clear regulatory objectives assigned to separate institutions that best serve the issue at hand. There must be no impediment to holding a body accountable for lapses; multiple objectives only serve to reduce such accountability. In furtherance of this, FSLRC has carefully carved out the contours of these two roles, with monetary policy implemented by RBI and systemic risk oversight carried out by FSDC. These agencies will invoke their enumerated powers when the situations call for it as specified by the IFC. When these agencies follow their mandates as defined under the IFC, an overlap of these roles is unlikely. To the extent that decisions taken under the rubric of monetary policy may affect systemic risk and vice versa, RBI's presence on the FSDC table should ensure that open conversations about such intersections take place. If they are handled by different agencies, is it possible that they can work at cross purposes? Is there an inevitable political dimension to macroprudential policies? Within microprudential regulation, there is little need for any authority other than the regulator to exist. However, the presence of the political dimension takes on particular relevance in systemic risk. When there is a threat of an imminent systemic crisis, many actions that are required must have the authorisation of the political executive. Such actions cannot be taken by any technically ground and non-political and independent regulatory agency. The Finance Minister's leadership of the board of the FSDC reflects India's experience with the role of ministers such as P. Chidambaram and Yashwant Sinha -- and the role of finance ministers worldwide in the global crisis -- in dealing with systemic crises. FSDC is a forum for regulatory bodies to discuss their concerns, especially if any one agency (including FSDC itself) appears to be working at cross-purposes with the mandate of any other agency. The possibility that such a concern may arise should not preclude the creation of a body to mitigate systemic risk. If yes, how does one protect the autonomy of the institution responsible for macroprudential policy? In an area such as monetary policy or micro-prudential regulation, there is a case for autonomy of the institution. With systemic risk, there is an inescapable role for the political authority in dealing with crises. No RBI Governor could have dealt with the 2008 crisis or the 2001 crisis. These required the authority and decision-making powers of the Minister of Finance. In its submission to the Commission during the consultative stage, the Reserve Bank argued that the financial stability mandate that the Reserve Bank has been carrying out historically by virtue of its broad mandate should be clearly defined and formalized. At present, the RBI has no mandate to carry out the function of systemic risk oversight, nor is there a work program of this nature. In law: The words `systemic risk' or `financial stability' or `macroprudential regulation' do not occur in the RBI Act. That mandate, as well as powers to perform that mandate, are absolutely absent in the RBI Act. In fact: RBI does not have a database about the overall Indian financial system, nor does it have executive authority over financial firms which are not banks. It has no meaningful way of assessing inter-connectedness or risk in sectors other than banking and payments. As an example, much of the complex dynamics of the crisis of late 2008 took place beyond the information set of the RBI. Further, the RBI does not have powers to do anything about the overall Indian financial system. In terms of financial regulation, RBI is only a sectoral regulator dealing with two sectors (banking and payments). The Commission has acknowledged comments made by RBI and responded as follows (see FSLRC Report, Volume I, Chapter 9): In the consultative processes of the Commission, the RBI expressed the view that it should be charged with the overall systemic risk oversight function. This view was debated extensively within the meetings of the Commission, however, there were several constraints in pursuing this institutional arrangement. In the architecture proposed by the Commission, the RBI would perform consumer protection and micro-prudential regulation only for the banking and payments sector. This implied that the RBI would be able to generate knowledge in these sectors alone from the viewpoint of the safety and soundness of such financial firms and the protection of the consumer in relation to these firms. This is distinct from the nature of information and access that would be required from the entire financial system for the purpose of addressing systemic risk. The FSLRC recommendation that the executive responsibility for safeguarding systemic risk should vest with the FSDC Board runs counter to the post-crisis trend around the world of giving the collegial bodies responsibility only for coordination and for making recommendations. The international experience comprises some important examples which shaped the working of FSLRC. Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) in the United States: Created post-crisis, this body consists of the US Treasury Secretary and heads of all regulatory bodies. FSOC has powers similar to those envisaged for FSDC, including designating non-bank institutions as Significantly Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs), where designated institutions are subject to heightened prudential and supervisory provisions. (See Section 113 of the US - Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, 2010. Further, See Section 295 (Functions of the FSDC) and Section 299 (Designation of Systemically Important Financial Institutions) of the IFC.) The European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) in the European Union: Consisting of the heads of the European Central Bank, the Governors of the national central banks of the EU member states and the regulatory heads of insurance, pensions and securities, the ESRB has the power to issue recommendations and warnings. These are issued with a specified timeline for the addressee to respond with a relevant policy response. It is crucial to note that addressees of such a recommendation are required to communicate to the ESRB and to the EU Council the actions undertaken in response to the recommendation or justify any inaction on a comply or explain basis. To date the ESRB has published recommendations touching upon a wide range of issues, namely; lending in foreign currencies; the macro-prudential mandate of national authorities; US dollar denominated funding of credit institutions; money market funds and funding of credit institutions. (See Regulation (EU) No 1092 /2010 of the European Parliament, para 17) The Reserve Bank is also of the view that in a bank dominated financial sector like that of India, the synergy between the central bank's monetary policy and its role as a lender of last resort on the one hand, and policies for financial stability on the other, is much greater. India is not a bank-dominated financial sector. As an example, the market capitalisation of all listed companies is over twice the size of non-food credit by banks to all companies. A perusal of the aggregative balance sheet of firms in India shows that bank financing is an important, but small, component. This is particularly the case if the balance sheet is re-expressed using market value of equity instead of book value. The knowledge and expertise required to tackle systemic risk to the entire financial system is unlikely to be located within any one sectoral regulator. The knowledge about the Indian financial system will be dispersed across RBI, UFA, and Resolution Corporation. Hence, it would be inappropriate to place the systemic risk function in any one place. RBI will only have expertise and information relating to the banking and payments industries. In equal measure, UFA will only have expertise in the non-banking non-payments financial sector, and the Resolution Corporation, will only have knowledge about handling failing firms. Each will be able to bring those respective nuances to the conversations on FSDC's board. Each of these agencies has synergies in its own right with the function of mitigating systemic risk. The function of being a lender of last resort does not equate with performing systemic risk oversight. The IFC envisages that RBI will continue to provide funds to participants for which the RBI directly operates payment systems. Further, IFC establishes a mechanism through which RBI will also provide emergency liquidity for non-banking financial firms in times of severe or unusual stress in the financial system, on provision of collateral. There is no contradiction between a central bank that is a lender of last resort and a central bank that is not the systemic risk regulator. We need to think through whether the responsibility of FSDC Board should be extended from being a coordination body to one having authority for executive decisions? What will that imply for the speed of decision making? The FSLRC envisages two executive functions at FSDC: naming certain financial firms as Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIFIs), and making decisions on system-wide counter-cyclical capital. Both these decisions will be taken by the board of FSDC, which will include the Chairman of RBI, the Chairman of UFA and the Chairman of the Resolution Corporation. FSDC is a council of regulators. A loose coalition of regulators that does nothing more than meet has been tried in India. It was called the HLCCFM. It failed to solve problems such as the SEBI/IRDA dispute, and it played little role in the crisis management of 2008. The task ahead in designing sytemic risk regulation is one of understanding how to do things differently. In the spirit of FSLRC's overall recommendations, establishing FSDC as a statutory body endows it with legal process, transparency and accountability that ought to accompany a financial sector agency. This means that FSDC can be held accountable for lapses, and that the possibility of external influences affecting its functioning is significantly reduced. The speed of decision-making is enshrined in process, the efficiency of which depends on the stakeholders involved. Acting decisively is of importance where a crisis is at hand, but in a world that seeks to uphold principles of rule of law, there is little value in hasty decisions made by a non-statutory body with no accountability for its actions. A statutory FSDC is more likely to ensure that decisions relating to crisis situations are taken responsibly, and with full disclosures. During a crisis, we need the executive to lead the fight and stem the sources of systemic risk, and all regulatory bodies will have to work together with the Ministry of Finance. This is what happened everywhere in the world during the financial crisis is the best model for tackling a crisis. FSLRC recommendations have legislated this model to increase accountability for actions taken during a crisis. Can we clearly define the boundaries between financial stability issues falling within the purview of the FSDC and regulatory issues falling exclusively within the domain of the regulators? Systemic risk may arise due to various reasons, such as regulatory arbitrage, excessive leverage ratios, or procyclical fluctuations in the economy. None of these issues can be handled exclusively by any one regulator. IFC has laid down the process of identifying and implementing measures to mitigate or eliminate systemic risk. One measure of counter-cyclical systemic risk regulation, i.e the countercyclical capital buffer to address pro-cyclical effects in the financial system, has been explicitly provided for in the law. The implementation of such measures may commence only at the instruction of FSDC. Regarding the intersect between the roles of FSDC and the regulators, under the IFC, the FSDC cannot interfere with microprudential regulation or the monetary policy function of the RBI. Any concerns can always be raised at the FSDC table, and discussed in full view of the public and the markets. The author is grateful to Sumathi Chandrashekaran, Bhavna Jaisingh, Radhika Pandey and Ankur Saxena for useful inputs. Labels: financial sector policy, legal system, systemic risk Anonymous Tuesday, 18 June 2013 at 13:11:00 GMT+5:30 The only issue is whether the GOI / Finmin can be trusted with such a responsibility especially with such myopic and unprofessional way the institutions are run aground by the UPA govt. in their second term. While handling by RBI may not be a perfect solution, handing them over to politicians is a no brainer. well, specious arguments like they are the people's representatives ... blah ... blah will not help, as we all know the statesmanship of leading economist PMs and harward educated FMs. the next crop after elections is likely to get worse. Safe and tested RBI with all its flaws, is preferable any day than vesting all powers with FSDC. Ajay Shah Tuesday, 18 June 2013 at 14:46:00 GMT+5:30 I agree that this is a concern. I think the FSLRC tradeoffs are the right ones, for the following reasons. With a probability p, India will have a bad finance minister. With mistakes in structuring the RBI, we will have bad monetary policy all the time. If RBI is properly structured, we will have problems with systemic risk regulation with probability p, and the main line RBI will function properly all the time. This is a good tradeoff. (Remember that unlike the demonisation of FSDC, the draft Indian Financial Code does not have FSDC as a super regulator -- only as a coordination shop with small functions on systemic risk regulation only. Even when we have a bad FM, there is little that he can do under the draft IFC through FSDC). And, as India becomes a more complex market oriented economy, the cost of a bad FM goes up. The political authorities experienced acute pain when India collapsed with mis-governance at MoF. This has sent out a good lesson to our political masters that you have to be careful about who becomes FM. Notice how in EMs, you generally get a technically sound and low-corruption FM. This isn't because their political systems are nicer than ours -- but because their political masters have learned that you don't mess with the MoF. Hence, I believe that as India becomes a more open economy with a large GDP, p will go down. The drama of monetary policy College and knowledge continued Let's not confuse college with knowledge State capacity in India, vs. the early 1990s Dr. Subbarao's comments about FSLRC's treatment of... A helicopter tour of systemic risk regulation in t... A response to Dr. Subbarao's comments on systemic ... The saga of criminalising and then decriminalising... FSLRC ki ABC Fluctuations of the rupee The demise of Rupee Cooperative Bank: A malady Author: Suyash Rai Identifying each individual in financial firms tha... Iran may have developed offensive cyberwar capabil... Bureaucrats are not stakeholders Should policy makers favour home ownership?	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1677
__label__cc	0.648581	0.351419	Introducing the WhatsApp Business App People all around the world use WhatsApp to connect with small businesses they care about — from online clothing companies in India to auto parts stores in Brazil. But WhatsApp was built for people and we want to improve the business experience. For example, by making it easier for businesses to respond to customers, separating customer and personal messages, and creating an official presence. So today we're launching WhatsApp Business — a free-to-download Android app for small businesses. Our new app will make it easier for companies to connect with customers, and more convenient for our 1.3 billion users to chat with businesses that matter to them. Here's how: Business Profiles: Help customers with useful information such as a business description, email or store addresses, and website. Messaging Tools: Save time with smart messaging tools — quick replies that provide fast answers to frequently asked questions, greeting messages that introduce customers to your business, and away messages that let them know you're busy. Messaging Statistics: Review simple metrics like the number of messages read to see what's working. WhatsApp Web: Send and receive messages with WhatsApp Business on your desktop. Account Type: People will know that they're talking to a business because you will be listed as a Business Account. Over time, some businesses will have Confirmed Accounts once it’s been confirmed that the account phone number matches the business phone number. People can continue using WhatsApp as usual — there's no need to download anything new. And people will continue to have full control over the messages they receive, with the ability to block any number, including businesses, as well as report spam. Over 80% of small businesses in India and Brazil say WhatsApp helps them both communicate with customers and grow their business today (Source: Morning Consult study). And WhatsApp Business will make it easier for people to connect with them, and vice versa, in a fast and simple way. WhatsApp Business is available today and free to download on Google Play in Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S. The app is rolling out around the world in the coming weeks. This is just the beginning! Trung tâm thương hiệu Câu chuyện WhatsApp Quyền riêng tư và các điều khoản	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1678
__label__wiki	0.788383	0.788383	Review: ‘Superman Smashes The Klan Part One’ December 18, 2019 by J. Caleb Mozzocco Leave a Comment Superman Smashes The Klan Part One Writer: Gene Luen Yang Artists: Gurihiru DC Comics; $7.99 The 1940-1951 radio serial Adventures of Superman was both hugely successful and hugely influential, introducing not only many of the iconic turns of phrase used to talk about the character, but also significant narrative elements like Superman’s pal Jimmy Olsen and Superman’s one weakness, kryptonite. Of the many radio adventures of the Man of Steel, none is more famous than the 16-part 1946 story, “The Clan of the Fiery Cross.” The story of that story is a powerful one, chronicling as it does an instance of the comic book superhero reaching beyond the confines of his fictional status to strike a blow for truth and justice in the real world. Often told and retold—in fact, it was the subject of an entire 2012 book—the story of the story is likely familiar to anyone with a passing interest in 20th century superhero comics. Activist Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, and, finding local law enforcement reluctant to do anything about the resurgent hate group, he approached the producers of the Superman radio show, supposedly passing along real-life passwords and secret codes which were revealed in the episodes to thwart the Klan. Regardless of whether or not that last bit was true, the storyline had the intended effect: Demystifying and demonizing the Klan to a generation of American children. But while the story of that story has been repeatedly told, the story itself has never been re-told, at least not until cartoonist Gene Luen Yang joined with the art team Gurihiru to adapt it into a three-issue comic book series, Superman Smashes The Klan. Yang is perhaps the ideal cartoonist to tackle such an adaptation, and not simply because, as he writes in his “Superman and Me” essay that follows the first chapter of the comic, the Chinese-American family in “Clan of The Fiery Cross” was a rare example of people who looked like him showing up in a Superman story. Yang launched what quickly became a quite prolific career with a compelling original graphic novel meditation on race and ethnicity with American Born Chinese, and he has often returned to subjects related to racial identity, sometimes through the prism of myth and religion as in his Boxers and Saints and other times through the prism of the superhero, as in The Shadow Hero. There’s also the fact that Yang has been writing Superman off and on for DC Comics for years now, including a short stint on Superman and his introduction of a new teenage, Chinese answer to Superman in his New Super-Man comics. As for Gurihiru, they have spent about 15 years producing great-looking superhero comics aimed at younger readers for Marvel, and their cartoony simplicity and animation-inspired sense of dynamism couldn’t be a more perfect fit for the Superman of the 1940s, the Superman of Joe Shuster-drawn comics, Fleischer cartoons and, of course, The Adventures of Superman. If one has the interest in it and the patience for it, one can listen to “Clan of The Fiery Cross” today on YouTube and elsewhere online. Yang’s script for the first of the three books in the series actually tracks pretty closely to the plot, with some notable changes. Here, the action opens with Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen interrupting a would-be super-villain named “The Atom Man” from his villainous business by requesting an interview, at which point Superman makes his appearance to punch-out the bad guy…and discover a strange green, glowing mineral powering Atom Man’s high-tech apparatus, a mineral that makes Superman weak and sick like never before. (The reminder that America just got done fighting a war against a bunch of guys obsessed with racial purity is an important one, as it clearly positions the KKK-types as the enemies of America). From there, we meet the Lee family, a Chinese-American family moving from Metropolis’ Chinatown to a new house in a nicer, whiter part of town, as Mr. Lee has just gotten a job with the city’s health department. Mr. and Mrs. Lee and their children, Tommy and Roberta, are immediately confronted by a variety of reactions, from nice and welcoming to well-meaning but offensive cluelessness to out-and-out racism . Tommy makes quite an impression when he tries out for the Unity House baseball team, managed by Jimmy Olsen, and he inadvertently makes an enemy of young Chuck Riggs…whose uncle Matt happens to be a colleague of Mr. Lee’s…and who also just so happens to be the “Grand Scorpion” in the comic’s KKK-like Klan of the Fiery Kross. Roberta, an addition of Yang’s to the story, narrates her portion of the story, while Superman serves as co-narrator, and several of his scenes are rather dramatic departures from the source story as well. Yang uses the introduction of kryptonite into the story as a springboard for Superman’s dwelling on his alien origins, as after he’s first exposed to it, he starts to have visions of himself as a green-skinned, red-eyed alien with antennae and has dreams from his childhood, wherein Ma and Pa Kent are replaced by aliens, speaking to him in an alien language (Kryptonian, obviously; if you have a copy of the last Superman comic I discussed here, Art Baltazar and Franco’s Superman of Smallville, there’s a Kryptonian alphabet in the back that you can use to translate the dialogue in this comic, if you’re so inclined). These sequences serve to tie Superman directly and personally into the experiences of the Lees and other victims of the sorts of prejudices that reach their fullest, ugliest expression in the Klan. Superman’s not just there to provide an example of how we should treat people, nor is he involved simply because the Lee children are friends with Jimmy. No, Superman, as excellent as he might be at “passing,” is really the ultimate “other.” It’s not something so insignificant as skin color, ethnicity, or national origin that separates Superman from others; he’s literally a different species. No immigrant to America has come here from quite so far away as Superman has. (Yang toyed with this idea of Superman as the ultimate immigrant in the conclusion of The Shadow Hero, where the Superman-like analogue hero revealed to The Green Turtle that “my parents aren’t from around here, either”) Stylistically, Yang and Gurihiru have created something that is about as close to a perfect Superman comic as one is likely to find, particularly one featuring the Golden Age version of the character. But it’s not just a great superhero comic. It is also, and quite unfortunately, a relevant one. The message of the original “The Clan of The Fiery Cross,” that groups that play dress-up and talk about racial purity, rail against immigrants, and decide who is and who isn’t “really” American are bad guys to be reviled is perhaps as important and as necessary today as it was during Superman’s radio career. It’s just too bad that Superman’s comics of today, no matter how well-made, don’t have nearly the same reach as his radio show did. Filed Under: All Ages, Reviews Tagged With: Clan of The Fiery Cross, DC Comics, Gene Luen Yang, Gurihiru, Superman, Superman Smashes The Klan	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1680
__label__cc	0.527694	0.472306	Justice League Unlimited: Time After Time \| Review December 1, 2020 by J. Caleb Mozzocco Leave a Comment Justice League Unlimited: Time After Time Writers: Adam Beechen, Stuart Moore, Jason Hall and Steve Vance Artists: Tim Levins, Carlo Barberi, John Delaney, Min S. Ku and others DC Comics; Teen (13+) The 2001-2004 Justice League cartoon generated a pair of companion comics, Justice League Adventures and Justice League Unlimited, and those comics have recently proven to be a valuable well for DC to find high-quality, evergreen all-ages comics stories to reprint. The publisher dips back into that well for Justice League Unlimited: Time After Time, a second thematic collection following August’s Galactic Justice. As the title indicates, this time the theme is time travel, and the half-dozen stories within the collection’s pages come from not only Justice League Adventures and Justice League Unlimited, but there’s also an issue from the short-lived 1997-1998 series Adventures in the DC Universe, which attempted to do for the larger DCU what Batman Adventures and Superman Adventures did for those families of characters (and largely succeeded, thanks to excellent but under-appreciated work from Steve Vance and John Delaney). The particular issue from Adventures in the DC Universe featured The Legion of Super-Heroes, the super-teens from the 30th Century (although now that we are currently living in the 21st Century, the Legion has similarly moved to the 31st Century). The Legion returns for another story later in the collection, in which a handful of the team meet a handful of Justice Leaguers, who chase living computer virus “Kilg%re” through a time portal. The Flash flashes forward to the post-apocalyptic, Planet of the Apes-inspired time of Jack Kirby’s Kamandi, the Last Boy On Earth in another story. The remaining half of the book features time travel in the other direction. In one story, the Lex Luthor of the far-flung future travels into his past, and the heroes’ present, in order to try to destroy the so-called trinity of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. In another, Wonder Woman, The Elongated Man, and cowboy stuntman-turned-superhero The Vigilante travel back in time to the Old West, where they team-up with that era’s pre-superhero heroes: Jonah Hex, El Diablo, and Bat Lash. And in another, the time-lost Justice Leaguer The Shining Knight leads a huge group of some 15 heroes back in time to defend Camelot from Morgan Le Fay and a magical army of black knights. It’s that story, “Castle Perilous,” that perhaps best encapsulates what makes the book so fun. Its panels are full to bursting with superheroes, not only the present-day Leaguers but also some dozen more or who make one-panel cameo appearances. Writer Adam Beechen therefore gives artist Carlo Barberi a feast of colorful characters to draw in his big, bold style, a style that pushes hard enough against the designs established by the cartoon to make the art distinctly Barberi’s, but not hard enough to break the general aesthetic (the cover features a splash page of Barberi’s art from this story; you’ll note the one character not wearing tights is King Arthur himself). The thrust of that story involves its narrator Vixen, the animal-powered fashion model-turned-hero, coping with her first trip through time and trying to come to grips with living in a world where going to fight alongside King Arthur is just another day at the office. In addition to demonstrating the scale and scope of these comics, “Castle Perilous” also shows their range, highlighting relatively obscure characters like Vixen and Shining Knight alongside the likes of Batman and Superman, while telling a relatable story in a wildly over-the-top world. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see a third Justice League Unlimited collection in the next few months. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: Adam Beechen, Carlo Barberi, DC Comics, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited: Time After Time, Stuart Moore, Tim Levins	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1681
__label__wiki	0.909433	0.909433	Bodycam Video Of A Black Man Repeatedly Telling Corrections Officers "I Can't Breathe" Before He Died Has Been Released John Neville, 56, told officers in the North Carolina jail that he couldn't breathe more than 20 times while they restrained him during a medical episode. He died in a hospital two days later. A judge authorized the release of body camera footage this week showing officers in a North Carolina jail restraining a 56-year-old Black man as he repeatedly says "I can't breathe" before losing consciousness and later dying. In the footage, John Neville can be heard repeatedly telling officers in Forsyth County Detention Center in Winston-Salem that he was unable to breathe. He died two days later in hospital in December 2019. Five detention officers were fired and a nurse was placed on administrative leave, ABC News reported. All six have been charged with involuntary manslaughter. The release of the footage, months after the incident took place, came as a result of legal petitions from various news organizations. (The video below is graphic.) Two separate clips have been released, and they show a special response team attending to Neville who was found on the floor by his cellmate, experiencing a medical episode with vomit on his clothing and blood around his mouth. He had apparently fallen to the floor from the top bunk of the bed. “It looks like you had a seizure,” the attending nurse said. Visibly disoriented, Neville didn’t respond when asked to confirm his last name, and after a period of silence struggled as officers continued to restrain him. They placed a spit hood over his head, and Neville was wheeled in a chair to an observation room while handcuffed. He was then transferred to another cell where he was placed on a mat and held in a prone position - facedown - with his arms in handcuffs. “Please, please, I can’t breathe, help me, help me, please,” pleaded Neville, who became distressed and told officers that he was unable to breathe more than 20 times. Instead, he was further restrained by officers who pulled his legs behind him. “You’re breathing ‘cause you’re talking, you’re yelling and you’re moving. You need to stop. You need to relax, quit resisting us,” responded an officer who attempted to remove Neville’s handcuffs, but struggled because the key had broken off in the lock. They resorted to using a bolt cutter to remove the handcuffs, and on the advice of someone not visible on camera, the officers released Neville’s legs “so he can breathe.” With Neville in a prone position, officers can be heard exchanging jokes about the damage to the handcuffs. “Whose cuffs were those? ... It’s coming out of your paycheck,” said one officer. An extended period of silence from Neville prompted an officer to check in on him but he remained unresponsive. “John you alright buddy? I promise we’re going to be done in a few minutes alright?” the officer said. “I’ll take that as a yes.” When the cuffs were removed, the officers and nurse were unable to get a clear response from Neville and they all exited the cell, leaving him unattended for a moment, only to re-enter shortly after to clarify whether he was breathing. The footage ends with the attending nurse performing chest compressions for CPR. Neville, a father from Greensboro, North Carolina was arrested on Dec. 1 last year and held on an assault charge. The incident at the prison took place the following day and he died at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center two days later. According to the autopsy, he died of a brain injury due to "positional and compressional asphyxia during prone restraint.” In a press conference on Aug. 4, ahead of the footage being released, Sheriff Bobby F. Kimbrough issued an apology to Neville’s family and suggested renaming a housing unit at the Forsyth County Detention Center in his honor. "I apologize again for what happened on that day," said Kimbrough, “We're sorry for the mistakes made that day. I take responsibility for that as the sheriff." Kimbrough told reporters that the “tragic” footage had brought him to tears. The details of Neville’s death were made public following an investigation by The News & Observer and underpin the most recent wave of nationwide protests set in motion by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes. Along with calling for major police reform, the protests have ignited a reckoning over racial injustice across the country and in many industries. A ‘startup’ is a company that is confused about – 1. What its product is. 2. Who its customers are. 3. How to make money. Dave McClure	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1683
__label__wiki	0.960967	0.960967	Week 10 fantasy football kicker rankings Yahoo Sports Fantasy Staff Brandon McManus has been showing off his powerful leg this season. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy) Unheralded Brandon McManus has been showing his fantasy value this season, tying with Stephen Gostkowski with the most field goals made from 50+ yards (5) through nine weeks. [Week 10 Fantasy Rankings: QBs \| RBs \| WRs \| TEs \| FLEX \| DST \| Kickers] It also helps that, unlike Gostkowski (who has been missing at an alarming rate) McManus has hit 94.1 percent of his total kicks. Not only do we want our kickers on high-scoring teams, but we want them to be able to deliver some high-scoring kicks as well. Check out McManus and the rest of the kickers in our analysts’ Week 10 rankings: 2020 Fantasy Football Rankings powered by FantasyPros ECR ™ - Expert Consensus Rankings WASHINGTON — President-elect Joe Biden made a sober entrance to the nation's capital Tuesday, ready to assume power as America reels from the coronavirus pandemic, soaring unemployment and grave concerns about more violence as he prepares to take the oath of office. Biden, an avid fan of Amtrak, had planned to take a train into Washington ahead of Wednesday's Inauguration Day, but scratched that plan in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. He instead flew into a military airbase just outside the capital on Tuesday afternoon and then motorcaded into fortress D.C. — a city that's been flooded by some 25,000 National Guard troops guarding a Capitol, White House and National Mall that are wrapped in a maze of barricades and tall fencing. Shortly before Biden departed for Washington, the U.S. reached another grim milestone in the pandemic, s urpassing 400,000 deaths from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University. “These are dark times," Biden told dozens of supporters in an emotional sendoff in Delaware before departing for Washington. "But there’s always light.” Biden, who ran for the presidency as a cool head who could get things done, plans to issue a series of executive orders on Day One — including reversing President Donald Trump's effort to leave the Paris climate accord, cancelling his travel ban on visitors from several predominantly Muslim countries, and extending pandemic-era limits on evictions and student loan payments. Trump won't attend Biden's inauguration, the first outgoing president to skip the ceremony since Andrew Johnson more than a century and a half ago. The White House released a farewell video from Trump just as Biden landed at Joint Base Andrews. Trump, who has repeatedly and falsely claimed widespread fraud led to his election loss, extended “best wishes” to the incoming administration in his nearly 20-minute address but did not utter Biden's name. Trump also spent some of his last time in the White House huddled with advisers weighing final-hour pardons and grants of clemency. Trump plans to depart from Washington Wednesday morning in a grand airbase ceremony that he helped plan himself. Biden at his Delaware farewell, held at the National Guard/Reserve Center named after his late son Beau Biden, paid tribute to his home state. After his remarks, he stopped and chatted with friends and well-wishers in the crowd, much like an Iowa rope line at the start of his long campaign journey. “I’ll always be a proud son of the state of Delaware,” said Biden, who struggled to hold back tears as he delivered brief remarks. After arriving in Washington, Biden went directly to an evening ceremony at the Reflecting Pool near the Lincoln Memorial to honour American lives lost to COVID-19. He was joined by Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris who spoke of the collective anguish of a nation. “For many months we have grieved by ourselves,” Harris said. "Tonight, we grieve and begin healing together.” Biden followed with his own brief remarks, telling Americans that “to heal we must remember." As he spoke with 400 lights representing the pandemic victims illuminated behind him, he faced the statue of Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War president who served as more than 600,000 Americans died. As he turned to walk away at the conclusion of the vigil, he faced the black granite wall listing the 58,000-plus Americans who perished in Vietnam. Inaugural organizers this week finished installing some 200,000 U.S., state and territorial flags on the National Mall, a display to represent the American people who couldn’t come to the inauguration, which is restricted under the tight security and Covid restrictions. It's also a reminder of all the president-elect faces as he looks to steer the nation through the pandemic with infections and deaths soaring. Out of the starting gate, Biden and his team are intent on moving quickly to speed up the distribution of vaccinations to anxious Americans and pass his $1.9 trillion virus relief package, which includes quick payments to many people and an increase in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Biden also plans to unveil a sweeping immigration bill on the first day of his administration, hoping to provide an eight-year path to citizenship for an estimated 11 million people living in the U.S. without legal status. That would be a major reversal from the Trump administration’s tight immigration policies. Some leading Republican have already balked at Biden's immigration plan. "There are many issues I think we can work co-operatively with President-elect Biden, but a blanket amnesty for people who are here unlawfully isn’t going to be one of them,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who is often a central player in Senate immigration battles. But Biden's legislative ambitions could be tempered by the hard truth he faces on Capitol Hill, where Democrats hold narrow majorities in both the Senate and House. His hopes to press forward with an avalanche of legislation in his first 100 days could also be slowed by an impeachment trial of Trump. As Biden made his way to Washington, five of his Cabinet picks were appearing on Tuesday before Senate committees to begin confirmation hearings. Treasury nominee Janet Yellen, Defence nominee Lloyd Austin, Homeland Security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken and Director of National Intelligence nominee Avril Haines were being questioned. Yellen at her confirmation hearing urged lawmakers to embrace Biden’s virus relief package, arguing that “the smartest thing we can do is act big.” Aides say Biden will use Wednesday's inaugural address — one that will be delivered in front of an unusually small in-person group because of virus protocols and security concerns and is expected to run 20 to 30 minutes — to call for American unity and offer an optimistic message that Americans can get past the dark moment by working together. To that end, he extended invitations to Congress' top four Republican and Democratic leaders to attend Mass with him at St. Matthew's Cathedral ahead of the inauguration ceremony. As Biden presses bipartisanship, he's also facing pressure from his left to go big right away, with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party calling on Senate Democrats to help by doing away with the chamber's filibuster. “We are glad President-elect Biden is ready to start addressing the desperate needs of the American people and put forth a Covid aid proposal which begins to address the many issues we face,” the progressive groups Justice Democrats, Sunrise Movement and New Deal Strategies wrote in a memo on Monday. “We hope ten Senate Republicans will support it, but are not holding our breath. The big question is, what happens when Republicans block Biden?” Ahead of Biden's arrival, 12 U.S. Army National Guard members were removed from the presidential inauguration security mission after they were found to have ties with right-wing militia groups or posted extremist views online, according to two U.S. officials. There was no threat to Biden, they said. The officials, a senior intelligence official and an Army official briefed on the matter, did not say which fringe group the Guard members belonged to or what unit they served in. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. ___ Madhani reported from Chicago. Associated Press writers James LaPorta, Michael Balsamo, Darlene Superville and Alexandra Jaffe contributed reporting. ___ This story has been corrected to show that flags on the National Mall represent people who couldn't come, not COVID deaths. Bill Barrow And Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press JOHANNESBURG — South Africa's trailblazing Black food writer Dorah Sitole's latest cookbook was widely hailed in December as a moving chronicle of her journey from humble township cook to famous, well-travelled author. The country's new Black celebrity chefs lined up to praise her as a mentor who encouraged them to succeed by highlighting what they knew best: tasty African food. Now they are mourning Sitole's death this month from COVID-19. She was 65. In “40 Years of Iconic Food,” Sitole engagingly described how she quietly battled South Africa's racist apartheid system to find appreciation, and a market, for African cuisine. Her book became a holiday bestseller, purchased by Blacks and whites alike. Sitole's career started in 1980 at the height of apartheid when she was hired by a canned foods company to promote sales of their products by giving cooking classes in Black townships. She found that she loved the work. In 1987, Sitole became the country's first Black food writer when she was appointed food editor for True Love, one of the few publications for the country's Black majority. The magazine, and its competitor Drum, were known for giving Black writers, photographers and editors the freedom to write about the Black condition and experience. With stories that were about much more than food, Sitole described how traditional African dishes brought pleasure to families and communities in troubled times. She was known for her distinctive takes on well-known recipes and tips on how to make them on a budget. She won an avid readership and became a household name, even as South Africa's townships were roiled by anti-apartheid violence. When apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela became president in 1994, Sitole found new opportunities. She trained as a Cordon Bleu chef and got a diploma in marketing. She travelled across Africa to learn about the continent's cuisine, producing the book “Cooking from Cape to Cairo.” In 2008, Sitole's success was acknowledged when she was appointed True Love's editor-in-chief. Sitole's warmth and generosity is credited with opening doors for many Black chefs, food writers and influencers who are thriving in South Africa today. “Mam (mother) Dorah’s approach to food was a mixture of things. First, it was something that was driven by her background, she was very true to who she was," said Siba Mtongana, one of South Africa's brightest new chefs, who started out as food editor for Drum magazine and now has a television series and cookbooks. “She would take what we grew up eating and add a twist to them, and add flavours that we would not ordinarily have thought of putting together,” said Mtongana who has opened a restaurant in Cape Town, featuring food from all over Africa. She said Sitole imbued her with a passion for exposing the world to Africa's many cuisines saying she loved describing to her readers what others enjoy eating across Africa, and around the world. Another chef who credits Sitole for assisting her is Khanya Mzongwana, a contributing editor for food retailer Woolworths’ Taste magazine. “Mam Dorah wore so many hats — she was a writer, a creator, a mother, a friend, a real artist. I remember just how awesome it was to see a Black woman blazing trails in food media. Nobody was doing that," said Mzongwana. “What made Mam Dorah the best was definitely how she could fill a space with pleasantness," said Mzongwana. “She was so generous with her resources and wanted to see all of us — her daughters — win. Paying it forward in meaningful ways is something I saw Mam Dorah do first," she said. “She loved and respected everybody and made what seemed like such a wild dream appear so reachable and normal. She was one of the most impactful Black women in the food world.” Sitole received numerous awards for her contribution to South African culture. In one of her last interviews, Sitole said the highlight of her four-decade career was her trip across the continent. “I had always wanted to travel through Africa and I had no clue what to expect," she said on Radio 702. "It was almost like you don’t know what you are going into, and then you find it. I loved every moment and every country that I went to, I loved the food and the experience." Mogomotsi Magome, The Associated Press The union representing thousands of Mounties says it fears pandemic-related delays at the RCMP training depot will worsen its staffing crunch and increase the risk of officer burnout. "The RCMP [has] always had a challenge, from our perspective, of having enough resources in the field," National Police Federation president Brian Sauvé told CBC News. "Either through attrition, retirements, resignations or not enough candidates coming through the door — we can't meet the demand." Before the pandemic put life on hold, the force had 1,280 cadets (40 troops, each made up of 32 Mounties-in-training) enrolled for the 2019-2020 year. But the force temporarily suspended its training program in March and sent 16 troops home before they were able to finish the program in Saskatchewan. After a mandatory 14-day isolation period, cadets have started to return to the training facility. According to the RCMP's departmental report (which casts ahead to the 2021 year), the force is still hoping to graduate about 500 cadets this year. But it remains unclear how that pause might affect the RCMP's overall vacancy rate, which a spokesperson said won't be calculated until April. Sauvé said that while he's impressed with how the RCMP has implemented new safety protocols for returning cadets, he fears the delay will undermine hiring goals across the country. "It's still going to be for everybody, whether it's us or any other police service, a challenge to make up that backlog due to the stall," he said. According to statistics provided to CBC, the RCMP's overall vacancy rate sat at less than one per cent of the service's officer total — 19,050 regular member positions — as of April 1, 2020. The vacancy rate is particularly high in certain parts of the country. The Yukon, for example, has a vacancy rate of 12 per cent. Even after adding more officers, a quarter of shifts in the Moncton, N.B. region did not meet a minimum staff threshold last year. The Codiac Regional Policing Authority Board attributed that situation to the number of Mounties off work on long-term sick leave. The union has asked the federal government, through its pre-budget consultations, for $190 million to increase training capacity at the RCMP academy. It's also asking the RCMP to double the number of troops it moves through the academy every year. Sauvé said the force risks exhausting its front line officers — especially in smaller, under-served areas — by not filling those vacancies. "If there aren't enough people around, they will sacrifice their personal time, their family life and their annual leave in order to get the job done. So that leads to burnout," he said. "That leads to people who are being overworked, overstressed. It leads to a multitude of things — early onset operational stress injuries, post-traumatic stress [and] extended leaves of absence when that burnout culminates. "And also it leads to a degradation of family life, where you have children that don't see their parents that often. You have spouses who get disappointed in the fact that your husband, wife or partner who is a member of the RCMP is never home." Audit flags recruiting issues A June audit of the force's national recruiting program, first reported on by Blacklocks this summer, flagged a number of gaps in the RCMP's approach to recruitment. "With increased demands for police officers and in the absence of clearly defined suitability criteria, [regular member] recruitment focuses on the quantity of applicants with less focus on the quality of applicants," said the audit. In a statement to CBC, an RCMP spokesperson said the police service is in the midst of developing new strategies to recruit new members. "These initiatives are aligned with RCMP senior management's commitments to identify, attract and retain the skills, experience and competencies the organization needs to remain agile and successful in carrying out its responsibilities," said Robin Percival. For example, Percival said, the RCMP is looking to recruit more civilian employees in its federal policing wing, which covers organized crime, national security and cybercrime. "These efforts are also expected to have positive impacts in terms of increasing diversity and equitable representation across the RCMP workforce," she said. Sauvé said he hopes a new collective bargaining agreement between his union and the RCMP — which, when it's completed, will be a first in RCMP history — will make a career in the police force more attractive. "We're hoping to fix that through collective bargaining and ratifying a contract through the next year. But it is a policing problem," he said, adding that "you don't see the young kids today running around playing cops and robbers and wanting to grow up to be a police officer as much as they want to grow up to be a paramedic or a teacher or a fireman. "So as police services grow, we really need to, all of us, need to look at how we're going to make policing a more attractive profession for those who are considering a life in service to Canada." MILAN — European car sales plunged by nearly a quarter last year as the pandemic provoked the worst crisis ever to hit the capital-intensive industry. New car registrations sank by 23.7%, or 3 million vehicles, to 9.9 million units, according to new figures released Tuesday by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. It said lockdowns and other restrictions “had an unprecedented impact on car sales across Europe.” All major markets recorded double-digit declines, down 32.3% in Spain, 28% in Italy and 25% in France. Germany suffered a more contained 19% drop. December sales were just 3.3% lower than the previous year, but performance varied drastically between markets. Italy and Spain both had double-digit dips, Germany gained 10% while Spain was flat. Germany’s Volkswagen shed 3% in market share, while gains were posted by PSA Peugeot and Fiat Chrysler -- which on Monday officially launched as a new merged entity -- as well as Toyota. The Associated Press Potential COVID-19 variant found at Ontario long-term care homes The Canadian Red Cross has been deployed to a Barrie long-term care home in the midst of an outbreak. As Morganne Campbell reports, officials are looking into whether the virus is a mutated variant. The race against the virus that causes COVID-19 has taken a new turn: Mutations are rapidly popping up, and the longer it takes to vaccinate people, the more likely it is that a variant that can elude current tests, treatments and vaccines could emerge. The coronavirus is becoming more genetically diverse, and health officials say the high rate of new cases is the main reason. Each new infection gives the virus a chance to mutate as it makes copies of itself, threatening to undo the progress made so far to control the pandemic. On Friday, the World Health Organization urged more effort to detect new variants. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a new version first identified in the United Kingdom may become dominant in the U.S. by March. Although it doesn’t cause more severe illness, it will lead to more hospitalizations and deaths just because it spreads much more easily, said the CDC, warning of “a new phase of exponential growth.” “We’re taking it really very seriously," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious disease expert, said Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press.” “We need to do everything we can now ... to get transmission as low as we possibly can,” said Harvard University’s Dr. Michael Mina. “The best way to prevent mutant strains from emerging is to slow transmission.” So far, vaccines seem to remain effective, but there are signs that some of the new mutations may undermine tests for the virus and reduce the effectiveness of antibody drugs as treatments. “We’re in a race against time" because the virus “may stumble upon a mutation” that makes it more dangerous, said Dr. Pardis Sabeti, an evolutionary biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Younger people may be less willing to wear masks, shun crowds and take other steps to avoid infection because the current strain doesn’t seem to make them very sick, but “in one mutational change, it might,” she warned. Sabeti documented a change in the Ebola virus during the 2014 outbreak that made it much worse. MUTATIONS ON THE RISE It's normal for viruses to acquire small changes or mutations in their genetic alphabet as they reproduce. Ones that help the virus flourish give it a competitive advantage and thus crowd out other versions. In March, just a couple months after the coronavirus was discovered in China, a mutation called D614G emerged that made it more likely to spread. It soon became the dominant version in the world. Now, after months of relative calm, “we’ve started to see some striking evolution” of the virus, biologist Trevor Bedford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle wrote on Twitter last week. “The fact that we’ve observed three variants of concern emerge since September suggests that there are likely more to come.” One was first identified in the United Kingdom and quickly became dominant in parts of England. It has now been reported in at least 30 countries, including the United States. Soon afterward, South Africa and Brazil reported new variants, and the main mutation in the version identified in Britain turned up on a different version “that’s been circulating in Ohio ... at least as far back as September,” said Dr. Dan Jones, a molecular pathologist at Ohio State University who announced that finding last week. “The important finding here is that this is unlikely to be travel-related” and instead may reflect the virus acquiring similar mutations independently as more infections occur, Jones said. That also suggests that travel restrictions might be ineffective, Mina said. Because the United States has so many cases, “we can breed our own variants that are just as bad or worse” as those in other countries, he said. ___ TREATMENT, VACCINE, REINFECTION RISKS Some lab tests suggest the variants identified in South Africa and Brazil may be less susceptible to antibody drugs or convalescent plasma, antibody-rich blood from COVID-19 survivors — both of which help people fight off the virus. Government scientists are “actively looking” into that possibility, Dr. Janet Woodcock of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told reporters Thursday. The government is encouraging development of multi-antibody treatments rather than single-antibody drugs to have more ways to target the virus in case one proves ineffective, she said. Current vaccines induce broad enough immune responses that they should remain effective, many scientists say. Enough genetic change eventually may require tweaking the vaccine formula, but “it’s probably going to be on the order of years if we use the vaccine well rather than months,” Dr. Andrew Pavia of the University of Utah said Thursday on a webcast hosted by the Infectious Diseases Society of America. Health officials also worry that if the virus changes enough, people might get COVID-19 a second time. Reinfection currently is rare, but Brazil already confirmed a case in someone with a new variant who had been sickened with a previous version several months earlier. ___ WHAT TO DO “We’re seeing a lot of variants, viral diversity, because there’s a lot of virus out there,” and reducing new infections is the best way to curb it, said Dr. Adam Lauring, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Loyce Pace, who heads the non-profit Global Health Council and is a member of President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, said the same precautions scientists have been advising all along “still work and they still matter.” “We still want people to be masking up,” she said Thursday on a webcast hosted by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We still need people to limit congregating with people outside their household. We still need people to be washing their hands and really being vigilant about those public health practices, especially as these variants emerge.” ___ AP Medical Writer Carla K. Johnson in Seattle contributed reporting. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Marilynn Marchione, The Associated Press China's Geely teams up with Tencent on smart car tech China's Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, which owns Volvo Cars and holds 9.7% of Daimler, said on Tuesday it has signed an agreement with Tencent Holdings Ltd to develop smart vehicle cockpit and autonomous driving. In the latest such partnership in the fast-evolving sector, the companies will jointly develop smart car cockpits to have more mobile and mobility service applications, and explore testing of autonomous driving, Geely said in a statement. Sustainable investing experts say TC Energy Corp.'s plan to decarbonize the Keystone XL pipeline is unlikely to save its fortunes, as a growing movement to divest from fossil fuels gains political clout. U.S. President-elect Joe Biden intends to sign an executive order on inauguration day to rescind the presidential permit for the Keystone XL pipeline issued by his predecessor Donald Trump, according to transition documents. The company in turn announced that its plan for the Keystone XL project would achieve net zero emissions when it is placed into service. Biden’s move to rescind the permit for the project, which has faced controversy over its effects on landowners, Indigenous groups and the environment, may not be a surprise for investors who followed the project during Barack Obama’s administration, said Olaf Weber, research chair in sustainable finance at the University of Waterloo. But, Weber said Biden has sent a strong signal — that more projects could be cancelled — to the group of investors that were already questioning the future of Canada’s oilsands. Weber said coal and oilsands are considered particularly risky under increasingly popular standards of environmental, social, and corporate governance investing. "Generally ESG considerations do not automatically exclude certain industries," said Weber. "But there is definitely a high risk for the oilsands, in particular, that they will have less investment in the future." Weber said it could be possible for Canadian companies like TC Energy to fit into the ESG framework for some institutional investors. Royal Dutch Shell, for example, has told investors it won’t add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere starting in 2050. But Weber said that globally, financial investment is moving away from fossil fuels, particularly those that are most carbon intensive, in countries that have signed onto the Paris Agreement. He pointed to Kommunal Landspensjonskasse or KLP, Norway’s largest pension fund, which in 2019 cut four Canadian energy names from its investment list, aiming to divest from companies that derive more than five per cent of their revenue from the oilsands. Other international financial firms, like BlackRock, have made broader calls on corporations to consider climate-change risks. While the energy sector represented 23 per cent of foreign direct investment in Canada as of 2018, that was down one per cent from the prior year, according to Natural Resources Canada. "From an international perspective, we have already seen investors go out of the oilsands, " Weber said. "Canadian investors, they hesitate doing that, because it's a very strong industry in the country." In the past few years though, some sentiment has shifted. In June, 15 Canadian universities said they would regularly begin measuring the “carbon intensity” of their portfolios and would reduce it over time. In November, eight Canadian institutional investors, including the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec and Alberta Investment Management Corp., called on corporations to standardize their ESG disclosures. Former Bank of Canada and Bank of England governor Mark Carney now works on ESG issues for Brookfield Asset Management. Leanne Keddie, an assistant professor at Carleton University who studies sustainability accounting, said that these types of institutional investors have plenty of sway on companies' actions. Whether TC Energy's plan will impress ESG-focused banks and investors is the "magic question," she said. "I would think it would be difficult for them — not impossible, but difficult — to try to convince investors that this is a good financial risk," Keddie said. "You're seeing banks, finance institutions shifting away from these types of investments, too. So. I would say if Biden does cancel it ... it's just another endorsement for shifting away from these types of energy sources." While TC Energy's carbon-neutral pledge for Keystone might reassure investors, it also might be coming too late, said Ryan Riordan, director of research at the Institute for Sustainable Finance at Queen's Smith School of Business. Riordan noted that the average investor has already become much more interested in ESG. "There are investors that were perhaps, up until now, on the fence, who now throw their hands up and say... 'It's not going back to the old, Exxon, Shell, BP world. It's a new world, and so I'm going to get out of these types of investments,'" said Riordan. "But there are probably very few non-ESG-sensitive investors left." Riordan added that even those who aren't interested in the ESG framework may be skeptical of TC Energy's path forward. "Decarbonizing projects isn’t free ... so while the reputational or environmental risk around carbon might be dealt with, it's really just making a project more expensive," said Riordan. "Investors generally don't like risk, and this is just adding another layer of risk to to a project." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 19, 2021. Companies in this story: (TSX:TRP) — With a file from Brett Bundale, Dan Healing and James McCarten Anita Balakrishnan, The Canadian Press Toronto businesses getting digital help after being forced to compete online due to COVID-19 Some Toronto business owners are getting help with e-commerce as government rules aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 are forcing them into the digital marketplace — and into competition with established online brands. The Chinatown Business Improvement Area (BIA) has hired two students to assist local businesses with setting up online sales and digital marketing strategy. A study conducted by the BIA found that area businesses have been struggling to establish an online presence. Many have been unable to build web pages or even set up basic business profiles on platforms such as Google or Facebook. "They're not on those platforms. They rely mainly on word of mouth," fourth-year U of T student Della Zheng said in an interview. Zheng is one of the students now working with the BIA. She started by surveying Chinatown businesses for their online presence. As a 24 year-old who does most of her shopping online, the results were a reality check. "More than half of them don't have a Google My Business profile online. And that's really surprising to me," she said. Language barrier Making matters worse, the Chinatown area, centred on Spadina Avenue and Dundas Street West in downtown Toronto, relies heavily on foot traffic and in-person sales, which has become heavily restricted in Ontario, especially now that the entire province is under a state of emergency and a stay-at-home order. As well, according to the BIA, Mandarin- and Cantonese-speaking business owners looking to get their shops and restaurants online are also confronting a language barrier in the mostly English-speaking world of e-commerce. The organization hired students who speak all three languages. Tonny Louie, chair of the Chinatown BIA and owner of Grossman's Tavern, says sales at local businesses are down between 60 and 100 per cent. "All the businesses are down. People are suffering, especially the restaurants, and there's no end in sight," Louie said in an interview. It was feedback from owners, Louie said, that pushed the BIA into helping them get online. "We have a fabulous group of staff members that are reaching out to businesses to tell them how to do it," he said. Digital Main Street Grant It begins with setting up a basic online presence for a business, Zheng said. She is also helping them use the Spotify e-commerce platform. Zheng then takes 360-degree digital photos at the businesses that can be uploaded online for virtual browsing or just so customers can get a sense of where they're shopping. The BIA is also connecting business owners with the Ontario government's Digital Main Street Grant, which can provide up to $2,500 to help businesses adapt to new technologies and embrace digital marketing. "Our government recognizes that small businesses impacted by necessary public health measures will require support and additional resources to adapt to new ways of doing business, such as greater e-commerce capability," said Rebecca Bozzato, spokesperson for Vic Fedeli, Ontario's minister of economic development, job creation and trade. The province is also assisting small businesses with other programs, including one that provides one-on-one tech support, as well as a grant to purchase personal protective equipment. In a statement, Fedeli's spokesperson also added that the new Ontario Small Business Support Grant will provide up to $20,000 to eligible small business owners to help them through the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic and government restrictions. Scientists racing to understand new COVID-19 variants and whether they will derail vaccination efforts After the virus behind COVID-19 spent 2020 wreaking havoc around the globe, this year started with a bit more hope — vaccination efforts were ramping up, after all — and a tinge of fear. Multiple new coronavirus variants have been discovered across several continents, from Europe to Africa to South America. Confirmed cases keep popping up in dozens of countries, Canada included. Scientists are now racing to understand these sets of mutations, all while concerns are growing over their ability to infect people more easily or, in some cases, potentially evade the army of antibodies we create after being infected or vaccinated. And since widespread transmission means this virus has ample opportunities to mutate again and again and again, these variants won't be the last. They're just the ones we know about. "The more opportunity we give to the virus to replicate, to make more viruses, the more opportunity there is to see that variant of concern — one that won't be mitigated by our vaccines that we've developed," warned Alyson Kelvin, a virologist at Dalhousie University and the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. After months of work to develop safe, effective vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the scientific community now faces a race against time to ward off that scenario. There's also a looming question: What happens if we don't? Variants could 'very rapidly' become prevalent Kelvin, one of the many Canadian researchers involved in vaccine development, said preliminary data shows that the sets of mutations identified so far don't yet seem to be an issue for current coronavirus vaccines. That's the good news. It's the "yet" she finds troubling. "We have to stay on top of this problem," Kelvin said. But while new variants might throw a wrench in efforts to suppress transmission by popping up like a game of global whack-a-mole, those ongoing mutations were actually expected, not surprising. That's because each virus has a singular goal of replicating itself. With tens of millions of people helping move the coronavirus back and forth between hosts, that means countless replications. Some of those contain random, insignificant mistakes. And when the mistakes prove beneficial to the virus, helping it produce more copies, those errors can become a new normal of sorts — a variant. It's just evolution at work, said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University's Center for Global Health Science and Security in Washington, D.C., and incoming research scientist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. "What concerns me the most is that the epidemiological data that goes along with some of these variants suggests they could very rapidly become very prevalent — effectively out-competing the other variants in a given area — in a short period of time," she said. WATCH \| How countries can control emerging coronavirus variants: Could new variants decrease immune response? Researchers speculate that may be what happened with B117. The variant was first discovered in the U.K. late last year and is now the country's dominant strain of the coronavirus — with various officials suggesting it's at least 50 per cent more transmissible. (Cases have been confirmed in several provinces in Canada as well, and testing is ongoing.) In the short term, more transmission means more infections, hospitalizations and deaths, Rasmussen said, which offers an incentive for countries to slow case growth. Doing so would both save lives and cut off channels for the virus to spread and mutate. "It's also possible that variants may arise that decrease the effectiveness of our immune response to the virus," said Matthew Miller, a member of the Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster University and the McMaster Immunology Research Centre in Hamilton. "But also, of course — and perhaps more worryingly — the immune responses elicited by the currently approved vaccines." WATCH \| A new coronavirus variant spreads through Brazil: For scientists in Brazil, there's already legitimate cause for alarm. "We have detected a new variant circulating in December in Manaus, Amazonas state, north Brazil, where very high attack rates have been estimated previously," read the preliminary findings posted online by a research team led by Imperial College London virologist Nuno Faria. The new lineage, dubbed P1, contains a "unique constellation" of mutations in the crucial spike protein, which helps the virus penetrate human cells, the report continues. The variant was detected in 42 per cent of samples collected during a stretch in December, but not in samples collected in the months before. Those new cases also appeared even though an estimated three-quarters of people living in Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon region, had already been infected. Faria's report stressed that could mean an increase in transmissibility — the same issue with B117 — or even an ability to reinfect people. Vaccines 'modifiable' in face of new mutations According to Rasmussen, antibodies seem to have a reduced capacity to neutralize this kind of virus variant based on the spike protein mutations. Echoing Kelvin and Miller's concerns, she said that's a key problem, "because if you acquire enough of those mutations, you may get to a point where you have a variant capable of evading vaccine-induced immunity completely." But again, it's not all dire news. Just because antibodies are less effective doesn't necessarily mean someone would have reduced immune protection, Rasmussen explained, since the body's immune response is looking at the entire spike protein, not just certain areas that might have a set of mutations. Miller also noted that while the spike protein tends to be most prone to changing in the face of immunological pressure, there are other vaccine candidates in development that are designed to elicit broader immune responses against a greater array of viral targets to stay one step ahead. WATCH \| Scientists still researching whether vaccine prevents COVID-19 transmission: "Even in the worst-case scenario, that we see some of these variants spreading and we get a partial response, it's probably going to mean that the health-care complications, the deaths, are still going to be greatly controlled by a mass vaccine campaign," said Dr. Zain Chagla, an infectious disease specialist at McMaster University. And, thankfully, research teams can also pivot, redeveloping existing coronavirus vaccines to target any variants that may prove capable of evading the ones already rolling out globally. The novel mRNA vaccines, including the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna options currently approved in Canada, are among those that can be more easily tweaked. Those vaccines provide instructions — messenger RNA — to cells, allowing them to make their own spike protein, which someone's immune system can recognize and fight off in the future. "That is their genius, that they're completely and rapidly modifiable," Chagla said. "The packaging is there, the delivery method is there, all you need to do is change the mRNA sequence." The sooner people get vaccinated, 'the better' But while the flexibility of vaccination development is reassuring for the long term, it doesn't tackle the problem at hand: COVID-19 still has its grip on much of the world, the death toll keeps climbing and vaccination efforts remain a race against time as emerging variants keep throwing a wrench in efforts to curb transmission. "The sooner that we can get a vaccine into people, the better," Kelvin said. To save lives and keep health-care systems from collapsing while vaccination programs scale up, she stressed that Canadians also need to ramp up the basic public health precautions that should now be routine. Physical distancing, mask-wearing, hand-washing, staying away from crowds and enclosed spaces — it all matters, perhaps now more than ever, to slow transmission and give the virus fewer opportunities to spread and evolve. That buys time for Canada to hit its tenuous goal for 2021: getting everyone vaccinated, without any variants getting in the way. New patients lead rise in claims for antidepressants A company that manages pharmaceutical benefits for some seven million Canadians says it's seeing a dramatic increase in insurance claims for antidepressants such as Prozac, Celexa, Paxil and Zoloft. Express Scripts Canada says claims for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, increased by 17 per cent last year over 2019, and says the spike rose to 20 per cent around Thanksgiving. The company says the increase is driven largely by first-time patients, and says the trend is expected to continue as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers. "It's going to be a very, very challenging period over the upcoming months," said Dr. Dorian Lo, a medical doctor and president of Express Scripts Canada, the largest private claims administrator in the country. "It's clear that folks are suffering." Lo said he expects SSRI claims in 2021 to outpace pre-pandemic levels by as much as 25 per cent. Medication 'can absolutely save lives' The soaring number of prescriptions places added pressure on mental health services that support first-time patients who are going through what could be the darkest time in their lives, according to advocates. "To put it bluntly, people's lives are at stake. This far too often results in a suicide or suicide attempt," said Pharmacist Jen Baker, who owns Pharmasave Loyalist Pharmacy in Amherstview, Ont. We need systems in place to support individuals who are suffering. - Jen Baker, Ontario Pharmacists Association Baker, who also chairs the board at the Ontario Pharmacists Association, said SSRIs can bring people back from the brink. "Especially when symptoms are becoming unbearable ... medication in this case for mental health can absolutely save lives." But she warned there need to proper mental health supports in place as well, particularly for patients being prescribed these drugs for the first time. "We need systems in place to support individuals who are suffering," Baker said. Lack of support Dr. Alykhan Abdulla, chair of the Ontario Medical Association's family and general practice section, said doctors are seeing more patients seeking help to deal with depression-like symptoms than ever before. Not all of them end up on SSRIs, he said, but the lack of support for those who are prescribed antidepressants for the first time can affect their long-term recovery. Abdulla said most patients will begin to recover within six to eight months of starting a new prescription, but without additional therapeutic support, what might have been an isolated episode could become a chronic mental illness. Abdulla said few physicians also provide therapy, and their patients can wait years to see a psychiatrist. Despite new investments by the province, publicly funded options are especially limited. Not all employers cover private therapy, and some of the patients who need it most have no private insurance, he said. "The people that are in the greatest need for therapy for mental health are the ones the most challenged to get the help they need," Abdulla said. "This is unfair." He said the spike in claims for SSRIs only tells part of the story: physicians have also been prescribing more sleeping aids and anti-anxiety medication, and have been treating more patients for other physical symptoms of stress. "We're really seeing a lot of people being challenged for all kinds of reasons, so I would put the number closer to maybe 40 per cent with need for medication during this time of this pandemic," Abdulla said. Need help? Here are some mental health resources:	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1684
__label__cc	0.552639	0.447361	There are 1.8 million people looking for work in Australia; immigration rate is unsustainable by the ABC and Cairns News Net migration of 245,400 Australia’s immigration rate has become unsustainable now that 1000 additional people entered the country each day up to June 2017. Treasurer Scott Morrison is correct when he says there were 371,000 new jobs created over the past year. Australia’s population swelled by 388,000 in the year until June — which is more than 1,000 people being added to our population every day. However, it doesn’t necessarily make life any better for the people who live in the country and arguably, makes it a lot worse. This is more people competing for jobs and housing, pushing down wages and pushing up property prices. Australia’s population growth is extraordinarily high when compared to our global peers, at 1.6 per cent per year. This is more than double the rate of the US, nearly three times the rate of the UK, and four times the rate of France. On current projections, Australia will hit 38 million people by 2050. This high rate of population growth is driven mostly by high immigration. Middle Eastern migrants are piling on to the dole queue — with a 33 per cent jobless rate during their first five years in Australia. The Labor, Liberals and Greens are doing what that Fabian sycophant Bob Hawke did in the 80’s – importing potential voters Net migration was 245,400 people over the past 12 months — which was a 27.1 per cent increase over the year before. That’s more than the total population of Hobart in new migrants coming to the country in a single year. Worse still, a large number of the migrants indentify as Muslim, unbalancing the nation’s Christian foundation and way of life. The simple economic rule of supply and demand means these new workers effectively lower the price of labour, which means lower wages. A huge intake of new workers makes economic sense if you don’t have enough workers in order to do the jobs you need to get done. But with 700,000 in the unemployment ranks already, we simply don’t need these migrants. Immigration has been the foundation of Australia’s economic growth, so what would happen if we “close the door”? questions Ian Verrender. It also makes sense to run a real skilled migration program in order to attract the talent you can’t train yourself. For example, at the height of the mining investment boom, attracting talent from overseas made sense in many occupations to allow projects to be built. Although be careful when talking about ‘skill shortages’. Often it isn’t a case of there not being enough people with those skills. Instead, it’s a case of businesses not being willing to pay enough money to attract people and thus choosing to sponsor foreigners who will work for worse pay and conditions arriving on 457 and holiday visas. Then to add insult to injury the Liberal Party Government slapped those back packers and overseas workers with a 15 per cent income tax. Previously they worked in the farming industry without paying any tax at all. Farmers objected strongly saying crops would be left in paddocks to rot, because the majority backpacker workforce would not come to Australia for a working holiday on farms. Consequently a group representing foreign backpackers has taken the government to court over what it says is an unfair tax. Raw deal for Australian workers, where are the unions and the ALP? Australia is not currently anywhere near full employment. At 5.4 per cent unemployment, Australia is well above the US which is sitting at 4.1 per cent and the UK at 4.2 per cent. There are currently 707,000 unemployed Australians. These are people actually looking for work. But that’s only part of the story as there are currently about 1.1 million Australians who are ‘underemployed’. These are people who are currently working (perhaps as little as one hour a week) but want to work more hours. So the number of Australians currently looking for more work is 1.8 million. There is still a huge amount of ‘slack’ in the labour market which is keeping people from getting a decent pay rise. Companies are much less likely to offer big pay rises to workers if they know there’s a big supply of other workers who are desperate for a job or more hours. What’s really worrying, is despite the Government crowing about creating ‘1,000 jobs a week’, there are only 20,000 less unemployed Australians than there were a year ago. The economic ‘growth’ hasn’t made a sizeable difference to the amount of Australians unemployed and has left us with the worst wages growth since the 1960s. Posted in 417 visa, 457 visa, 9/11, ABC, Agenda 2030, ALP, backpackers, Centrelink, Corporate Government, Food Security, International Treaties, Liberal Party of Australia, Muslim, Muslim Issues, Pauline Hanson, refugees, Sharia Law Tags: Centrelink, Immigration, Middle east, Scott Morrison, unions	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1686
__label__wiki	0.784947	0.784947	The Shaw University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award the associate, baccalaureate, and masters degrees. Contact the Commission on Colleges at 1866 Southern Lane, Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097 or call 404-679-4500 for questions about the accreditation of The Shaw University. The Shaw University is accredited by The Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada [10 Summit Park Drive, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15275-113: Telephone number (412-788-6505 or 800-367-8250)] to award the Master of Divinity and Master of Religious Education degrees. The Athletic Training Education Program (ATEP) is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education (CAATE). Adapted Physical Education: Kinesiotherapy is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP). The Social Work program is accredited by the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). The Teacher Education program is accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Education Preparation (CAEP), and is approved by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI). Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association Cooperating Raleigh Colleges Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs Commission on Accreditation of Athletic Training Education Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (formerly NCATE) Council of Independent Colleges Council for Social Work Education Council on Undergraduate Research National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education National Association of College and University Business Officers National Association of College Deans, Registrars and Admissions Officers National Association of Colleges and Universities National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators New York University Faculty Resource Network North Carolina Association of Colleges and Universities North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Southern Association of College and University Business Officers The Carolinas Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers United Negro College Fund, Incorporated Shaw University exists to advance knowledge, facilitate student learning and achievement, to enhance the spiritual and ethical values of its students, and to transform a diverse community of learners into future global leaders. (Approved by the Board of Trustees on October 16, 2008) Expanded Statement of Purpose Shaw University was founded in 1865 by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of the Baptist Church to provide theological education to freedmen after the Civil War. It is a private, coeducational, liberal arts institution of higher learning with the main campus located in Raleigh, North Carolina, and nine satellite campuses dispersed throughout the state. Shaw University is committed to providing educational opportunities to all segments of society without regard to race, creed, or ethnic origin. However, as the oldest historically African-American university in the south, it has maintained a special interest in the education of minorities from diverse backgrounds, with academic potential for success. Consistent with its motto, Pro Christo et Humanitate (For Christ and Humanity–that religion and learning may go hand in hand, and character grow with knowledge), Shaw University seeks to empower students with a sense of moral purpose based on Christian principles that provide guidance for intellectual and personal growth. Shaw University is committed to the transformative educational process of preparing graduates for citizenship in the twenty-first century workplace and for graduate or professional school, and seeks to instill in its students a philosophy that values lifelong learning, leadership, and service. In order to meet the challenges of a global society, Shaw University endeavors to develop graduates who are broadly educated in the liberal arts and sciences, possessing the knowledge and skills required of all disciplines, and the competencies associated with their chosen fields of study. Students who successfully complete undergraduate degree programs at Shaw University will demonstrate proficiency in critical and creative thinking, an ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing; proficiency in mathematical reasoning skills, scientific inquiry, technological and information literacy, an awareness of and commitment to ethical judgment, awareness of global issues, knowledge of diverse human cultures, and a commitment to personal and social responsibility. Students enrolled in graduate degree programs will, upon graduation, be able to demonstrate advanced knowledge in their chosen discipline. The mission of Shaw University is to advance knowledge, facilitate student learning and achievement, to enhance the spiritual and ethical values of its students, and to transform a diverse community of learners into future global leaders, by providing quality educational programs and services to students that prepare graduates to lead productive lives and successful professional careers as citizens in a globally competitive society. Central to the accomplishment of this mission is the recruitment and retention of qualified faculty and staff, who possess the qualifications and expertise to actively support students in the learning process. The University demonstrates its commitment to teaching and learning by providing quality educational programs and services in a safe and supportive learning environment, which meet the needs of students, promotes personal growth and development, and fosters academic achievement and student success. In addition to teaching and learning, Shaw University strives to create and maintain an academic climate that promotes the scholarship of research and the pursuit of new knowledge through active research programs. The University also recognizes its responsibility to instill in students, the importance of making a difference, not only in their own lives, but in the lives of others, by partnering with local communities to provide services that improve the human condition and contribute to the betterment of society. (Approved by the Board of Trustees on May 7, 2010) On December 1, 1865, when Henry Martin Tupper undertook the organization of a theology class as a means of teaching Freedmen to read and interpret the Bible, no one envisioned the end result of this being the establishment of a university. Rapid growth in the size of this class led to the purchase of land in 1866 for the purpose of erecting a building to serve as both church and school. The school was named the “Raleigh Institute,” and it functioned as such until 1870, when it was supplanted by the “Shaw Collegiate Institute.” In 1875, it was incorporated as the “Shaw University,” which name it still bears, with the charter specifying that students were to be admitted without regard to race, creed, or sex. The school does not bear the name of its founder but of Elijah Shaw, the benefactor who provided funds for the first building, Shaw Hall, erected in 1871. The coeducational emphasis of the institution was noted with the erection of the Estey Seminary (1873), the first dormitory in the United States for “Black Women.” Named for its primary benefactor, Jacob Estey, the building was used as a residence hall for women until 1968 and for men from 1968 to 1970. The building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and now serves as a cultural center for the Raleigh community. The University graduated its first college class in 1878, its first class of medical doctors in 1886, awarded its first law degree in 1890, and its first pharmacy degree in 1893. In 1909, the Normal Department was supplanted by an Education Department, and in 1910, the Preparatory Department became a four-year academy. The professional schools were closed in 1918, but the college, theological department, and academy were continued, the latter existing until 1926. The theological department became a theological seminary in 1933 and continued as part of the University until 1976, when it became an independent institution. Since 1921, Shaw has functioned primarily as a liberal arts college, although it has retained its name as a university. In 1931, the University elected its first Black president, Dr. William Stuart Nelson, who was president from 1931 to 1936. In 1963, the University elected Dr. James E. Cheek, an alumnus of Shaw University as its ninth president. He remained president from December 1963 through June 1969. Dr. Talbert O. Shaw, the 12th President of Shaw University (1987-2003), led the institution in its “Strides to Excellence: Why Not the Best” campaign. He and Shaw University were the subject of a March 1994 cover article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the leading college and university professional publication. The article focused on the University’s recent history, remarking on the great strides it has made and the momentum it has developed. Dr. Clarence G. Newsome served as the 13th President. Under his administration, cutting-edge technological advances were installed; land acquisition increased; professional partnerships were established; and faculty, staff, and student morale showed signs of positive improvement. His vision, “A New Shaw for a New Millennium,” coupled with “Strides to Excellence: Only the Best” characterized the administration of Dr. Newsome. Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy was named Interim President in June, 2009. Dr. Yancy served as the 14th and first female President of The Shaw University. Under her leadership, the University restructured its debt and greatly improved its CFI (Composite Financial Index) ratio - an indication of institutional viability and completed renovations to over 17 campus buildings. Prior to Shaw University, Dr. Yancy served as the 15th President of Johnson C. Smith University. In September, 2010, Dr. Irma McClaurin was named 15th President of Shaw University. Among Dr. McClaurin’s goals was to establish, foster, and nurture a culture of collaboration and partnerships, specifically related to what she described as the four Es (E4) - employment, economy, education, and emerging technologies. Dr. Dorothy Cowser Yancy returned in September of 2011 to take the helm of Shaw University as its 16th President. The focus, during her tenure, has been strategic planning to build institutional capacity to support teaching, research and service, create financial stability and growth, enhance student success and competitive edge, create innovation and development, and enhance community engagement and service. Dr. Gaddis Faulcon was named Acting President in January 2014. Dr. Faulcon, who served as a faculty member and the Dean of the College of Graduate and Professional Studies at Shaw University, has chosen the following priorities for the University: to increase retention; to increase enrollment at the CAPE sites; and to improve the customer service experience across the academy.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1694
__label__wiki	0.630112	0.630112	Netflix’s Castlevania Series is Blood-Soaked Excellence. While calling Netflix’s animated Castlevania series a full season is a bit misleading – it’s essentially four 25-minute episodes that feel more like a prologue to a much larger endeavor – what has been delivered, however brief, is an utterly fantastic adaptation of one the most beloved and enduring videogame franchises in the medium. It also stands firmly on its own merits, regardless of your history with the series. Castlevania: Season One is based loosely on the third game of the franchise, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, which was released for the NES nearly thirty years ago and, chronologically speaking, is essentially the beginning of the Castlevania narrative. (Though there are some earlier games on the timeline) In an interesting twist, the first episode is dedicated to the backstory of Dracula (Graham McTavish) – a reclusive exile living in his grandiose but lonely castle – as he is sought out by a young, ambitious woman (Emily Swallow), unafraid of his reputation and moved to seek his guidance and wisdom as a student of science. Bemused and intrigued by her courage and passion, he invites her to stay as his guest and study the knowledge he has accumulated over the centuries. Sometime later, having fallen in love, they are married and Dracula, on a sabbatical at the urging of his wife for the purpose of reconnecting with humankind, arrives home to discover she has been burned at the stake as a heretic and a witch, specifically because of her pursuit of science. Enraged, Dracula grants humanity one year before he unleashes a supernatural, genocidal campaign to obliterate what he sees as the human scourge entirely from the planet. This backstory is an intriguing slant on a character that has been traditionally unsympathetic and portrayed as largely malevolent, imbuing his actions with a bit of sympathetic justification, regardless of his admittedly evil machinations. The notion of Dracula being a solitary hermit whose rage is awakened by a craven and brutal act against the love of his life is a unique way to set up the character as something more than a two-dimensional megalomaniac and despot. The show then shifts to an introduction of Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage), member of House Belmont, a family that for generations swore an oath to defend humanity against supernatural malignancies. However, the proliferation of Christianity has seen the Belmont clan excommunicated and disgraced by the Catholic Church, with Trevor now a wandering vagabond and drunkard who stumbles upon a conflict between a corrupt bishop and a group of seers called The Speakers, who are being scapegoated for the dark violence now spreading throughout the countryside. Among their ranks Trevor makes a rapid alliance with a powerful female sorcerer, Sypha Belnades (Alejandra Reynoso), and the two unite to pursue an end to Dracula’s menace. There’s a significant amount of world-building in Castlevania, astutely woven into a pre-existing, mosaic-like mythos which has been essentially pieced together by numerous games over the years. Though only a handful of prominent characters are introduced in the course of four short episodes, all of them are fleshed out relatively well, especially Trevor, who, though a bit of a sullen grump, is given several opportunities to let his heroics shine as tensions escalate. As animated shows go, Castlevania enjoys a solid script. Penned by veteran comic book scribe Warren Ellis, the story he weaves in these first episodes is tight, focused, and enjoyable. While there is an occasional bit of clunky dialogue or odd bit of humor that falls flat, most of the writing is quite good and the voicework is, overall, superb. Likewise, the visuals are respectable and though not spectacular, they effectively emulate the disparate aesthetics of the numerous games within the franchise and arrive at a type of visual compromise that manages to represent the overall look and feel of the series cohesively. Where the show truly shines however is the action, which is excellent and reflective of a game franchise that has always been, primarily, a combat-driven endeavor. Trevor’s talents as a warrior are given plenty of screen time and the battles are fast, frantic and filled with the types of excessive, over-the-top flourishes that might look downright silly in a live action film but come off as nothing less than stellar in an animated movie. Of note are battles Trevor has with a basement-dwelling cyclops and an epic confrontation with another series mainstay, Alucard (James Callis), resulting in a protracted fight that sees both combatants pulling out all the stops as they try to best each other. It’s also important to note that the whip – the primary weapon of the franchise – is utilized to its fullest potential here, with Trevor wielding his consecrated weapon to strike down both human and non-human enemies alike with nimble ferocity. Castlevania is also an unapologetically violent affair, with copious gore, dismemberment, and even some genuinely disturbing scenes of hapless villagers being slaughtered by Dracula’s encroaching horde of satanic beasts. While this violence is never gratuitous, it does brand the series as something meant for mature viewers instead of some trite, Saturday morning TV show aimed at selling cereal and cheap, plastic toys. Animation here in the U.S. has always struggled for legitimacy among older viewers and Castelvania is further evidence that an animated series can offer mature, compelling content. The only problem with the series is that this first season simply feels half-baked. The whole thing can be watched in well under two hours and ends abruptly, just when things really begin to get interesting. While I’m encouraged that Netflix has already ordered a second season, I sincerely wish they had invested a bit more money into making this first season something more substantive. It’s not an exaggeration to say that season one of Castlevania feels more like a tease of something larger and more ambitious and hopefully, that promise will come to fruition when season two arrives at a later date. Regardless, Castlevania is a fantastic, fun romp through a familiar franchise that should make the majority of fanboys (and girls) grin widely. It’s the kind of thing I’m a bit shocked was even made but more surprising is that it is clearly a labor of love and dedication, fashioned by a creative team who respect the source material enough to make it a worthy extension of an already prolific and intriguing fictional continuum. Let’s hope season 2 can keep up the pace. Friday the 13th: The Game. Why Developers and Publishers Should Be Taking Notes. Released less than two months ago, Gun Media’s Friday the 13th: The Game, developed by IllFonic, has already achieved considerable buzz among gamers and horror enthusiasts. I bought it on the PS4 as soon as it was released and have enjoyed my time with it immensely. While the game is admittedly rough around the edges, I’m actually quite impressed with what such a small studio has accomplished within a modest timeframe and more importantly, they seem committed to patching the game post-release to ensure the experience only gets better. Regardless of those inevitable, indie-related growing pains, Friday the 13th represents precisely the type of interactive experience developers and publishers should be examining closely, if not outright cribbing. I recently had a conversation with a friend after he had an opportunity to play the game and we both agreed it was astounding that it had taken this long for something like Friday the 13th to get made and perhaps even more mystifying is that larger developers and publishers aren’t currently scrambling to follow suit. The central conceit of the game is succinctly brilliant: a group of online gamers are assigned the roles of camp counselors and one person is randomly designated to play as Jason Voorhees. The gameplay takes place in a semi-open world map replicating key locations from the franchise and the counselors must essentially survive or flee as they are hunted, individually, by Jason, who is in possession of a myriad of abilities that make him persistently lethal. The counselors, while given some offensive options like weapons and distractions, are by design grossly underpowered. The best they can do is slow Jason down and try to escape or avoid Jason long enough to make it to the end of the gaming session. When distilled, Friday the 13th is basically an interactive version of hide-and-seek, which emulates the thematic arc of the franchise exceptionally well and also creates a genuinely tense and evocative horror atmosphere. As previously mentioned, the game has some technical issues and its presentation reflects a relatively modest budget, yet none of this dilutes the enjoyment of the simple, direct premise, which is to play through a truncated version of a Friday the 13th episode as either the victim or Jason. However, there’s a broader takeaway from this game, specifically that the premise is so effectively simple yet undeniably engaging that other games based on existing horror franchises could very easily be made, with larger studios dedicating more extensive resources into creating these types of titles. Judging by the word-of-mouth and overall response to this game, there appears to be a largely untapped market emerging and I would estimate the demand for this type of software will only increase as trailblazer developers help to further define what it is that consumers want. To be fair, Friday the 13th isn’t entirely without contemporaries. Dead By Daylight, created by Behaviour Interactive, operates on a similar premise and even has an additional level that mimics John Carpenter’s seminal classic Halloween, allowing a group of online players to be stalked by Michael Myers in a level that astutely replicates Haddonfield. Also, while markedly different in terms of gameplay, developer Creative Assembly released the much-lauded Alien: Isolation back in 2014, a single-player game largely defined by having to run and hide from the infamous xenomorph. There are also examples like Evolve, where a single player assumes the role of a large monster while the remaining participants band together to take it down. But even with these handful of games occupying space and mindshare in the marketplace, the reality is that Friday the 13th still manages to differentiate itself for several key reasons and these reasons are precisely what other studios and their publishers should be examining more closely. First and foremost, it’s clear that developer IllFonic loves this movie franchise and understands it, a fact that is readily apparent in every facet of the game’s execution. Developed in tandem with Kane Hodder – the quintessential cinematic Jason – and horror icon Tom Savini, this game oozes with fandom credibility and reflects the genuine passion of those involved. This is crucially important because when examining the history of videogames based on pre-existing intellectual property, it is astounding how many of those games were clearly made by people who had little emotional investment in what they were creating. And while this game is most certainly a product, it’s a product made by people who obviously adore the source material and their desire to accurately emulate the look and tone of the films is why – regardless of a smattering of technical foibles – the game is largely successful at doing just that. Perhaps even more compelling however is how perfectly suited gaming is to further the horror genre. Videogames are predicated on interactivity – they require proactive, concerted involvement rather than passivity. Horror is perfectly situated to become a dominant genre within gaming because the nature of horror – usually founded on the exploration of the unknown or the survival of a character against insurmountable odds – lends itself perfectly to a playable construct. As soon as you find a match and begin playing Friday the 13th, you are struck immediately by the atmosphere. Yes, there is silliness abound, be it other players doing puerile things or occasional glitches, yet there are also moments that can only be described as sublime horror at its finest: Walking through the forest with tendrils of fog swirling about. The sound of your footsteps as you move through an empty cabin engaged in solitary exploration. The iconic Jason music echoing abruptly in your ears, causing you to glance wildly around and forcing you to consistently look over your shoulder. Lastly, I think it’s important to note the impact of Friday the 13th being an online-centric endeavor. I’m personally not a huge fan of online multiplayer and tend to gravitate towards solitary experiences but the multiplayer aspects of Friday the 13th are crucial, as it lends to the proceedings two very interesting and important components, namely that the game often requires collaboration with others to survive and that communal aspect of the game is both intriguing and unique within a horror setting. Also, while I’m sure having a CPU-controlled Jason would be plenty fun, having him controlled by a person who is hunting you down is quite thrilling. Most game AI still hasn’t reached a level yet where it simulates a flexible intelligence and rapid adaptation to situations but a person in possession of these attributes makes every encounter very unpredictable, which subsequently amps up the tension and scare factor. When tallying these intriguing components, my mind swims with the possibilities for other horror-related games: Imagine a Nightmare on Elm Street game where players are thrust into a dream world where they are not only stalked by Freddy but must endure and survive an environment that can be directly manipulated by their nemesis. Envision a Hellraiser game where players must navigate the seemingly endless labyrinth of Hell, piecing together clues to escape or attempting to find and solve the Lament Configuration. What about a Predator game where a group of humans are pitted against the eponymous extraterrestrial hunter and must unite to take down a vastly superior foe? Or a JAWS game where a collective of players hunt the beast as it stalks them from beneath the waves of Amity? Ultimately, Friday the 13th is a legitimate game-changer and the lessons that other studios can and should glean from IllFonic are numerous and potentially very profitable. Let’s hope the right people are paying attention. Nintendo Quest: An Enjoyable Romp Through the Retro-Verse I’ve tried to watch just about every gaming-related documentary out there. Truthfully, there’s not that many but each time something like Man Vs. Snake hits the market, I’m usually quick to nab a copy and delve into the subculture of gaming, which I continue to find fascinating. My own experience with this medium started at approximately three years of age and hasn’t slowed and I am forever fascinated by anything that allows me to view this world through a different lens. Gaming – despite still being a relatively new medium when compared to its closest cousin, film – has been around long enough to have developed an interesting and expansive history and that history is now effectively being archived by a legion of collectors, artists, and enthusiasts, something I mentioned in my previous blog. Nintendo Quest is easily one of my favorite gaming documentaries, as I adore slice-of-life endeavors and I can also relate to the heady nostalgia of this particular era of gaming. For those of us who grew up in the NES era – an era largely defined by an entire medium that was essentially rebounding on the shoulders of one innovative company and their console – there are few things that resonate more than the look and feel of classic NES cartridges and Nintendo Quest is a fun, well-made distillation of that period while simultaneously offering an interesting peek into the lives of retro-game collectors. The premise of the film is simple: director Rob McCallum challenges his close friend Jay Bartlett to collect every single game released on the NES in North America – 678 in total – in 30 days. The biggest stipulation to this challenge is that Jay cannot purchase these games from online retailers but instead must acquire them physically, in-person. This sets up an unapologetically geeky road trip spanning several states and encompassing visits to numerous small, retro-shops along with interviews and discussions with several like-minded individuals about the almost intangible magic of the NES and its many, many games. Jay is also working within a fixed (though undisclosed) budget, meaning that he must manage his money carefully given that some of the harder to find NES games often suffer from astronomical grey market values. These negotiations are of particular interest, as Jay is continuously trying to balance his need to get a game versus his ever-dwindling resources. Essentially a road trip documentary, the viewer is given a sense of Jay as an amiable and decent fellow who enjoys an extensive knowledge of the NES library. As he acquires cartridges, each game collected is tallied on screen so that the viewer has a running log of his progress. Jay is a savvy collector and seems to possess a firm grasp on fair market values of the games he is purchasing, always careful never to pay too much and sometimes walking out of stores that have inflated prices, poor selections, or staffed with people unwilling to haggle. He’s also privy to generous transactions with friends over the course of his journey, many of whom drop a handful cheap cartridges into his lap, some of which are relatively rare and valuable. Along the way Jay also meets up with an eclectic and varied stream of interesting, like-minded collectors and enthusiasts, among them several gaming luminaries including Marc Ericksen, Walter Day and Todd Rogers. The film also gives the viewer a concise history of the NES, punctuated by testimonials from NES devotees who explain what this system and its library means to them. McCallum also injects some gravitas into the proceedings as the film proceeds, specifically delving into Jay’s turbulent past with his now-deceased father along with his attempt to acquire a rare and expensive title, which clearly carries some hefty emotional significance. These intermittent doses of pathos however never feel overwrought or artificial but rather do a solid job of mining the deeper compulsions and motivations that compel people to collect and subsequently examines the weight we give these cherished objects, which is something I can personally relate to as a collector myself. The film is also interesting in that it gives viewers an education about the most valuable and rarest NES games being coveted by collectors, many of which are relatively obscure titles valued primarily for their scarcity rather than their excellence. Many of the most expensive games aren’t necessarily the oft-cited classics usually associated with the NES but instead are, ironically, the stuff that didn’t sell particularly well back in the day or suffered short production runs. There’s a certain alchemy to what makes something collectible; most products advertised as such never become even remotely valuable and what is interesting about this film is that many of the rare games being pursued have their own interesting backstories, some of which make it into the movie. Interestingly, the most valuable game in the documentary is one I have only a vague recollection of and certainly isn’t a title I immediately associate with the storied legacy of the NES. I won’t reveal here if Jay is successful in his attempt to garner the entire NES library in 30 days but what I can state is that Nintendo Quest is a fun and good-natured examination of the gaming subculture presented through the eyes of collectors, all of them clearly moved by their respective passions. More than anything however, this documentary is a celebration of the NES, it’s library, and the many people who glean enjoyment from its numerous software. It also acts as a proponent regarding the importance of preservation, emphasizing the need to archive the artifacts of this medium before they gradually erode away entirely. I first stumbled onto this film some months back on Amazon Prime and enjoyed it enough to purchase a copy for the very reasonable sum. Only available on DVD (I doubt the Blu-ray format would add much to the proceedings given the nature of the camera work and cinemaphotography), the disc is a bit sparse in terms of additional content but given the price and the quality of the film, it is easily recommended nonetheless. Nintendo Quest is also available on iTunes and I hope it garners a widespread notoriety among gaming fans and collectors at it most certainly deserves it. Why Retro? Some see it as a regression. I see it as something else entirely. Recently a very close friend of mine began collecting film on VHS. It’s a cheap hobby, with most of his acquisitions coming from yard sales and the occasional, dusty stock of a local thrift store. There’s practically no market for used VHS – it’s essentially a dead, discarded format with very little appeal to entice and motivate collectors to preserve them. Outside of some incredibly rare specimens, VHS tapes sell very cheaply and my friend has picked up his entire VHS library for pennies on the dollar. Now bear in mind that my friend is also a videophile and has a profoundly learned understanding of HDTV technology. At the slightest provocation, he can rattle off detailed technical information about the latest advances in the market. In short, he takes visual fidelity very seriously. He and I have spent endless hours discussing the advent and proliferation of streaming versus the visual superiority of Blu-ray. We constantly compare notes when sitting down to watch the latest horror film remasters from Arrow Video and Shout Factory!, marveling at how exceptional these prints look. Yet, not only does my friend keep an archive of VHS cassettes in his viewing room but he also intends to eventually have a little corner station set up so that he can play these tapes on a VHS player. He plans on pumping the signal through a thirty year-old CRT television. As we all know, this is going to look atrocious when compared to the pristine, high res images we’ve all become accustomed to. So, the question is why? Why expend time, energy and resources to watch films in an inferior way? Why do collectors spend so much time tracking down old vinyl, films, and video games that could be just as easily downloaded? While I won’t answer for my close friend, I will state that from my own experiences, the answer is simple: HISTORY. When my buddy began his collection a few months ago, he asked me if there was anything I might like to own on VHS. I gave him an accounting of my favorite films and told him if he came across anything on the list, to nab them and I’d reinburse him. Since then, he’s actually delivered a generous smattering of awesomeness, including an original copy of The Empire Strikes Back in worn but good condition and a copy of Ghostbusters, factory sealed. The latter is of some significance to me because Ghostbusters was one of my favorite films growing up and when it was released on video, it retailed for close to 100 dollars. Owning a copy was something that wasn’t possible back then so when my friend tracked me down a new-in-the-box copy of one of my very favorite childhood movies, there was something almost cathartic about finally owning it. While I obviously have the Blu-ray sitting on my shelf that offers a picture and sound quality infinitely superior, that VHS cassette is not only a part of the storied history of the medium – it is a part of MY history; a once unattainable item from my youth now in my possession. The irony is that this VHS copy – even factory sealed – is worth practically nothing and yet it’ll adorn my collection forever as something to be cherished. My friend also tracked down a copy of JAWS – one of my Personal Top Ten Films – and the kicker here was that this was a video store copy from a local shop that had closed down nearly a decade ago. This particular store served the surrounding community for more than thirty years before it shuttered and not only had I and my family rented from there innumerable times, I’m almost positive this particular copy of JAWS – a movie I forced my parents to rent continuously as a child – is the exact copy we checked-out repeatedly . When I think about the trajectory that tape has followed to eventually wind up in my possession, this time permanently, it makes me smile. This is an old copy – three decades or more – and the fact that it exists outside of a landfill is practically miraculous, as is the fact that my friend managed to acquire it and returned it to me. When I consider that tape, I can remember my much younger self in that now defunct video store, looking at the back cover, and in doing so, recollecting a very different time. What is truly special about these artifacts – these relics of the past – is that the history they carry is both of the medium itself and also of the thousands of hands that grasped that case and watched that film, including my own. I recently reviewed an exceptional retrospective art collection by Bitmap Books called the NES Visual Compendium, which highlights numerous games from the Nintendo Entertainment System, specifically their pixel art. One thing I took away from that book was how powerful nostalgia is and how often people seem to regard it in a dismissive way instead of embracing what a compelling, heady bit of time travel it truly is. Human beings are largely a collection of experiences, and those experiences, and how we respond to them, make up a significant part of who we are. These images and objects can, like a talisman, ignite something deep in the psyche. They can fire synapses and flood our mind with rich, warm memories. And that really is a remarkable thing. After the recent announcement of the SNES Classic, it has been astounding to watch people get excited about the impending release of a micro-console that plays software from two decades ago. And while just about every game on that list is admittedly exceptional, I think there is also a strong pull to the aesthetics of the hardware. Like the NES Classic, people want to play these games on something that looks like the SNES, using controllers that are essentially replicas of what they used twenty-five years ago. And that brings me back around to retro-collecting and a defense of those who seek out vintage film and games (and all their many peripheral trappings) to the confusion of some. Scouring all corners of the globe for software that can often be attained easily (legal or otherwise) probably strikes many people as an inconceivable and unnecessary time sink. Yet there really is nothing quite like holding an artifact of the past – your past – in your hand. Downloading a ROM of Mega Man 2 and playing it on your current console or PC is fine. But it is a decidedly different experience than having the actual cartridge, replete with the artwork and tactility of that grey little treasure, in your hand before putting it into a NES and powering it up. Cultural history takes many forms and what is shocking is how much of that history is lost to landfills, carelessly discarded as new conduits for our media emerge. We have transitioned to a digital age. A time when media is so much encrypted data on hard drives and disposable devices. Retro-collecting isn’t about hoarding or being stuck in the past; it’s about acknowledging that past and giving what came before some semblance of recognition and posterity. In many ways, the retro-enthusiast has become something of a curator. And when I consider the vast and interesting output of the many sites, authors, Twitter feeds and everyday collectors who compile and share these important vestiges, I am moved by their appreciation for a history that their hobby will help to preserve. Be Proud of What You Do, Fellow Collectors. It’s More Important Than You Might Think.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1696
__label__wiki	0.888842	0.888842	Darkness, Spreading Its Wings of Black Chapter V: But For the Grace of God DCU Rebirth Report: 7/6/16 Big Two, Big Two Reviews, DC Comics, Reviews Interview: Nicole Goux and Dave Baker Commit to "Murders" Indie, Interviews, Small Press Mister Terrific #4 Gerard Way: Flexing His Writing Muscles with Umbrella Academy Canteen Kate: A perfect example of why I love running this Classic Comics Cavalcade Preview: '(In A Sense) Lost and Found' by Roman Muradov from Nobrow Press News, Previews Review: 'Kickstarter for the Independent Creator: A Practical and Informative Guide To Crowdfunding' Frank Miller’s Ronin: “If You Intend to Die, You Can Do Anything.” When Frank Miller’s Ronin hit the nation’s comic shops in the summer 1983, it arrived with an impact few observers of the industry had ever seen before. The comics world’s most popular creator stepped away from the security of corporate-owned super-heroes to deliver a graphic novel as bizarre, idiosyncratic and experimental as any published up to its time. Ronin was a bold attempt to deliver a work far outside the mainstream, created by a man at the top of his career. And yet, by the end of the series, Miller was seen as too outré, too unique and experimental for his own good. His star, once so ascendant, rapidly plummeted to Earth. It took the incredible success of 1986’s Dark Knight Returns to return the acclaimed writer/artist to creative prominence and restore him as perhaps the most important commercial comics innovator of his era. Classic Ronin teaser ad, displayed at comic shops. Notice you can’t tell anything about the comic from the image. The irony, as we’ll discover in this set of columns, is that Ronin is a stunningly risky project which should have helped grant him tremendous professional respect. It’s a deeply important and satisfying graphic novel that demonstrates the promise not just of one artist but of the entire art form. Over the next six weeks, I plan (with the help, hopefully, of some of my friends) on exploring the strengths and weaknesses of this outrageous book. Will Eisner, perhaps the most innovative artist in the history of the medium, told Miller his book was “pretentious bullshit”, but was it really bullshit or was it a brilliant innovation in comics art? Was it a great creative leap forward or a creative dead-end? We’ll look at some of the history of this book but also look at Miller’s incomparable storytelling and explore the exceptional ways he builds his most important inventive motifs and stylistic quirks. We hope you will enjoy these columns and offer your comments on them. A Quick History By 1983 Frank Miller had a matchless position in the history of his artform. He was the hottest creator in a medium which itself was red-hot. He was acclaimed by fans and critics alike as one of the most exciting innovators in comics history. Miller learned the lessons of the great Will Eisner and gave them a modern noir sheen. Similar to Eisner, Miller delivered stories rich in both astonishingly clever rendering and tremendously memorable characters. The ending to the classic first appearance of Elektra His 35-issue run on Daredevil helped to make the young auteur into a celebrity. Taking on a moribund title slated for cancellation, Miller’s spectacular storytelling, combined with smartly written stories immediately began driving increased sales. With the introduction of the mysterious and beautiful Greek ninja Elektra in Daredevil #168 (Jan. 1981), those increasing sales started to reach a fever pitch. In a rare cases of quality driving sales, Daredevil became the hottest series on the stands awhile also the most creatively interesting American monthly. Under the young innovator, Daredevil received a noir makeover as he placed Daredevil and Elektra at the middle of a vendetta from the Kingpin. It’s a sign of Miller’s considerable power that his art and writing is still considered definitive some thirty-five years after it initially appeared. It helped matters that the material he delivered was legitimately great and compelling. As I discuss in an essay on the fateful Daredevil #181, his writing and art quickly became impeccable as his work quickly achieved a stunning maturity. Miller was so popular he could essentially name his own price for his next job. That’s exactly what he did. Jenette Kahn, Publisher at DC Comics, aggressively courted him to migrate to her company and help drive sales there. She guaranteed Miller nearly complete artistic freedom and an extremely favorable contract to deliver his next creation through DC. After some contemplation, he jumped and began producing the ideas that would lead to Ronin. “The New Era in Comics” sometimes got very weird The early 1980s were a creatively fecund era for comic art, with new publishers and a heady mix of old and new creators delivering some of the most innovative material ever delivered. First Comics, Eclipse, Comico, Fantagraphics, Pacific and a slew more imprints delivered thrilling material that seemed to promise a new era in comics (“for the new era in comics!” was the motto for Pacific). Thus Ronin seemed to be riding a wave of innovation and euphoria in specialty retailers, perhaps arriving as the apotheosis of thrillingly modernist comic art. It should be noted Miller didn’t necessarily make the best financial decision for himself in jumping. Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter essentially promised his popular creator a blank check to deliver a series through Marvel’s Epic line, which already published books from then-luminaries such as Jim Starlin, Steve Englehart and Sergio Aragonés. If he had released his series through Epic, Miller would have retained all rights to his creation. Instead, all reprints of Ronin carry both a copyright for both him and DC. The most popular Epic Comic of all time was written by Frank Miller: Elektra Assassin But whatever the way he arrived there, the choice was to work with DC Comics. There he received tremendous creative freedom as well as the chance to do almost anything he wanted. After dabbling in a few covers and miscellaneous short stories for DC, Miller found his opus. He delivered a six-issue mini-series unlike any that had appeared before it, a true graphic novel about a boy in the future possessed by the spirit of a ronin (a masterless samurai) in the classical Japanese period. Part of what made Ronin so special was that Miller brought in influences from manga to create the book. In the early 1980s, Japanese comics were extremely hard to find. No American publishers were releasing manga. As he reveals in an interview conducted by Peter Sanderson in Amazing Heroes #25 (June 15, 1983), the artist had to travel to Los Angeles to find copies of Kozure Okami, a 10,000 page samurai adventure. “As I looked at them, it was obvious they were the best comics I’d ever seen,” Miller reports in the interview. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s got to be perfect storytelling. The rendering just fascinated me. It was so unlike what we do.” Comic shop poster for Lone Wolf and Cub with art by Miller That manga, of course, is known to us as Lone Wolf and Cub, and it’s due to Miller’s evangelism of the masterwork that it was soon brought to the US. Lone Wolf became the first regularly-published manga in America when First Comics started a long run in 1987 (with covers by Miller). Before its publication, translated manga was rare, limited to one-offs such as the Hiroshima memoir I Saw It which served a political or social agenda. Along with the Japanese influence, there is also a strong European influence in Ronin. Scenes set in the technological future owe much to of European masters such as Enki Bilal and especially the legendary Jean Giraud, a.k.a. Moebius. That material was also difficult to find. Much of it wasn’t translated into English, so borrowed books provided fuel for the creative fire. The influence from French science fiction produced a vision of the future in which technology felt organic; as Miller reports in the same interview: “What mainly interests me about French science fiction comics beyond the fact that Moebius is very simply a master of his craft is the fact that they manage to do work that looks to me very future-oriented. It’s very technological, but at the same time very organic, and at the same time it’s cartoons, not illustration.” So what we have in Ronin is a young creator at the top of his game moving into areas rarely explored in America. He presented work that synthesized Lone Wolf and Cub, French sci-fi and his own robust storytelling sense into a novel years ahead of its time. Even Miller stated, “I really won’t know for a long time whether I caught up with it. It’s just like what Daredevil was to me: laboratory time. This whole project is a very big experiment for me.” Just a small preview of the amazing storytelling we will soon be discussing The package was a crucial element of what set it apart. Ronin was published on deluxe paper and sold for the absurdly high price of $2.50 per issue when most Marvels sold for 60¢. That deluxe presentation was very much part of the plan: “Everything is affected by this better printing and better color I’m getting. It’s affecting the writing; it’s affecting the drawing.” Miller stated. Wrapping up the package was the gorgeously empathetic coloring by Miller’s girlfriend Lynn Varley and the fact that – in a first for American mainstream comics – a creator’s name was listed above the title. Each cover bore the tagline Frank Miller’s Ronin. The blood-spattered name in big bold letters took on symbolic importance as this was clearly his pet project. It escaped nobody’s attention that his billboarded name was also expected to drive sales. Of course, nearly everybody who could spare two and a half bucks had to rush out and buy a copy of Ronin as soon as it hit the stands. Issues one and two sold phenomenally well. Until, that is, fans realized this was a weird graphic novel. Many were probably hoping for a continuation of the work he delivered for Daredevil, stories of ninjas and valiant heroes fighting for their lost loves. Ronin, by contrast, was more sophisticated, more psychologically rich and more intellectually complex than that melodramatic explanation. Ronin challenged readers, with an artistic approach truly ahead of its time. It was uncompromising and often bizarre. It was the “difficult second album” of Frank Miller’s career, and like many artists with second albums his fans quickly left him to follow other popular material. Ironically one of those hot new series became iconic. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, originally intended as a parody of Miller’s Daredevil, was the hot comic of the mid-1980s. The very first TMNT took its look directly from Ronin. It’s also pretty great. Sales plummeted as Ronin went on, and they weren’t helped by the fact Ronin #6 was several months late reaching shops. By the end of the run, retailer Bud Plant was literally using unsold copies as cordwood to light his wood stove. The reaction to Ronin helps explain the explosive popularity of Miller’s next major book, the iconic Batman: the Dark Knight Returns. After the massive hype and deep disappointment of Ronin, many retailers hesitated in investing in the even more expensive exploration of Batman’s future. To everyone’s surprise, though, Dark Knight became an overwhelming success and one of the best-selling comics of the 1980s. To this day, people such as Ben Affleck still talk about Dark Knight Returns with reverence. Though it didn’t sell well when first released, Ronin has never been out of print and has continued to gain accolades from fans and pros alike. It’s now seen in its rightful light: as an audacious, bold attempt by a young creator to step outside of his comfort zone. Many praise Miller’s daring and smart storytelling, while also praising his “fusion” art style. The love story at the center of the book also merits attention for its wonderful sweetness and intriguingly kind approach to the couple. Attention grabbing cover hyping Miller’s Dark Knight Returns Miller himself reflected, in the pages of The Comics Journal #101 in 1986: “Ronin was a process of liberation… So little has been done with comics, in the whole time they’ve been around that to push it like that made me feel like I was starting my career, I was starting my explorations of the form… One of the things that Ronin did was to dynamite my own and anybody else’s expectations of me. And now, I feel like playing around a lot.” I hope you’ll join me for the next six chapters of this series as I discuss this unique commercial comic book. Come with us to old Japan, to the Aquarius Corporation, and to the world Frank Miller creates. I think you’ll enjoy the journey and the destination. Frank MillerRonin Tiny Pages Made of Ashes 7/1/2016: Coming To Terms With The Self News Bulletin: For the Week of 6/27/16 Collecting Profile: Ronin (Marvel) Critical Mass: Are We Over-Analyzing Superhero Comics?	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1697
__label__wiki	0.805623	0.805623	Topics > Tees Valley > Eston About Eston Following the discovery of ironstone in the Eston Hills in 1841 the settlement of Eston became a thriving mining town. Ironstone mines were established at Eston in the early 1850s and were the major catalyst in the development of the areas iron making industry and the growth of Middlesbrough. Eston is a town in North Yorkshire, England. The local council, a unitary authority, is Redcar and Cleveland. Eston is next to Normanby, Grangetown and Teesville, indeed several institutions in Teesville and Normanby have Eston in their name, such as Eston Sports Academy and Eston Cemetery. It is included in the Redcar and Cleveland redevelopment initiative named Greater Eston. As with the rest of Greater Eston, it forms part of the Middlesbrough sub-division of the Teesside built-up area. The land around Eston has been occupied since 2400 BC. The 1841 discovery of ironstone in Eston Hills by industrialists from Middlesbrough (most notably Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan) saw Eston develop from two cottages in 1850 to a thriving mining town. Miners' cottages, although altered, can still be seen in parts of Eston. The mining history of Eston was the subject of A Century in Stone, which describes how the mines were responsible for making Teesside the iron and steel capital of the world. The film, by Craig Hornby of Pancrack Films, sold out in local cinemas and across Australia. The Teesside steel industry that was started from these mines eventually produced the steel that built the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Steelmaking continues on the Tees now: the mines have been closed for more than 60 years, after 100 years of production. Teesside steel became part of the nationalised British Steel Corporation, which in turn became the Corus Group. The Middlesbrough area became the world's leading iron and steel producing capital initially due to the output of the Eston mines. Eston is part of Redcar constituency and is represented by Labour Party MP Anna Turley in the House of Commons. It is part of the North East England European Parliament constituency, where it is represented by two Labour MEP's and one UKIP MEP. 2015 local elections results In the 2015 local elections, the following members were returned to Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council: Eston Square Eston Square, the shopping area on the main road passing through Eston, forms more of a triangle than a square. The square has a war memorial as its centrepiece – The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier – that shows the statue of a soldier atop a plinth. The plinth lists the names of local people who died during the World Wars. Two sides the square are lined with traditional terraced shops, while the third side has the 1960s-built Eston Precinct parade of shops. Eston Square provides an important retail facility for a much wider area than just Eston itself. While some of the shops are well maintained businesses, others, in the words of Redcar and Cleveland Council, "are in need of a facelift". As part of Redcar and Cleveland Council's Greater Eston Regeneration, improvements are planned, including the part-demolition of the Precinct Shopping Centre and the building of a new supermarket. For such a small town, there is a high number of popular public houses that serve people both from within Eston and from neighbouring towns like Normanby, South Bank, Whale Hill and Grangetown. Theses establishments contribute to a number of local sports leagues, with darts and pool having the most participants. The square has also been entered into the regional Northumbria in Bloom competition, with regular work being carried out by members of the Eston Residents Association. Eston has three major churches, two on the High Street and one in Whale Hill. Christ Church, the Church of England church in Eston, is the partner church to St. George's Church in Teesville. Christ Church is a traditionally designed church built in red brick. It features sixteen stained-glass windows in dressed sandstone settings that bring warm colourful light into the main body of the building; they are themed around saints. Similarly, St. Anne's Church, the Catholic church in Eston, is part of a larger parish, which includes the churches of St. Peter's, South Bank, St. Andrew's, Teesville and St. Mary's, Grangetown. The joint parish is served from, and carries the name of, St. Andrew's Parish. St. Anne's Church was built in 1970, although the Catholic community had existed as a distinct group for many years before that. Before the church was built a mass took place each Sunday at the Grangetown Royal British Legion Social Club. Eston Hills The town of Eston lies at the foot of Eston Hills, a ridge approximately above sea level, and a part of the Cleveland Hills. The same hills that overshadow Eston were used to warn of attack in the Napoleonic Era by a beacon, the remains of which can still be seen at Eston Nab. Eston Nab is also home to Bauer Teesside and aerials and transmitters. At only above sea level at its highest point, Eston Hills are classed as lowland heath. Wildlife includes lapwing, curlew, green woodpecker and linnet. There are various butterflies and dragonflies. The hills overlooking Eston are managed for their wildlife, archaeology and amenity. Many people use the hills for walking, cycling and horse riding. There are several self-guided walk leaflets, which take in points of interest. These are available at the Flatts Lane Woodland Country Park Visitor Centre, Normanby, Redcar and Cleveland. The Eston Hills provide access to the wider countryside via the public right of way network. The land owned or managed by the Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council is mostly bordered by farmland. Eston Nab commands an excellent view of the nearby Roseberry Topping, which stands higher at . Eston Cemetery Still in active use, Eston Cemetery it was established in 1863 and built as an extension to the church of St Helen, which has since been dismantled and rebuilt at Beamish Museum. Names on the gravestones tell the story of the families whose daily lives created the history of the wider area throughout the twentieth century until the present. The cemetery contains the war graves of 55 Commonwealth service personnel of World War I and 43 of World War II, including one unidentified Royal Navy sailor. Whale Hill Eston also includes the area of Whale Hill, which was built in 1966–70. Whale Hill has mixed tenure housing. It includes a social club and a row of shops, including a chemist, post office, supermarket, fish shop and a corner shop. The area also benefits from a large local community centre. William Henry Short V.C. (1884–1916) – born and lived at 11, William Street, Eston, until the family moved to Grangetown in 1900. He played football for Grangetown Albion and Saltburn and Lazenby United Football Clubs. He fought in the early stages of the Battle of the Somme where he was killed showing gallantry and devotion to duty. His name is recorded on the Grangetown war memorial and the obelisk in Eston Cemetery. Richard Douglas Sandford V.C. (1891-1918) - died as patient at Eston Hospital 12 days after the Armistice and buried at Eston Cemetery. He received the Victoria Cross for his gallantry in the Zeebrugge Raid in April 1918. Visit the page: Eston for references and further details. You can contribute to this article on Wikipedia. Tees Valley Eston Hills Normanby Redcar and Cleveland Eston Ironstone Mine (1850-1949) Eston, 1848 Map and Aerial View St Helen's Church (formerly of Eston) +Comment Timeline (2 events) Eston War Memorial Ironstone obelisks Tees-side trolleybus at Eston Square The Miners Arms pub Eston Ironstone Obelisk Eston Ironstone Fences Eston Station East Lodge, Eston - Overview Map The Eston Hills are outliers of the Cleveland Hills range. In 1850 ironstone was discovered in the Eston Hills which led large scale mining and the rapid growth of ... The Eston Hotel Normanby - Overview About Normanby Map Street View Normanby is an area in Redcar and Cleveland joining with Eston to the west and Ormesby to the east. NORMANBY-IN-CLEVELAND, a township, in the ... Eston Ironstone Mine (1850-1949) Eston, 1848 Map and Aerial View of Eston St Helen's Church (formerly of Eston) Normanby, Redcar and Cleveland District: Tees Valley Added by: Simon Cotterill , Last modified: 4 years, 1 month ago, Viewed:1714 times,	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1698
__label__wiki	0.607688	0.607688	This website uses its own and third-party cookies to improve your accessibility, customize your navigation, collect statistical information about your browsing habits, display advertisements and advertisements related to your preferences. If you continue browsing, we consider that you accept its use. You can change the configuration or get more information in Cookie Policy Do not show this advise anymore. "la Caixa" Foundation "La Caixa" collection access to my collection Supporting Creators Promoting Patronage Produce Artwork Works/ Artist/ Brazil, 1948 The work of Cildo Meireles comprises drawings, objects and installations that explore sensory experience in direct dialogue with the spectator. Throughout his body of work, he reflects on different social and knowledge spheres—the processes of communication, the role of the spectator, science, geography or economics—without adhering to any particular hierarchy in terms of materials or formats. Meireles is one of the most internationally influential contemporary artists, and a key figure to understanding the post-war, artistic avant-garde in Brazil. His work bridges the transition from the Neo-Concrete art of the late fifties (Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark and Lygia Pape), with its rejection of extreme rationalism in favour of a sensory, participatory art-form, to the generation of the sixties, committed to a political reality defined by the country’s military dictatorship (1964-1985) and forerunners of later work in the areas of Conceptual, installation and performance art. In his early work, Meireles largely focused on drawing, but in 1967—coinciding with his move to Rio de Janeiro—the medium lost some of its importance. The artist began working with the concept of a Euclidean space: a corner with three, octagonal, projecting planes. Through the study of volume and its application to three-dimensional artworks, he began to turn physical movement and the act of occupying a space into implicit elements of his work. One example can be found in Espaços virtuais. Cantos (1967-1968), a series of environments set up according to the geometric speculations of the artist. Up to that point, his work had been very formalist, but when the dictatorship tightened its grip in 1969, he responded by radicalising the political dimension of his art. The series ‘Inserções em circuitos ideológicos’ (1970) exemplifies this period, with Meireles alluding to the idea of exchange by examining the social mechanisms that govern the circulation of consumer goods and information. The most representative piece of the series, Projeto Coca-Cola , saw the artist printing critical messages like “Yankees Go Home” on bottles of the famous soft drink before reintroducing them into regular circulation. The work of Meireles falls under what has come to be known as “sensuous conceptualism”, an idea referring to Conceptual art that uses materials with the intention of engaging the senses and creating poetic environments. The real, the symbolic and the imaginary come together to strike a perfect balance that questions the traditional limits of artistic perception. Volátil (1980-1994) exemplifies this practice: it is a sealed room with a thick layer of talcum powder covering the floor. The smell of natural gas pervades the space, and the candle located at the very back of the room gives off a halo of pale light. Despite being open to multiple interpretations, Volátil is an attempt at associating sensory experience and emotion, resulting in an almost immediate sense of connection. It is also clear, however, that the artwork ventures into the terrain of fear. Over the past few decades, Cildo Meireles has mainly worked on enormous installation projects. Although frequently hostile in appearance, they invite the spectator to participate actively in their exploration, engaging all of their senses. Andrea Aguado Alemany Artworks by the artist included in the Collection Artworks by the artist included in the Collection © Fundación Bancaria Caixa d'Estalvis i Pensions de Barcelona, ”la Caixa”. All rights reserved. Legal notice and Privacy	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1699
__label__wiki	0.70151	0.70151	Chris Collins interested in the Illinois opening? By Raphielle JohnsonMar 15, 2012, 5:38 PM EDT With the Illinois position opening up after AD Mike Thomas fired Bruce Weber on Friday, there have been questions as to who Thomas would call on to fill the opening. Many jumped to throw Shaka Smart’s name into the ring as he worked with Thomas at Akron, where Smart was an assistant coach. But another name to keep an eye on is Duke assistant Chris Collins, who according to the Raleigh News-Observer could be interested in the position. The Northbrook, Illinois native did express that he would have interest should the opportunity present itself, but most importantly the Duke assistant is focused on the task at hand. That would be Lehigh, who the Blue Devils play on Friday in Greensboro. “To be distracted at this moment is not good. It’s not good for me, it’s not good for our team. I’ve tried to push all that stuff aside and really focus on being successful with this team in the NCAA tournament.” Regardless of who ends up getting the job there will be some areas on the roster that will need addressing. Meyers Leonard and Brandon Paul could both put their names into the NBA Draft, and with the NCAA deadline to withdraw being April 10 there isn’t much time for either a new coach or the player to get a full evaluation. Collins may not have head coaching experience but he’s got plenty of winning experience, and being involved in a program the caliber of Duke’s would have to be seen as an attractive selling point.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1700
__label__wiki	0.712333	0.712333	Team of the Week: Minnesota Golden Gophers By Rob DausterMar 4, 2013, 9:45 AM EST Team of the Week: Minnesota It’s crazy to think about, but Minnesota’s season may have been saved by six minutes of basketball from Trevor Mbakwe. He came out and set the tone against Indiana on Tuesday, knocking the Hoosiers — and, more importantly, Cody Zeller — back on their heels as Minnesota, for the first time in almost two months, looked like they were playing a confident brand of basketball. And, in the end, that’s what the issue was for the Gophers. We knew that this team wasn’t going to win games based on talent alone. They don’t have a true point guard, they don’t have all that many shooters and they don’t have a great low-post scorer. What they do have, however, are a team full of players with size, athleticism and toughness. They’re at their best when they’re defending and crashing the offensive glass. Effort, hustle and determination are how the Gophers succeed, and they finally got back to those winning ways this week. They have their senior center to thank for that. Team deserving of a shoutout: Creighton: Not only did the Bluejays go 2-0 this week and avoid the indignity of falling from the top 15 nationally to the bubble, but in the process they not only beat an in-conference rival in Wichita State, but they did so in the MVC regular season title game. Both the Shockers and the Bluejays were tied for the league lead entering the final game of the regular season, and Creighton won in dominating fashion. Think about this: They shot 33-47 from the field (70.2%), 11-21 from three (52.1%), 22-26 from inside the arc (84.6%) and 14-16 from the line (87.5%), which was why they were able to post 1.38 PPP. VCU: What VCU did to Butler wasn’t exactly a surprise, as the Rams were playing at home against a team that was mildly overrated and at a complete disadvantage given how the two teams matched up. But that doesn’t change the fact that pasting the No. 20 Bulldogs 82-54 was about as impressive as wins get. Louisville: The Cardinals picked up a big win on Saturday, as they went into the Carrier Dome and knocked off No. 12 Syracuse. The Cardinals have now won five straight games and eight of their last nine, but this was the first impressive win that Rick Pitino’s club has notched in a month. Hard to believe I’m typing this, but it feels like Louisville is a bit of a sleeper heading into the NCAA tournament. Marquette: The Golden Eagles are still sitting there at the top of the Big East, tied with Louisville for second place in the conference, one game behind Georgetown, thanks to wins this week over Syracuse and Notre Dame. And, unlike a lot of other teams this week, their success wasn’t the result of a single virtuoso performance by one player; Marquette is as balanced as any team in the country this season. Boise State: The Broncos have put themselves into great position to get into the NCAA tournament thanks to 38 points from Derrick Marks in a win over Colorado State on Saturday. with a trip to UNLV and a home game against San Diego State left before the MWC tournament, Boise State doesn’t have many chances left to make a major mistake before Selection Sunday. UCLA: Believe it or not, UCLA is currently tied for the Pac-12 lead with a trip to the Washington schools standing between them and a share of the league title. Who saw that coming back in November, when the Bruins were hemorrhaging transfers, losing to Cal Poly and hearing on a daily basis about how Ben Howland was on the verge of being fired? This week, they beat Arizona State and Arizona in Pauley Pavilion.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1701
__label__wiki	0.618442	0.618442	Radio Show: Playback Memphis Jeremy C. Park Playback Memphis believes that by empowering people to tell the stories of their lives, and by encouraging people to listen to these stories, they can help people see the dignity and worth in their personal experience, make meaningful connections with one another, and respect each other more fully. In 2006, after 10 years of studying and performing Playback Theatre in San Francisco and New York City, Virginia Reed Murphy returned home to Memphis to teach Playback theatre and build a professional company. After three years of training and development, the first Memphis Matters performance debuted at TheatreSouth in 2009. Be the Peace!, Playback Memphis’ anti-bullying program for schools, was launched in 2011. In 2012 Playback Memphis was one of six companies selected to perform at the North American Playback Theatre Festival in Washington DC, selected from a field of more than 75 companies. Virginia regularly attends trainings at the Playback Centre in New York City. Playback Memphis is part of a longstanding international organization that supports Playback theatre companies in over 60 countries around the world. Playback Memphis is recognized nationally as a leading model in Playback theatre. In 2011, Playback Memphis’ work in the community was highlighted on SIRIUS Radio’s nationally syndicated Bob Edwards show in a piece featuring Jonathon Fox, creator and founder of the Playback model. Connect with Playback Memphis Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/playbackmem/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/playbackmemphis Website: www.playbackmemphis.org Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/playbackmemphis/	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1703
__label__cc	0.667494	0.332506	Editors' Roles & Responsibilities Archives - CJB Archives - BioéthiqueOnline (2012-2017) Vol. 3 No. 3 (2020): Open Issue / Les enjeux éthiques de la recherche en ergothérapie : un portrait préoccupant Marie-Josée Drolet Département d’ergothérapie, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8384-4193 Karoline Girard Bureau intégré de l’éthique du Centre intégré universitaire de santé et de services sociaux de la Mauricie et du Centre-du-Québec (CIUSSS-MCQ), Trois-Rivières, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1230-7424 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1073779ar Keywords: research, academic world, academic culture, research ethics, occupational therapy, ethical issues The ethical issues of health research are well documented. Ethical issues in occupational therapy research are beginning to attract the interest of researchers. However, no research has documented the ethical issues experienced by occupational therapists conducting research in academic settings in Quebec. This is revealed by the literature review that was the basis for this qualitative research, the results of which are presented here. This article also presents the results of a qualitative research conducted with eleven women occupational therapy researchers in Quebec. A phenomenologically inspired qualitative approach was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to discuss the ethical issues experienced in occupational therapy research. Three units of meaning emerge from the narrative data, namely that ethical issues are related to: 1) the research environment; 2) people and their interactions; or 3) the occupation that is research. Overall, the results of the study and the literature review agree that health researchers, including occupational therapy researchers, operate in an environment that is not conducive to scientific discovery and responsible conduct of research. Ethical issues in research are primarily systemic in nature, contributing to the creation of unhealthy work environments that not only harm interpersonal relationships, but also adversely affect researchers’ occupational health and well-being and negatively affect researchers’ personal and family lives. Four new findings emerge from the study: 1) the academic world values individualism; 2) occupational therapists are rebellious towards research ethics boards; 3) clinical and academic environments are too disconnected; and 4) quantitative approaches can contribute to the exclusion of vulnerable populations. PDF (Français) Drolet M-J, Girard K. Les enjeux éthiques de la recherche en ergothérapie : un portrait préoccupant. Can. J. Bioeth. 2020;3:21-40. https://doi.org/10.7202/1073779ar. Vol. 3 No. 3 (2020): Open Issue Copyright (c) 2020 Marie-Josée Drolet, Karoline Girard The Canadian Journal of Bioethics applies the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License to all its publications. Authors therefore retain copyright of their publication, e.g., they can reuse their publication, link to it on their home page or institutional website, deposit a PDF in a public repository such as PubMed Central. However, the authors allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy their publication, so long as the original authors and source are cited. Marie-Josée Drolet, Karoline Girard, Rébecca Gaudet, Les enjeux éthiques de l’enseignement en ergothérapie: Des injustices au sein des départements universitaires , Canadian Journal of Bioethics / Revue canadienne de bioéthique: Vol. 3 No. 1 (2020): Open Issue The Canadian Journal of Bioethics is a peer-reviewed, bilingual (French and English), international, open access academic journal that publishes theoretical, conceptual and empirical research in bioethics. The aim of the journal is to provide a space for the publication of high quality and thought provoking bioethics scholarship of diverse forms. ISSN: 2561-4665; Sherpa-Romeo Learn more about the journal. Formerly published as BioéthiqueOnline (archives 2012-2017), BO remains the social media arm of the journal: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. The editors follow the recommendations outlined in the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors. Specifically, the editors will work to ensure the highest ethical standards of publication, including: the identification and management of conflicts of interest (for editors and for authors), the fair evaluation of manuscripts, and the publication of manuscripts that meet the journal’s standards of excellence. The Canadian Journal of Bioethics (ISSN: 2561-4665) is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Publisher: Bioethics Program, École de santé publique de l'Université de Montréal (ESPUM)	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1704
__label__wiki	0.827542	0.827542	ICAA Philadelphia Chapter Meet our Sponsor Trumbauer Awards Virtual \| The Golden City: an argument for Classical architecture a panel discussion featuring Alvin Holm, Catesby Leigh, and Francis Morrone presented with ICAA Rocky Mountain Chapter 7pm EST Virtual panel discussion via Zoom Free; advanced registration is required. First published in 1959, The Golden City is a seminal, critical document that developed one of the earliest and most compelling arguments against the then-dominant hegemony of modernism by reawakening interest in the value of our country’s built patrimony, particularly with respect to its notable classical architecture, classical sculpture, and ornament in the built environment. The book’s argument remains valuable today. The Golden City can be credited with building the constituency for the preservation movement in the United States in general, and in New York City in particular. That constituency coalesced around Reed’s powerful polemic, eventually contributing to the formulation in 1965 of New York City’s groundbreaking Landmark Law, one of the most important milestones in the preservation movement in the United States. Henry Hope Reed (1915-2013) was an architectural historian critic known for his advocacy of classical architecture and his outspoken criticism of modernist architecture. A lifelong New Yorker, he pioneered architectural walking tours of the city under the auspices of the Municipal Art Society and served as curator of Central Park. In 1968 he founded Classical America, an advocacy group that has evolved into the Institute for Classical Architecture and Art with fifteen chapters nationwide. Under the auspices of the Classical America Series in Art and Architecture, he published in-depth studies of the art and architecture of major classical buildings including the U.S. Capitol, the Library of Congress, and the New York Public Library. Alvin Holm has an architectural practice in Philadelphia which specializes in traditional and classical design. During his 35 years of experience he has taught and lectured widely and has been an ardent member of the ICAA from the beginning. Alvin’s essay entitled “An Appreciation” in The Golden City appears on page 13. Catesby Leigh writes about public art and architecture for a variety of publications and lives in Washington, DC. Mr. Leigh’s introduction to The Golden City appears on page 7. Francis Morrone is a well-known architectural historian, writer, and tour instructor extraordinaire and has lived in Brooklyn’s Park Slope for 38 years. A frequent contributor to educational courses offered at the ICAA, Francis has also appeared in a number of ICAA videos. Sign Up For Our Mailing List \| instagram facebook twitter Donate \| Membership \| ICAA National	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1705
__label__cc	0.618039	0.381961	Stacey Goodmen Written by Lindsey Lovelett on September 23, 2020 . Posted in Uncategorized. Stacey Goodmen Tapped to Lead Corporate Tax Advisor’s Cost Segregation and Energy Incentives Practice Expert brings more than a decade of experience in tax-related energy and cost savings consultancy work and extends firm’s reach into Charleston market Charleston, SC (September 17, 2020) – Corporate Tax Advisors (CTA), a specialty firm that utilizes federal and state incentives, credits and deductions to help clients obtain incremental tax savings, announces that Stacey Goodmen has been named director of the company’s Cost Segregation and Energy Incentives practice. Goodmen will be based in the newly formed Charleston, South Carolina location, which expands CTA’s professional network to six markets across the United States. “As business uncertainties created by the global pandemic converge with transformations taking place in commercial real estate and construction, the need for customized tax-saving strategies has never been greater,” says Mike Woeber, CPA, president and CEO of CTA. “Stacey brings a wealth of real-world experience in these industries as well as a comprehensive understanding of relevant tax laws. She’ll use this unique combination of skills to help clients maximize their savings and credit opportunities while achieving necessary compliance.” Entering the Charleston market and selecting Goodmen to head the Cost Segregation and Energy Incentives practice exemplifies CTA’s approach to targeted nationwide expansion. It also allows the organization to deliver a more robust portfolio of solutions to complement strategies designed by traditional tax and accounting professionals. “Stacey is a key addition to both our Southeast team and the company as a whole, ” says Dawson Fercho, partner and cofounder of CTA. “She cares deeply about her clients and has a proven record of innovation and performance excellence. Her leadership, skill set, and business acumen will play a central role in our firm’s continued growth in the region and beyond.” Under Goodmen’s direction, the Cost Segregation and Energy Incentives practice will assist companies in achieving substantial short-term cash flow improvements by classifying and categorizing their construction or acquisition costs between real and personal property. Specifically, she and her colleagues will perform cost segregation studies to allocate portions of qualifying building costs to other types of assets with shorter lives, enabling the organization to accelerate tax deductions. CTA will also identify ways to help clients increase sales tax exemptions, lower property taxes, and provide the basis for property record systems. “The chance to join an organization with an entrepreneurial mindset that’s guided by a customer-centric operating philosophy is an incredible opportunity,” says Goodmen, who has more than a decade of experience conducting cost segregation in the construction and real estate industries. “CTA has progressive plans for the future, and I look forward to helping the company achieve its goals while enhancing the breadth and depth of value-added services for clients.” In addition to cost segregation studies, the Cost Segregation and Energy Incentives practice will ensure eligible businesses take advantage of immediate tax savings afforded by Section 179D of the Internal Revenue Code. This provision, which was originally enacted under the 2005 Energy Policy Act (EPACT), allows for a tax deduction of up to $1.80 per square foot for newly constructed or improved commercial buildings that reduce energy and power costs. “Energy efficiency isn’t just a feel-good initiative,” Goodmen says. “It can also provide immediate tax savings. By leveraging all available deductions and incentives, we can help clients keep more of their hard-earned dollars to reinvest in their companies and ensure their businesses are positioned for success, now and in the future.” Prior to joining CTA, Goodmen served as a financial representative for Consolidated Planning Inc., a comprehensive financial services consultancy located in Charlotte, North Carolina. She also previously spent more than seven years in the Federal Tax Specialty Services practice for a top 20 public accounting firm, and has additional experience as a superintendent for a commercial construction company. Goodmen earned a B.S., in construction management from Georgia Southern University after serving for four years in the U.S. Coast Guard as a diesel mechanic and later as a marine safety officer. She currently resides in Charleston, where she’s active in numerous social and civic organizations. Goodmen serves as vice chair of Charleston Habitat for Humanity’s board of directors and chairs its construction committee; participates in Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing Charleston, a non-profit group for veterans; volunteers with Operation Home and the YWCA; and sits on the leadership team for the James Island Partners for Success BNI group. About Corporate Tax Advisors Established in 2014, Corporate Tax Advisors is a Huntsville, Alabama-based consulting firm that specializes in providing comprehensive education and value-added tax solutions to certified public accountants (CPAs), chief financial officers (CFOs), and tax and real estate professionals. The company, which has a team of professionals in six locations across the United States, designs custom strategies to help clients of all sizes obtain incremental tax savings, credits and deductions through research and development incentives, cost segregation, section 179D energy credits and tangible property regulations. Visit www.corporatetaxadvisors.com for more information. Liz Oates, Client Development Director lizo@corporatetaxadvisors.com	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1707
__label__wiki	0.929747	0.929747	Chandler’s Miss Arizona to lead Lions Club By COLLEEN SPARKS Isabel Ticlo’s reign as Miss Arizona 2018 may soon be over but the dedicated volunteer who is passionate about helping the visually impaired is getting warmed up for her next crowning achievement — serving as president of the Chandler Lions Club. Ticlo, 25, of Chandler, will begin her one-year term as president on July 1, taking over from Ruth Jon Wick, who served in the position for three years. Wick said everyone in the club encouraged Ticlo to step up as president and she was unanimously elected. She added she hopes Ticlo will want to be president for at least another year after that. Ticlo had served as one of the organization’s vice-presidents last year and first got her feet wet with the Chandler Lions Club 10 years ago while a student at Hamilton High School. She had been a member of the Leo Club for high school students who work with the Lions and learn about community service. Her platform as Miss Arizona was to support people with vision impairment, which also is a big focus of the Lions Clubs International and its local chapters. Ticlo, who graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in marketing with minors in communications and dance from Arizona State University, works in marketing at Insight, a high technology solutions company in Tempe. She is working on her master’s degree in business administration at ASU. Empowering the visually impaired is her passion. “It’s something that we don’t think about every day because most of us are born with our sight,” she said. “There are 200,000 people in Arizona who are visually impaired. I can’t imagine what that would be like one day to lose that…to one day wake up and not be able to see your kids’ faces. “I’ve met so many people who lost their vision later in life. Adapting to that is terrifying, it’s frustrating. The solutions we can provide; whether they’re prevention solutions or adaptive ones it helps to lessen that pain.” Ticlo enjoys helping her fellow Lions provide vision tests and glasses for students in need in Chandler Unified. Vision became a big part of the international Lions clubs’ philanthropy after Helen Keller, an author and activist who became deaf and blind at a young age urged them to champion vision as a cause in 1925. Ticlo also loves the Chandler Lions Club’s “Blinded by De-Light” events which enable people to feel what it’s be like to be sightless. Last year at one such event, people sat in a movie theater and heard sounds and descriptions of a movie via earphones with no picture on the screen. The Chandler Lions also sponsor vision forums, free events focusing on macular degeneration and diabetes on vision. “We want to make sure everyone has the resources they need and be unafraid,” Ticlo said. During her reign as Miss Arizona, Ticlo volunteered with the Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the Foundation for Blind Children, the Brain Injury Alliance of Arizona and Phoenix Children’s Hospital. She joined people making beaded bracelets at the Arizona Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired and handing out medals to those who took part in a 5K run. In that run, children who are blind would hold onto a pole and a runner with vision would guide them as they ran. “I was there to hang out with kids and let them have fun,” Ticlo said. “I like to talk to the children.” She is also excited to tell people about the Be My Eyes free app that links people with blindness or limited vision with sighted volunteers and company representatives who help them do things through live video calls. Ticlo was thrilled to help a man in Scottsdale figure out how to cook his dinner as he could not see the directions on a bag of rice. “It was amazing,” she said. “That’s something I would love more people to sign up for.” When she spoke and met people who had brain injuries during a Rays of Hope 2019 conference in Phoenix, Ticlo was especially touched by a man who had suffered a brain injury when he was struck by lightning. He showed her a mask he painted to tell his story. Sometimes people believe people who are blind or visually impaired can’t work, she said. “That’s absolutely not true,” Ticlo said. “I spoke about my experience working with Chandler Lions Club and belief people who are blind or visually impaired aren’t limited by their disability. They are some of the most adaptive and resilient people I have ever met. Any qualified applicant should have the opportunity to pursue the career of their dreams.” She received the coveted Melvin Jones Award from the Chandler Lions for outstanding contributions to the community. “It was pretty amazing,” Ticlo said. “You do the work with the intention of just doing good in the world. You don’t expect to win any awards. It’s surreal.” Wick said Ticlo is well-deserving of honors and is proud of her work in the club and as Miss Arizona. “She’s been like a walking billboard for not only our Chandler Lions but all the Lions,” Wick said. “It’s been amazing what she has added to our organization…it’s been just a joy to watch her step up and take a leadership role with the high school Leo Club and then join our Lions Club while still attending college and working and still having time to volunteer. I think she’s done an amazing job. “For the people that meet her, the thing with Isabel that stands out is she is so genuine. Her heart is as good as her beauty. People just find she’s so warm and welcoming and enthusiastic about anything she tackles. I know that all of the members in my club are so excited that she has decided to take on leadership.” She said Ticlo will likely encourage more young adults to join the Chandler Lions. “Her youth and enthusiasm will help to bring more youth into our aging Lions organization,” Wick said. Ticlo said it is intimidating but she is excited to serve as the Chandler Lions president. “It was intimidating at first because I had really big shoes to fill,” she said. “Ruth Jon Wick has been an amazing president. The Chandler Lions Club is like my second family. I feel inspired by all their stories. Blind people joined. One of my goals is to recruit younger, new members, bring them back and show them we’re still here; we could use their help.” Ticlo was born in Iowa and moved around often as a child due to her father’s job. Her father, Harvey, is from India, and her mother, Ganjana, is from Thailand, and she has two sisters. She has an older sister, Genevieve, 27, and a younger sister, Tiffany, 17, who is Miss Glendale’s Outstanding Teen. As a nod to her heritage, Ticlo performed Bollywood dances while competing as Miss Arizona and at the Miss America competition. She started dancing at 13, doing jazz and hip-hop and then took classes in Bollywood dancing with her mother starting three years ago. “I moved around a lot as a child and I needed a constant in my life,” Ticlo said. “Dance became my constant and my emotional outlet.” She started competing in pageants at about 21 and was in the Miss Arizona competition twice previously before winning. “Every candidate has the opportunity to win a scholarship just by competing on the stage,” Ticlo said. “That was a wonderful bonus. The sisterhood was great. You meet these amazing women.” Serving as Miss Arizona 2018 also helped her, teaching her how to balance different activities and gave her a chance to make more contacts in the volunteer world. Lions Clubs International has clubs in over 200 countries and geographic regions and started in 1917. Information: e-clubhouse.org/sites/chandlera	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1713
__label__cc	0.687364	0.312636	Posted by cheerstothebookends on June 17, 2020 Me with Colin on our bar trip in Thailand, 2015 I haven’t written here in a long time, because being Black in America has been kicking my ass. But I’m writing this out of pure anger, because sometimes, that’s all you’ve got. On May 30, my friend Colinford Mattis was arrested. This was following Black Lives Matter protests over the murder of George Floyd in New York City. He, and others, were accused of throwing a molotov cocktail at an empty police car. No one was injured. Colin, and another lawyer, now face “life in prison on the seven-count indictments, charging them with the use of explosives, arson, use of explosives to commit a felony, arson conspiracy, use of a destructive device, civil disorder, and making or possessing a destructive device” according to a NY Post article. Colin and I have laughed together and traveled together, starting our careers as young lawyers wanting to make a difference, and now he faces life in prison over a police car. My blood is HOT. Derek Chauvin, the man who murdered George Floyd on camera in broad daylight (and sparked these protests) with not a single care in the world, was granted bail last week. Chauvin faces three separate charges: unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter, for which the maximum penalties are prison terms of 40, 25 and 10 years respectively. Those would likely run concurrently, if he is found guilty and sentenced to any prison time at all. While Colin, and the others accused alongside him, were initially granted bail, the court system did what the court system does so frequently, and easily gave in to prosecutors’ request to revoke bail because of the supposed “continued danger” that Colin poses to society. What our country is saying loud and clear right now is that a POLICE CAR is worth more in this country than the life of a Black man. If someone would dare to defile an automobile owned and operated by a borderline terrorist cult, then that is more dangerous than squeezing the life out of a human being in the middle of the street. That is the country we live in. And I’m fucking pissed. When people have a knee-jerk reaction to the concepts of defunding the police and abolishing the prison system, it’s important to ask why. Why do we believe we need prisons and police, even though we have seen over and over again that they do not serve us? That they value the property they use to terrorize us more than our own lives? The police are portrayed as valiant protectors. But for whom? Not for the Black communities that they over-police and harass. Not for the inordinate number of Black people they murder every year. Not for the minorities that they stop and frisk at excessive rates. Not for the brown people that they arrest on bullshit charges like “resisting arrest,” and jail just long enough to potentially ruin their lives due to arrest records, loss of employment, court appearances and fines, etc. The very practice of bail is racist and unfair. While a pandemic rages across our nation, we allow people to remain in jail without having been convicted of any crime at all; the only way that this can be interpreted is that we don’t care about their lives. We would rather let them die than allow them to escape this system. This system that does not value our lives, but rather our labor and our continued subjugation. Every single step of the criminal justice system is soaked in racism. Laws are put on the books that specifically target our demographic and neighborhoods (e.g. loitering laws). The police are trained to focus on “crime” in Black and brown areas. They are also given free reins to demean and discriminate against those communities. They over-police our neighborhoods and arrest us for the same behaviors that they turn a winking eye at in white areas. Black people are funneled into the criminal justice system at higher rates, and are less able to escape because of the lack of resources ensured by slavery, Jim Crow, and continued systemic racism. We are overcharged by prosecutors who view us as easy wins for their conviction stats or animals who must be removed from society. We are denied bail, or our bails are set out of our reach, such that we lose our housing, jobs, families, and livelihoods waiting for release. We are terrorized, murdered, and unprotected in the inhumane prison system. We are pushed into plea deals that leave us with criminal records, just so that we can have the prospect of leaving the system sooner. And then those criminal records make it less likely for us to find new jobs or housing, and more likely to end up repeating the cycle. That is the broken cycle of racist “justice” in this country, and it must stop. I don’t claim to know everything about prison abolition or defunding the police, but I do know that a system that allows for a white man who has previously killed other brown people to murder someone in the street and face a lesser sentence than a Black lawyer who is accused of damaging property is BROKEN. Maybe it’s not even broken, if this is what it was designed to do. But it’s wrong. And we have to break it apart and build something new. Sorry this isn’t about books. This is about life, and being able to continue reading and enjoying books despite inhabiting Black skin. I’ve donated to Colin’s support fund, and I’ve also compiled a list of resources to help people learn and act in support of Black Lives. And I will fight every day to disrupt this racist bullshit system. Previous Post The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1715
__label__cc	0.528284	0.471716	Child Care Council Names Jeffrey Pier Executive Director « Council CEO Barbara-Ann Mattle Retiring After More Than Three Decades Society Can Learn Much from Child Care Environments When it Comes to Racial Harmony » Pier succeeds CEO Barbara-Ann Mattle, who is retiring ROCHESTER, N.Y., May 22, 2020 – Jeffrey Pier has been named Child Care Council Inc.’s new executive director. He starts his new role on June 26. Pier comes to Child Care Council after serving as executive director of The Healing Connection, an eating-disorder treatment program for adolescents and adults. He takes over leadership of the nonprofit agency from CEO Barbara-Ann Mattle, who is retiring effective June 30. Mattle worked to support child care development and to enhance the quality of child care, both locally and nationally, for more than 35 years. “I look forward to the wonderful opportunity to build on the success of Barbara-Ann Mattle and the Council staff in their efforts to improve access to quality child care,” Jeffrey Pier said. “I firmly believe we can be successful through team-building and collaboration, and I will bring my passion for program development, staff collaboration and client-centered services to help meet the child care needs of our community.” “I am extremely proud of my more than three decades of work to improve and support the development of high-quality child care programs in New York state,” Barbara-Ann Mattle said. “I want to thank the Council board of directors, leadership team and staff for their amazing work and support over the years to connect families with quality child care. I know that I am leaving the Council in great hands with Jeff Pier.” Jeffrey Pier has years of experience working with people who have suffered through trauma, and he has seen firsthand trauma’s impact on their health and on their feelings of self-worth. Prior to leading The Healing Connection, Pier served as director of programs and services at Willow Domestic Violence Center, as regional director for the Rape Crisis Program at Planned Parenthood of Western New York – RESTORE and as program manager at St. Joseph’s Villa. A resident of Chili, Pier earned a master’s degree in public administration from Walden University and a bachelor’s degree in human service from Empire State College. Child Care Council has an annual budget of more than $7 million, and it employs more than 50 people. The nonprofit has three offices in Rochester, Lakeville and Newark. This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2020 at 6:20 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1716
__label__cc	0.619531	0.380469	Contracted Flying and Special Missions Aircraft Parts and Components Specialty Design & Engineering Chorus Aviation Announces First Quarter 2019 Financial Results Delivering regional aviation to the world Q1 Financial Highlights and Year-to-Date Accomplishments Net income of $33.4 million, inclusive of an unrealized foreign exchange gain of $16.8 million. Adjusted net income1 of $19.0 million, or $0.13 per basic share. Adjusted EBITDA1 of $74.7 million, a decrease of $2.9 million inclusive of the changes under the amended capacity purchase agreement (‘CPA’) and a $7.7 million quarter-over-quarter increase in stock-based compensation due to the strengthening of the share price. Amended and extended the CPA with Air Canada to 2035. Achieved an unprecedented 17-year collective agreement with Jazz pilots. Completed a $97.26 million equity investment by Air Canada to enable fleet modernization and leasing growth. Entered into a firm purchase agreement with Bombardier for nine CRJ900s. Secured US $300.0 million credit facility to support the growth of the Regional Aircraft Leasing segment. Diversified and grew the Regional Aircraft Leasing fleet to 45 regional aircraft acquired at approximately US $960.0 million inclusive of 10 transactions pending completion. Re-aligned executive team to support further growth and diversification. HALIFAX, May 8, 2019 /CNW/ – Chorus Aviation Inc. (‘Chorus’) (TSX: CHR) today announced first quarter 2019 financial results. "Our financial performance in the first quarter of 2019 met our expectations with operating income being relatively consistent with the same period in 2018," stated Joe Randell, President and Chief Executive Officer, Chorus. "In the quarter we generated $74.7 million in adjusted EBITDA and net income of $33.4 million, inclusive of an unrealized foreign exchange gain of $16.8 million. I’m very pleased with the execution of our growth and diversification strategy, which continues to build on the momentum achieved in 2018. Our strengthened partnership with Air Canada was a pivotal development in our transformation, securing Jazz’s place in the Air Canada Express network for an unprecedented 17 years to the end of 2035. The implementation of the amended CPA is progressing well, and we expect Jazz’s fleet modernization to commence with the delivery of five CRJ900s, leased from Air Canada, beginning in June. In less than five months we’ve grown our third-party leasing portfolio by 11 aircraft and welcomed SpiceJet as a new customer. India is one of the fastest-growing air travel markets in the world, and we’re pleased to add this award-winning and growing airline to our portfolio of lessees. Once all pending deliveries have been completed, we’ll have grown our portfolio to 45 aircraft acquired at approximately US $960.0 million with nearly US $745.0 million in future contract lease revenue. When combined with the 47 aircraft leased under the CPA, our fleet of leased aircraft has reached 92 aircraft with a net book value of approximately US $1.6 billion. We’re maturing and building scale as a worldwide lessor. Our core business with Air Canada is established for the long term; we’re now focusing more deeply on leveraging our vast expertise in regional operations to secure further growth. The recent re-alignment of our chief executives places further emphasis on strategic and corporate planning to bolster our lines of business. We are well positioned for the future. I extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to the Chorus team for these significant accomplishments," concluded Mr. Randell. * Of the 10 pending transactions as at March 31, 2019, three aircraft were received prior to May 8, 2019. FIRST QUARTER 2019 SUMMARY Financial Performance – first quarter 2019 compared to first quarter 2018 In the first quarter of 2019, Chorus reported adjusted EBITDA of $74.7 million a decrease of $2.9 million or 3.7% relative to the first quarter of 2018. The Regional Aviation Services segment decreased by $9.3 million quarter-over-quarter. The results of the first quarter of 2019 reflect the 2019 CPA Amendments which reduced the fixed margin and incentive revenue as Chorus moves to market-based compensation rates. These reductions were offset by the implementation of the controllable cost guardrails that mitigated the expected first quarter CPA margin shortfall related to reduced fees. Beyond the changes related to the amended CPA, the first quarter results were impacted by: increased stock-based compensation of $7.7 million due to the strengthening of the share price; decreased capitalization of major maintenance overhauls on owned CPA aircraft over the previous period; offset by increased aircraft leasing under the CPA. The decrease in the Regional Aviation Services segment was partially offset by an increase of $6.5 million in the Regional Aircraft Leasing segment related to the growth in aircraft acquired and under lease. Adjusted net income was $19.0 million for the period, a decrease from 2018 of $7.7 million or 28.6% due to: the $2.9 million decrease in adjusted EBITDA previously described; an increase in depreciation of $3.1 million related to additional aircraft in the regional aircraft leasing segment; an increase in interest costs of $1.9 million related to additional aircraft debt; offset by other of $0.2 million. Net income was $33.4 million for the period, an increase of $28.2 million over 2018. The increase was primarily due to the quarter-over-quarter change in unrealized foreign exchange gains on long-term debt of $34.7 million and decreased employee separation program costs of $3.1 million; offset by the previously noted $7.7 million decrease in adjusted net income and one-time signing bonuses of $2.0 million related to changes to the Jazz pilot collective agreement. (See cautionary statement regarding forward-looking information below) On February 4, 2019, the 2019 CPA amendments became effective on a retroactive basis to January 1, 2019. Further information concerning the 2019 CPA amendments and Air Canada’s investment is contained in the Corporation’s Material Change Reports dated January 24, 2019 and February 13, 2019, which are available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The 2019 CPA amendments resulted in a near-term reduction in fixed fees starting in 2019, as Chorus accelerates its transition to market-based rates. The reduction was implemented by eliminating the Infrastructure Fee per Covered Aircraft and the Fixed Margin per Covered Aircraft which were replaced with a single Fixed Margin. As a result, Fixed Fee revenue in each of 2019 and 2020 is anticipated to be $75.5 million per year as compared to $111.3 million in 2018. In addition, the maximum future available performance incentives reduce from $23.4 million in 2019 and 2020 to an annual average maximum available amount of $3.4 million for the full term of the CPA. The near-term reductions are more than offset over the term of the CPA by incremental contracted revenue secured with the extension of the agreement including fixed fees and aircraft leasing. Since the start of 2017, Chorus has raised net proceeds of CA $401.0 million in capital from both the issuance of convertible units and shares, which if levered at 3:1 provides approximately $1.6 billion of investment capital. As at March 31, 2019, Chorus has invested approximately 75% of this capital. As of May 8, 2019, Chorus’ total committed available capital was approximately 90%. Chorus anticipates committing the remaining balance by early 2020 in new to mid-life aircraft with long-term leases to a diverse group of high-quality customers located around the world. Capital expenditures for 2019, excluding those for the acquisition of aircraft and the Extended Service Program (‘ESP’), and including capitalized major maintenance overhauls, are expected to be between $34.0 million and $40.0 million. Aircraft related acquisitions and the extended service program capital expenditures in 2019 are expected to be between $428.0 million and $433.0 million. This excludes any potential additional investments in third-party aircraft beyond what has been announced to date. As a result of the fleet changes associated with the 2019 CPA amendments, the eight ESPs planned for 2019 has reduced to four. The remaining seven ESPs will be completed by 2022. Shares refers to Chorus’ Class A Variable Voting Shares and Class B Voting Shares Investor Conference Call / Audio Webcast Chorus will hold an analyst call at 10:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, May 8, 2019 to discuss the first quarter 2019 financial results. The call may be accessed by dialing 1-888-231-8191. The call will be simultaneously audio webcast via: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/1960209/19CC01CE0EF7DEFB4FF358FEE21780AC This is a listen-in only audio webcast. Media Player or Real Player is required to listen to the broadcast; please download well in advance of the call. The conference call webcast will be archived on Chorus’ website at www.chorusaviation.ca under Reports > Executive Management Presentations. A playback of the call can also be accessed until midnight ET, May 16, 2019 by dialing toll-free 1-855-859-2056, and passcode 6896463#. 1NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES This news release references several non-GAAP financial measures to supplement the analysis of Chorus’ results. These measures are provided to enhance the reader’s understanding of our current financial performance. They are included to provide investors and management with an alternative method for assessing our operating results in a manner that is focused on the performance of our ongoing operations and to provide a consistent basis for comparison between periods. These non-GAAP measures are not recognized measures under GAAP, and therefore they are unlikely to be comparable to similar measures presented by other companies. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their nearest GAAP measure is provided in the Management’s Discussion and Analysis dated May 7, 2019. Adjusted net income and Adjusted net income per Share are used by Chorus to assess performance without the effects of unrealized foreign exchange gains or losses on long-term debt and finance leases related to aircraft, foreign exchange gains or losses on cash held on deposit for investment in the regional aircraft leasing business, one-time signing bonuses, employee separation program costs and strategic advisory fees. Chorus manages its exposure to currency risk on such long-term debt by billing the lease payments within the CPA in the underlying currency (US dollars) related to the aircraft debt. These items are excluded because they affect the comparability of our financial results, period-over-period, and could potentially distort the analysis of trends in business performance. Excluding these items does not imply they are non-recurring due to ongoing currency fluctuations between the Canadian and US dollar. EBITDA is defined as earnings before net interest expense, income taxes, and depreciation and amortization and is a non-GAAP financial measure that is used frequently by companies in the aviation industry as a measure of performance. Adjusted EBITDA (EBITDA before one-time signing bonuses, employee separation program costs, strategic advisory fees and other items such as foreign exchange gains or losses) is a non-GAAP financial measure used by Chorus as a supplemental financial measure of operational performance. Management believes Adjusted EBITDA assists investors in comparing Chorus’ performance by excluding items, which it does not believe will occur over the longer-term (such as one-time signing bonuses, employee separation program costs and strategic advisory fees) as well, which items that are non-cash in nature such as foreign exchange gains and losses. Adjusted EBITDA should not be used as an exclusive measure of cash flow because it does not account for the impact of working capital growth, capital expenditures, debt repayments and other sources and uses of cash, which are disclosed in the statements of cash flows, forming part of Chorus’ financial statements. About Chorus Aviation Inc. Headquartered in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Chorus was incorporated on September 27, 2010. Chorus’ vision is to deliver regional aviation to the world. Chorus has been leasing its owned regional aircraft into Jazz’s Air Canada Express operation since 2011, and established Chorus Aviation Capital to become a leading, global provider of regional aircraft leases. Chorus also owns Jazz Aviation LP and Voyageur Aviation Corp. – companies that have long histories of safe and solid operations that deliver excellent customer service in the areas of contract flying operations, engineering, fleet management, and maintenance, repair and overhaul. Together, the Chorus group of companies can provide a full suite of regional aviation support services. Chorus Class A Variable Voting Shares and Class B Voting Shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol ‘CHR’. www.chorusaviation.ca Consolidated Financial Analysis (expressed in thousands of Canadian dollars) Three months ended March 31 Net interest expense Foreign exchange gain (loss) Earnings before Income tax Adjusted EBT(1) Adjusted Net Income(1) These are non-GAAP financial measures – refer to Section 17 for disclosures on Non-GAAP financial measures. This news release contains ‘forward-looking information’. Forward-looking information is identified by the use of terms and phrases such as "anticipate", "believe", "could", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "may", "plan", "predict", "potential", "project", "will", "would", and similar terms and phrases, including references to assumptions. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking information. Actual results may differ materially from results indicated in forward-looking information for a number of reasons, including those identified in Chorus’ public disclosure record available at www.sedar.com and the risk factors identified in Chorus’ Annual Information Form dated February 21, 2019. Statements containing forward-looking information in this news release represent Chorus’ expectations as of the date of this news release (or as of the date they are otherwise stated to be made) and are subject to change after such date. Chorus disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise such statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise, unless required by applicable securities laws. SOURCE Chorus Aviation Inc. « Chorus Aviation Inc. Announces April 2019 Dividend Chorus Aviation Inc. Announces Election of Directors » Copyright 2021, Chorus Aviation, All Rights Reserved. Legal - Privacy This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience. Find out more on our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy. Learn more about Cookies ACCEPT This website collects electronic data from you using Google Analytics which employs first-party cookies and other identifiers to measure where our site visitors come from in the world, when and how you visit the site, how long you use it, and what you look at while you are here. Any personally identifiable data collected through the use of these cookies is subject to the Chorus Privacy Policy outlined on this page. Further information on Google’s Privacy Policy can be found here https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites. 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__label__cc	0.61773	0.38227	← New Rector for Kilgariffe Union of Parishes (Clonakilty, County Cork) Church of Sweden Visit to Cork ~ the Photos! → Church of Sweden Visit to Cork, Cloyne and Ross Posted on February 18, 2016 by Latest News and Photos from the Church of Ireland Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross The Right Reverend Dr Johan Dalman, Bishop of Strängnäs in the Church of Sweden, together with members of the Bishop’s Council and the Dean’s Council of the Diocese, made a visit to the Church of Ireland Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross from 12th to 16th February. On Friday, 12th February the two groups – 14 people in all – travelled, one from Stockholm and the other from Copenhagen to Dublin before driving to Cork. It was a residential weekend of work for the visitors from the Church of Sweden, with plenty of opportunity also to engage with the Church of Ireland locally. On Friday evening, 12th February, the Bishop of Cork, the Right Reverend Dr Paul Colton joined the group at their hotel for dinner and gave them an introductory talk about the Church of Ireland, the Cork region and the United Dioceses of Cork, Cloyne and ross A tour for the Swedish party was arranged for Saturday, 13th February with Bishop Colton as guide. First stop was St Anne’s Church, Shandon for a tour, a climb to the top of the tower to take in the view of Cork, and also an opportunity to ring the bells. ABBA’s ‘Fernando’ was the choice of Bishop Dalman. The Right Rev. Dr Johan Dalman, Bishop of Strägnäs, plays ‘Fernando’ on the world famous Bells of Shandon watched by Mrs Lotta Novosel, Lawyer of the Diocese, and his Chaplain, the Rev. Fredrik Santell. Then it was on to the Collegiate Church of St Mary the Virgin, Youghal, (1220 A.D) with a talk given by David Kelly followed by morning coffee in The Red Store. The Cathedral Church of St Colman, Cloyne (1250 A.D.) was next, where Patricia Lyons showed the visitors around. A visit to St Luke’s Home for lunch in the conservatory overlooking the River Lee, and to Northridge House (St Luke’s Home Education Centre) brought everyone back to Cork, and back to the current work of the Diocese. David O’Brien, CEO of St Luke’s, briefed everyone on the work of the charity and the engagement of the local churches with it. The work of the Diocese in education was next on the agenda, and a visit to Ashton School in Cork. There, Head Girl, Ali Lynch, and Head Boy, Stephen Jermyn, together with Adrian Landen (Principal) and Anne-Marie Hewison (Deputy Principal) were on hand to welcome the guests. Ali and Stephen introduced the school to the visitors and showed them around, and gifts – a school pennant and paperweight – were presented to Bishop Dalman, and pens to everyone in the group. At Ashton School, Cork Ali and Stephen present the Bishop of Strängnäs with gifts. The remainder of the afternoon was devoted to a visit to Kinsale where Irene Treacy showed the group around the Church of St Multose (1190 A.D.). On Saturday evening, Bishop Colton and Mrs Susan Colton hosted a dinner for the Swedish visitors, as well as the local clergy who had been involved in the Saturday programme and to introduce them to those who were hosting the visitors on Sunday morning. Gifts were again exchanged. Guests from the Diocese of Strängnäs, Church of Sweden arrive at the Bishop’s Palace, Cork for a dinner hosted by Bishop Paul and Mrs Susan Colton. Picture: Jim Coughlan. On Sunday morning, 14th February, the visitors took part in Sunday morning Services in some of the parishes of the Diocese: Holy Trinity, Frankfield, St Luke’s, Douglas, St Anne’s, Shandon, St Luke’s Home Chapel, St John’s, Monkstown, St Mary’s, Carrigaline, Nohoval Parish Church, Holy Trinity, Crosshaven, Holy Trinity, Rathclaren and St Peter, Bandon. A number of the visiting clergy were the preachers, while the Bishop of Strängnäs preached at the Choral Eucharist in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork. Following lunch in their parishes with their host clergy, the group gathered at St Fin Barre’s Cathedral for Choral Evensong and a guided tour. With the two bishops – the Bishop of Strängnas and the Bishop of Cork – are clergy from the two Dioceses following Choral Evensong in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral, Cork, on Sunday, 14th February. Sunday evening was a working session and the visitors had asked to hear about the Church of Ireland approach to recruitment of clergy, the support of lay voluntary church workers and also clergy discipline. Bishop Colton and Mrs Susan Colton were then entertained by Bishop Dalman and the Swedish guests at their hotel. On Monday, 15th, the Swedish party spent a working day together before leaving early on Tuesday, 16th to return to the Diocese of Strängnäs. l-r The Right Rev. Dr Johan Dalman, Mrs Susan Colton, and the Right Rev. Dr Paul Colton Picture: Jim Coughlan. The entire visit was organised on foot of a long held hope of Bishop Dalman and Bishop Colton who have been firm friends for nearly 25 years, and came to know one another in the process that led to the Porvoo Agreement and the Porvoo Communion. The Porvoo Communion is a fellowship of Anglican and Lutheran Churches in Great Britain and Ireland, the Nordic region, Iberia and the Baltic countries; more information may be found here. Watch out for the full photo gallery in coming days on this NewsBlog. This entry was posted in Diocese, International Church Relations, Porvoo Communion. Bookmark the permalink.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1718
__label__wiki	0.599453	0.599453	David Pett, Tax Barrister Some thoughts and comments About David Pett Unscrupulous Promotion of Tax Avoidance to NHS Workers BBC Radio 4’s “Money Box”[1] programme has investigated unscrupulous ‘umbrella companies’ targeting those retired nurses and other NHS staff returning to work to assist in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as new hires for the ‘track and trace’ system. I was asked to respond to questions from the presenter, Paul Lewis, about the tax consequences, for the individual workers, of the actions being taken by such umbrella companies. Given the impermanent nature of employments of this kind, these individuals will normally be required to secure their engagement through an agency. For an agency worker, the agency or its intermediary is normally responsible for payment of the remuneration earned after first deducting tax and NICs under PAYE. So-called umbrella companies, interposed between the agency and the individual, can play a useful role in those cases in which an individual may expect to enter into multiple successive engagements and wants to offload responsibility for the paperwork and tax compliance associated with such multiple engagements. However, some umbrella companies are promoting their services on the basis of being able to secure that the individual receives a higher amount of net earnings by structuring payments to the individual as if part only is a payment of remuneration, subject to PAYE, the balance being paid as either an “investment payment” (i.e. the umbrella company supposedly making an investment in the individual) or an “advance on a future bonus” and (so it is claimed) therefore being free of tax. As the programme made clear, this is a form of abusive tax avoidance. Agency workers are deemed to be employees of the agency (s44 ITEPA 2003) and are liable to tax and NICs under PAYE on the whole of the remuneration they earn including “every form of payment, profit or benefit” (s47). It is not sufficient, to avoid tax, simply to describe payments of remuneration as something else. To do so poses serious financial risk for both the individual worker and the agency involved. If the intermediate umbrella company fails to deduct and account for tax and employee’s NICs when making such payments, HMRC will look to recover the tax, with penalties and interest, initially from the agency (as the intermediary payee is invariably offshore) or, if it remains unpaid within 30 days of a Reg 80 determination being made on the agency, from the individual on the basis that it is a payment of ‘disguised remuneration’ (the umbrella company being a ‘relevant third person’). It was said, by the so-called brokers marketing the services of such umbrella companies, that the arrangements made had been confirmed by counsel to be legal. If that is correct, such opinions are simply wrong or (as has been found to be the case in the past) do not in fact state what they are purported to assert. It goes without saying that individuals and agencies should avoid entering into such arrangements. When what is offered seems too good to be true, it probably is. In this case, it most certainly is. The programme later suggested that the actions of such umbrella companies were analogous to the arrangements formerly widely used to structure remuneration in the form of loans from a trust which were not expected to be repaid. The government eventually responded to those arrangements with the 2019 ‘Loan Charge’ which has enraged campaigners as it has had a serious financial effect upon those workers who were either lured into or obliged to enter into such arrangements. However, the present actions of certain umbrella companies, in purportedly describing remuneration paid to a worker as something it is not, is very different. This is simply ‘calling black, white’. If done with the intention of cheating the Revenue, this could have serious consequences for those involved. Perhaps the real issue here is whether HMRC has sufficient powers and resources to penalise, where appropriate, those who devise and promote or market such abusive tax avoidance arrangements, particularly if they are operating outside the UK. HMRC does have powers to impose sanctions and civil penalties, both (i) for failure to disclose tax avoidance schemes under the DoTAS regime and, under legislation made in 2014 and 2017, (ii) if persons persist in the promotion of schemes after earlier schemes have been defeated, or they have enabled tax avoidance by devising, marketing or facilitating a tax avoidance arrangement. Under the ‘penalties for enablers’ rules, anyone who designs, markets, or otherwise enables tax avoidance may incur a penalty equal to the fees it has generated from the arrangement. The problem is that, if the promoter is an offshore company, it can easily be liquidated and the individuals behind it can, all too easily, escape such sanctions. If HMRC can identify the individuals concerned and adduce sufficient evidence of wrongdoing, they might seek to bring criminal charges for, say, conspiracy to cheat the public revenue. However, the threshold needed to secure a conviction is high, and this can prove challenging. If the individuals concerned are in countries with which the UK does not have agreements for reciprocal enforcement of criminal sanctions, such efforts may be fruitless. HMRC announced earlier this year that criminal charges had been brought against a number of individuals in the UK, although it was unclear as to what forms of evasion these arrests related. The alleged offences included “conspiracy to cheat the public revenue”, “conspiracy to evade income tax and NICs”, “fraud by abuse of position” and “conspiracy to transfer, disguise or convert criminal property”. The question is: does HMRC have the necessary resources to root out promoters where offences have been committed? [1] First broadcast on Saturday 6th June at 12:04 p.m and currently available on the BBC Sounds app. davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment June 8, 2020 4 Minutes The government has announced that the changes to IR35 due to come into effect in relation to work done on or after 6th April 2020 will, as part of the response to Covid-19, be put back until 6th April 2021. The announcement is to be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/off-payroll-working-rules-reforms-postponed-until-2021 davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment March 19, 2020 1 Minute Review of Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) scheme As a member of the working party that put together the EMI scheme which was originally legislated for in Sched 24, FA 2000, I very much welcome the government’s announcement, as part of the Budget today (11th March 2020), that it intends to “review the EMI scheme to ensure it provides support for high-growth companies to recruit and retain the best talent so they can scale up effectively, and examine whether more companies should be able to access the scheme.” Coupled with the consultation on changes to the tax treatment of ‘hedge funds’, there may now be an opportunity to persuade the government of the need to extend eligibility to employees of companies under the control of private equity. Hopefully the existing statutory limits and other eligibility requirements will be examined with a view to broadening the scope of what has proved to be a remarkably popular and successful scheme allowing companies to attract and retain the best talent at the early, high-risk, stage of their development. That said, the announcement of an immediate restriction, to £1 million, of the lifetime allowance for Entrepreneurs’ Relief will come as a disappointment to those holding EMI share options over valuable shares in the most successful qualifying companies. Retrospective Taxation The government has today published a House of Commons Library Briefing Paper (No. 4369) on the topic of “Retrospective Taxation” which describes, inter alia, the practices which successive Parliaments have adopted in relation to the enactment of tax legislation having retrospective effect. The paper may be found here: https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN04369 The paper makes reference to the decision of the High Court in the case of Cartref & Others v HMRC [2019] WEHC 3382 (Admin), which was the subject of an earlier post. The High Court ruled that the Loan Charge is compatible with human rights. davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment January 31, 2020 1 Minute Changes announced in response to the December 2019 report of the Morse review of the Loan Charge Following most of the recommendations of Sir Amyas Morse in his report, issued on 20th December 2019, on the policy behind the Loan Charge and its implementation, the government immediately announced changes to the Loan Charge and its enforcement, some of which require legislation to be included in the Finance Act 2020. Reduction in scope of the Loan Charge. The principle change is that the Loan Charge will not apply to (a) loans made before 9 December 2010 or (b) to any loans made before 6 April 2016 if the scheme was fully disclosed to HMRC but they did not open an enquiry or raise an assessment. However, this does not mean that liability for a general earnings charge on ‘re-directed earnings’ in the form of contributions to a trust used to fund the loans is being set aside. It was made clear that HMRC will continue to pursue such liabilities to income tax and NICs through open enquiries and discovery assessments and, as necessary, litigation. The HM Treasury paper issued in response to the Loan Charge Review indicated (at 2.9 and 2.12) that HMRC would publish updated settlement terms for all taxpayers in this position. Guidance published by HMRC on 20th December by HMRC[1] states that, in the case of those who made full disclosure by 5 April 2019 and are in settlement negotiations: if the position is unaffected by the changes, settlement may be finalised in the normal way; otherwise, HMRC will re-calculate settlement terms if either: (a) they relate to any loans made before 9 December 2010 (but presumably only if the relevant year(s) in which contributions were made are ‘unprotected’ so that HMRC is out of time to recover the tax) or (b) they relate to loans made before 6 April 2016 and the use of the loan scheme was fully disclosed to HMRC but they took no action to open an enquiry. In these cases, the taxpayer may choose to settle (presumably under the 2017 settlement terms, subject to any changes to be announced) all years up to and including 2015/16 if there is an open enquiry or assessment, and any tax due for 2016/17 and later years, whether or not there is an open enquiry or assessment. A choice is offered: a taxpayer may instead settle only those years to which the Loan Charge still applies (so as to prevent it applying). In this event, the tax covered by any open enquiry or assessment will need to be finalised in due course by separate settlement or litigation. So far as the self-assessment return due on 31 January 2020 was concerned, this can be submitted either: (a) by that date with a best estimate of the balance outstanding on loans to which the Loan Charge applies (i.e. loans made on or after 9 December 2010 or before 6 April 2016 if, but only if, the scheme was fully disclosed to HMRC and no enquiry was opened). This estimate can be amended up to 30 September 2020 without penalty – and, if settlement is reached before then, the estimate can be reduced to nil. Tax due on the Loan Charge (only) may be ‘stood over’ until that date. (b) submit the 2018/19 SAR by 30 September 2020. Provided that a ‘time to pay’ arrangement is agreed by then any late filing or late payment penalties will be waived. Again, if settlement is reached by then, there will be no Loan Charge to report. In the case of returns filed after 30 September 2020, HMRC would consider waiving late filing and late payment fees on a case-by-case basis. Likewise, decisions on whether to charge inaccuracy penalties would be made on a similar basis. What of those who have already settled? HMRC will refund voluntary restitution payments (i.e. amounts on which no late payment interest has been charged) made under settlements reached since March 2016 if the Loan Charge no longer applies either because the loan was pre-9 December 2010 or pre-6 April 2016 and, although fully disclosed, no action was taken by HMRC (e.g. by opening an enquiry). Refunds cannot be made until legislation has been enacted. Clearly there will be additional complexity if the settlement included other taxes such as inheritance tax. How this interaction with other taxes will be dealt with has yet to be determined, HMRC simply stating at this stage that details will be published in 2020 (not “early 2020”). Those already paying off settled liabilities under a payment plan should continue to do so and await contact from HMRC after the necessary legislation is passed. Spreading the cost of paying the Loan Charge over 3 years This recommendation was accepted and will presumably be legislated for in 2020. It is estimated that about 21,000 individuals could be affected by this. Recovery of the tax due The government has accepted the recommendation that individuals subject to the Loan Charge (as distinct form any earlier ‘re-directed earnings’ or other disguised remuneration charge) should only be asked to pay up to half their disposable income each year and a reasonable proportion of their liquid assets. No one should be put in the position of having to sell their home or use their existing pension pot to pay the loan charge. The government did not accept the recommendation that those individual taxpayers with income of less than £30,000 in 2017-18 should be released from liability to pay any balance remaining unpaid after 10 years as this would, it was said, treat tax avoiders more favourably than other individuals with tax debts and reduces the incentive to pay off the debt. The government partially accepted the recommendation that individuals with income in 2017-18 of between £30,000 and £50,000 should be offered the same payment terms as those who opted to settle rather than pay the Loan Charge. Only if they have no disposable assets will taxpayers earning less then £50,000 be automatically entitled to a minimum 5-year payment plan or, if less than £30,000, a minimum 7-year plan. The government has accepted, or partially accepted a number of other recommendations made by Sir Amyas, including: that the government review future policy on interest rates within the tax system and report by 31 July 2020; that HMRC fund an external body to provide independent advice to lower income taxpayers on debt management. HMRC has already announced that it will publish the Income & Expenditure form used to work out disposable income and how it is used to create ‘time to pay’ arrangements, and that it will refer taxpayers to a debt advice charity if evidence suggests they need time to pay in excess of 5 years. It will also accept Single Financial statements completed by an individual with a debt charity as proof of affordability; stop, until a significant change in circumstances, recovery action if there is no ability to pay; and not seek to bankrupt those who have engaged with HMRC and are solely unable to pay the loan Charge. that HMRC must communicate regularly with those who have open enquiries; report to Parliament on its implementation of the changes to the loan charge; improve staff training and set higher expectations of performance during interactions with the public. Proposals to further tackle tax avoidance The government will announce in the 2020 Budget further action to tackle large scale tax avoidance involving disguised remuneration. To reduce the scope for the marketing of tax avoidance schemes, the government will: ensure that HMRC can more effectively issue stop notices to promoters of schemes that do not work; Prevent avoidance of obligations under the Promoters of Tax Avoidance Scheme (“POTAS”) rules by using corporate entity structures; Ensure HMRC can obtain information as soon as an abusive scheme is identified and that enabler penalties bite immediately a scheme has been defeated at tribunal; Ensure that HMRC can take decisive action if promoters fail to provide information; and Make further changes to the POTAS regime to ensure it operates effectively and that the GAAR can be used to counteract partnerships as intended. More generally, HMRC communication must be improved. For example, PAYE RTI information should be used to enable communication with taxpayers suspected of engaging in tax avoidance. Further details will be given in the 2020 Budget. Inheritance tax charges associated with EBT loan schemes No announcement has been made about any changes to HMRC’s current approach of seeking ‘10-yearly’ and/or ‘exit’ charges to inheritance tax, if appropriate, when a discretionary trust has been used. The suggestion, mentioned at 2 above, of further details of the interaction with other taxes being published at some point in 2020 gives rise to the hope that a more pragmatic approach will be taken and that there might be substantive changes to the inheritance tax regime as it applies to trusts used solely to provide taxable loans. [1] Reference is made elsewhere to further guidance and draft legislation being published in early 2020. davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment January 8, 2020 January 10, 2020 6 Minutes A Judicial Review of the Loan Charge Whilst awaiting the recommendations of Sir Amyas Morse, it should not be forgotten that challenges to the Loan Charge are also being mounted in the courts. This week, the High Court (Lady Justice Cockerill) heard a ‘rolled-up’ application (i.e. it was both a ‘permission hearing’ and a trial of the substantive application) for judicial review by corporate participants (and their shareholder/directors) in an arrangement (not notified under DOTAS) which involved loans made to directors by a third party and which, so HMRC assert, come within the ‘close company’ gateway in s554AA ITEPA 2003. The application was made on the grounds that the Loan Charge is incompatible with the applicants’ human rights, although it was recognised that such a declaration cannot strike down domestic primary legislation[1]. In particular, its retroactive effect and the fact that it obviates any opportunity to challenge a Reg 72/81 determination in respect of the earlier funding or making of a loan are, it is asserted, incompatible with Article 6 (right to a fair trial) and Art 1 of the First Protocol (“A1P1”), i.e. the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions, as set out in the Convention on Rights and Freedoms as enshrined in UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998. Judgement was reserved. It is important to appreciate that this application was made in relation to a particular arrangement under which, as a first step, a loan was made by a third party to the director of a close company who then loaned that sum to the company which used it to make a contribution to an LLP which traded in film rights. An accounting valuation of the film rights produced a trading loss in the LLP which was attributed to its member companies. They then set the loss against their trading profits. This allowed the director/shareholder loans to be repaid free of income tax. HMRC was of the view that, as the first loan made to the director was outstanding at 5th April 2019, it was caught by the Loan Charge. The fact that the loan in these cases was funded by a third party meant that the principle laid down by the Supreme Court in the Glasgow Rangers case (that a contribution by the employer to fund a loan was itself a payment of taxable earnings) did not apply. This leaves open the possibility that other applicants whose loans come through the ‘employee gateway’ in s554A may have a stronger case on the basis that the Loan Charge effectively denied employees the right to challenge a Reg 81 determination on what was, according to the Supreme Court, a liability which had already arisen (on the funding of the trust) before the F(No.2)A 2017 was passed – being a liability on the same amount – and on which PAYE had not been accounted for by the employer but for which HMRC were now out of time to assess the income tax on the employee. In the present application, it was argued that, insofar as HMRC could have asserted that the loans made in 2010 and 2013 were ‘earnings’, the court should consider the combined effect of the 2011 disguised remuneration legislation (“DR”) and the Loan Charge (“LC”), taken together with the changes made by FA 2018[2] (which rendered nugatory any assertion that the earlier incidence of tax on such earlier earnings took the loans outside the scope of the DR legislation and the LC). Overall, this deprived the applicants of the right to argue before a tribunal that assessments to such earlier liabilities were out of time. The LC, coupled with the 2018 changes introducing the close company DR charges, would also result in double taxation because it was anticipated that HMRC would issue APNs and PPNs, having already issued Follower Notices (given on the basis that a decision of the Court of Appeal[3] had struck down the efficacy of the film rights trading partnership scheme). Under the DR rules, the LC is not suspended if an accelerated payment is made in respect of an earlier liability which overlaps with an amount to which which the LC applies – see s554Z5 (11). Relief from double taxation is afforded by ss554Z11F, but only insofar as there is an overlap. In the present case, APNs had not yet been issued but, in any event, if they would be to recover the disallowable trading losses, it would appear that there would be no overlap for the purposes of the DR rules in ss554Z11B – G. HMRC argued that, as representations made in respect of the Follower Notices were still under consideration, the application was premature as that remedy should have been exhausted first. To succeed in obtaining a declaration of incompatibility on Human Rights grounds the applicant must first establish that: there has been a decision of HMRC which is reviewable by the court. HMRC asserted that letters inviting the claimants to negotiate a settlement did not amount to ‘decisions’; the claimants are ‘victims’ of a human rights abuse. HMRC argued that individual claimants were not victims, as they were not primarily responsible for the LC tax which is to be accounted for by the company under PAYE; the claims are brought in time. Insofar as the challenge was to the LC legislation, it should have been brought within 3 months of the passing of the F(No.2)A 2017 on 16th November 2017; in relation to A1P1, the claimants had to have “possessions” which had been interfered with. HMRC asserted that, as their monetary possessions had been impressed with the liabilities to tax, it could not be said that they had been denied enjoyment of those possessions.[4] This was particularly so if the money in question is enjoyed as a consequence of a tax avoidance scheme of which the full facts should have been disclosed. The APN/PPN regime was proportionate and perfectly compatible with A1P1.[5] The rights afforded by A1/P1 do not impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes. Clearly, the State has a very wide margin within which it may exact taxes, particularly through primary legislation. Retrospective tax legislation is permitted provided it strikes a fair balance.[6] It should be sufficiently accessible, precise and foreseeable and must carry out a legitimate aim in the public interest and be proportionate.[7] If the LC and DR legislation do combine to amount to an interference with possessions, is it reasonable and proportionate? It was pointed out that the style of drafting of the DR legislation is very different from that of other tax legislation in its use of vague terms such as “in essence” and “it is reasonable to suppose”. HMRC accepted that the wording of the DR legislation was intended to allow for the exercise of judgements on the part of HMRC officials in individual cases but made the point that such judgements were subject to the taxpayer’s right of appeal to the tribunal. In their justification of the DR legislation, HMRC referred to the points made in the March 2019 Report by HM Treasury on time limits and the charge on DR loans.[8] It was also stated on behalf of HMRC that if an enquiry into an earlier year had been closed on the basis that full disclosure had been made, then HMRC would not apply the LC. So far as the particular claimants were concerned, there was no unfairness and, in any event, to succeed in showing incompatibility, they had to show that the legislation would operate unfairly in all cases, not merely in their own cases. Where there are many claimants, they should apply for a group litigation order.[9] Much emphasis was placed by the claimants upon the effects of the LC upon individual taxpayers (and, indeed, the public gallery was filled with some 40-50 individuals personally affected), as highlighted in the Report of the Loan Charge All-Party Parliamentary Group in April 2019.[10] HMRC pointed out that as the claimants challenge is to primary legislation, rather than to the practice of HMRC, it is not open to them to rely upon the views and opinions of an APPG (which, unlike a Select Committee, has no formal status but merely exercises a right of freedom of speech in Parliament) as these cannot, under Article 9 of the Bill of Rights, be used to impeach the will of Parliament. The claimants must, so it was said on behalf of HMRC, accept that the present government’s position on the LC is at odds with the findings of the APPG. We await the judgement of the court. David Pett [1] See s 4 Human Rights Act 1998 [2] By the insertion of ss554A(5A) – (5C) [3] Degorce v HMRC [2017] EWCA 1427 [4] See, for example, R (oao St Matthews (West) Ltd & others v HM Treasury & anther); sub. nom. R (oao APVCO 19 Ltd & others) v HM Treasury & another [2015] EWCA Civ 648, [2015] STC 2272 [5] See R (oao Rowe and others) v HMRC and R (oao Vital Nut Co Ltd and others) v HMRC [2018] 1 WLR 3039 [6] See a decision of the EuCt HR in MA & others v Finland [2003] 37 EHRR CD210 and a Commission Decision of 10 March 1981 approved in Lay Lay Co Ltd v Malta [2013] ECHR 723. [7] NKM v Hungary [2013] STC 1104 [8] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-on-time-limits-and-the-disguised-remuneration-loan-charge [9] As in the Knibbs litigation in the Court of Appeal [2019] EWCA Civ 1719 [10] http://www.loanchargeappg.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Loan-Charge-Inquiry-Report-April-2019-FINAL.pdf davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment November 1, 2019 November 1, 2019 6 Minutes The Loan Charge – So What Should Be Recommended to Government? Returning from a few weeks holiday, I was looking forward to reading suggestions as to what Sir Amyas Morse might recommend to government which I assumed would be made by those senior members of the profession who, it might be argued, are responsible for bringing about the mess that has resulted in the misery of so many contractors and employees being faced with the Loan Charge. Instead, there is a deafening silence from that quarter. Short of calls from lobby groups for the total repeal of the Loan Charge – a move which is unlikely to be acceptable to any political party given the signal it would send to promoters of tax avoidance – I have yet to see any suggestions made as to what Sir Amyas Morse might recommend to government to be a fair and just solution. There is much comment on how HMRC and the government failed to act and have since sought to recover tax in a manner which circumvents, or undermines, the established checks and balances of the systems for recovery of tax by way of PAYE and self-assessment, but no positive suggestions as to how to address the issue. So, given that I have previously defended the Loan Charge in principle (see earlier posts), here are my suggestions as to what actions the government and HMRC should now take to resolve the plight of those contractors and employees faced with disproportionate and unplanned for tax bills if either they choose to settle with HMRC on the terms offered, or face up to the Loan Charge and the dilemma of a further charge if the loans outstanding are released. First, a line must be drawn to distinguish between (a) those cases in which the individual was knowingly participating in a tax avoidance arrangement and was in receipt of money for work done and on which he or she knew that PAYE tax had not been accounted for; and (b) those cases in which (typically) more modestly-remunerated contractors and employees were, in effect, made victims of the greed of others and obliged to accept payment for their services in the form of advances on loan under arrangements promoted to, and established by, their clients, or by an intermediary, as a condition of being given the paid work in the first place. This might also include those who can adduce evidence that they were persuaded to participate in such arrangements on the basis of clear professional advice that they were ‘acceptable’ to HMRC. Where exactly that line is drawn may be contentious, and there will doubtless be dispute as to the side on which a particular taxpayer should fall. Those within (b) should then be treated, for all tax purposes, as if the arrangements were, so far as they and HMRC were concerned, a ‘sham’ (whether or not that is strictly correct as a matter of law), HMRC accepting settlements on the basis that the amounts actually received by such individuals were payments of earnings received in the years in which the loans were advanced. This then leaves the question of whether such amounts received should be treated as either (i) having been received net of PAYE tax, on the assumption that the ‘employer’ had deducted and withheld tax and NICs on the grossed-up amounts of such payments (so entitling the individual to a credit for the PAYE tax which should have been deducted from the grossed-up payments) or (ii) as gross payments on which the employee is liable to tax. However, given that, in many cases, HMRC will not be in a position to make a Reg 72 or Reg 81 direction (making the employee primarily liable for the tax) and will in any event be out of time for recovering the tax from the employee, the pragmatic solution may be for the government to accept – on a concessionary and ‘without prejudice’ basis – that such payments be treated as having been net amounts (per(i) above). HMRC should then accept, notwithstanding that ss 554(5A) – (5C) ITEPA 2003 provides otherwise, that the ‘disguised remuneration’ rules and the Loan Charge have no further application in these cases. Insofar as HMRC is in time to recover the PAYE tax and NICs from the ‘employer’, they should make every effort to do so, but if they are now out of time for doing so or for making a discovery assessment, HM Treasury should accept that this is the price to be paid for failure to have acted within the normal time limits and in the proper manner. Of itself, this is not a complete solution as the trustee (or other loan creditor) may well take the view that the arrangement is not a ‘sham’ and, so far as they are concerned, the loan remains outstanding unpaid. However, the issue then becomes one between the individual and the trustee, rather than between the individual and HMRC. In these situations, HMRC should also accept that the inheritance tax rules relating to 10-yearly charges (under s64 IhTA 1984) and ‘exit’ charges (under s 65 and s72 of that Act) are of no application. This being on the working presumption that amounts advanced to the individual were payments of earnings for duties performed and so both they and the funds applied in payment are, and have at all relevant times been, outside the scope of the inheritance tax rules. Whilst such an approach should be capable of justification as being an exercise of HMRC’s residual powers of ‘care and management’, I accept that it might be considered to ‘fly in the face’ of the current position under case law (particularly the Glasgow Rangers case) and the ‘disguised remuneration’ legislation as it stands. Legislative change would go a long way to provide certainty and remove the risk of challenge, but may be far down the list of this government’s priorities. For those within (a), it is more difficult to see on what basis the current rules should be relaxed or repealed. However, one unfairness in the current system is the punitive effect of a combination of the Loan Charge, the further charge(s) arising on a release of a loan, and the complex rules (in ss554Z11(B)-(G)) affording relief from ‘double taxation’ when a given sum has been the subject of multiple unpaid charges to income tax (such as the original earnings charge on the amount contributed to the trust, any advance on loan made post 2010, any earlier writing off of the loan, the Loan Charge itself, and a charge on a subsequent release of the loan). I have suggested that those rules (which were rewritten in 2017) need to be revisited by Parliament so that, in effect, if the Loan Charge bites, earlier occasions of charge for which HMRC is out of time to recover the tax from any and every party are then ignored altogether in determining any amounts of tax outstanding. davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment October 21, 2019 October 22, 2019 5 Minutes Independent Review of the Loan Charge: Submission Made What follows is an edited version of my submission to Sir Amyas Morse, who is leading the review ordered by the Prime Minister into the Loan Charge. The Review is due to be completed by November 2019. The closing date for submissions is 30th September 2019. Advice on the use of EBT loan schemes Contrary to the assertions made by many others, in the period from c 1992 – 2010, it was neither the ‘received wisdom’ nor the standard practice of all professional advisers, that clients should consider making use of EBT loan arrangements as a ‘legitimate’ means of avoiding, or reducing liability to, income tax and NICs on what would otherwise fall to be charged to tax as payments of earnings. Broadly, the opinion which I and my team consistently held and gave – long before the Glasgow Rangers case was litigated – was that consideration given by an employer, or, in ‘IR35-type’ situations, by the client, was properly to be treated and taxed as earnings, and that the fact that it was agreed that some or all of that money be received by way of loan from a trust did not alter the character of such earnings. I am aware that this was also the view of many independent advisers and some counsel. Nevertheless, the views reported to have been expressed by certain QCs [lending credence to EBT loan arrangements] appeared to carry disproportionate weight with those advisers seeking an opportunity to profit from the promotion of such arrangements. The final decision of the Supreme Court in the Glasgow Rangers case was wholly consistent with the opinions I and my team had given over many years, and for which we had come in for some criticism for being too conservative. How should the government have addressed the abusive use of EBTs? It was open to the government in and before 2010 to have structured the DR rules on the basis that any company putting funds beyond the reach of creditors by (for example) making a contribution to an employees’ trust, should be subject to an immediate charge to tax at, say, 40% on the amount (or even the grossed-up amount) of that contribution, on a basis which is similar to that of the charge to tax on ‘loans to participators’ under s455 CTA 2010. Credit could then have been given to the company against any subsequent obligation to account for PAYE tax on payments and benefits made out of the trust. This would have been relatively straightforward to legislate for and to enforce. It would have ensured that HM Treasury received tax on amounts earmarked for the provision of benefits, whether by way of loans or otherwise, at the earlier time when the company contributed the funds to the trustees. It therefore came as a surprise to me when, in 2010, I was first shown a draft of the DR rules and invited to comment upon them. When I asked why they effectively imposed charges on the individual employees, rather than upon the employer, I was told by HMRC officials that this was a direct consequence of a Ministerial decision that the new levy should be structured as a charge on employees, not as a fresh ‘tax on business’. Much of the complexity of the DR rules appear to stem from this early policy decision. The relationship between the Loan Charge and the earlier ‘re-directed earnings’ charge On the basis of the Supreme Court decision in the Glasgow Rangers case, PAYE tax was due when an employer made a contribution to an EBT to fund the provision of loans to employees. Clearly, that did not happen in relation to the arrangements under review. HMRC is, in many instances, now out of time to raise assessments on employers under the PAYE regulations. Tax due under the Loan Charge, if not accounted for by the employer under PAYE, may be recovered from the employee following the making by HMRC of a Reg 80 determination (as the Loan Charge is a ‘notional payment’ per ss710 and 695A ITEPA 2003). In many cases, the employer will have ceased to exist or will not have the cash to be able to account for the charge and so, in effect, HMRC is now able to recover the Loan Charge tax from the individuals, whereas HMRC could not otherwise have collected the PAYE tax originally due on the contributions first made to the trust. This has been put forward as justifying criticism of the Loan Charge as having circumvented the established safeguards and balance as between the right of HMRC to collect tax, and the entitlement of the employee to finality and certainty as to the basis upon which, assuming full disclosure has been made, he or she may rest content that the tax treatment of monies received as consideration for work done has been settled. In my view, this argument is misconceived. Justification for the Loan Charge The arrangements typically entered into with employees and IR35-type contractors are all based upon the premise that, once a loan has been extended to an individual, it will remain outstanding until after the death of the debtor when – so it is argued – the loan may be released, and or repaid and then the trust assets appointed by the trustees in favour of the deceased’s dependants in a tax-efficient manner. Meanwhile, the benefit of such a loan falls to be taxed annually as a benefit-in-kind under Chapter 7, Part 2, ITEPA 2003. It is asserted by many that as the tax point was the original making of a contribution to the EBT, so if and insofar as the tax then due cannot, for the reasons summarised above, be collected, that should be an end to the matter. However, this ignores the quite distinct benefit (which is not expressly brought into charge under those ‘beneficial loan’ provisions) of the decision of the trustee creditor, made from day to day, not to call for immediate repayment of the loan. Most people would accept that being allowed to defer repayment of an outstanding loan is itself a benefit, and one which is distinct from that of having been made the loan (otherwise than on a fixed-term basis), in the first place – the latter having been brought into charge by the ‘beneficial loan provisions’. I see no reason why the government should not have imposed a one-off charge to tax on the amounts outstanding, having given due warning that it intended to do so and plenty of opportunity for participants to choose to either (a) to reach a voluntary settlement with HMRC of the earlier charge on re-directed earnings, or (b) effect repayment and seek a pay-out from the trustees, or arrange with the trustees for the loan to be written off (so that, in either such case, an immediate charge arises under the disguised remuneration – “DR” – rules). The settlement terms offered by HMRC were, looked at objectively, relatively fair and reasonable – albeit that they have varied over the years. What is unfair about the Loan Charge? For many lower-paid employees and contractors, the imposition of an immediate charge to income tax on the entirety of an amount which, in effect, represents income spread over up to 20 years or so – and therefore, in many cases, at a higher effective rate of tax – is a crippling financial burden. This is particularly so in those cases in which the individuals were effectively obliged to accept the arrangements either in the mistaken belief that they were acceptable to HMRC or because the profitable engagement under which they were obliged to accept payment in the form of such arrangements was offered on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis. In these situations, the burden of payment should be spread over a period which broadly equates to that over which the relevant employments/engagements were held. Who is to blame for the situation? Whilst the government, HMT and HMRC should all have acted sooner – and as far back as the early 1990s – to address the growing practice of ‘payment by loans’, it is surely only right that the greatest criticism should be directed at those who promoted such arrangements and profited from their adoption through fees and commissions (so that, in many cases, the perceived economic benefits of the arrangements were shared by the ‘client/employers’ and the promoters/advisers rather than by the individual participants). Of course, many such promoters have quietly ‘melted away’. The more reputable offshore trustee organisations have striven to offload their trusteeships of such EBTs to smaller trustee organisations, many of which (in my experience) have inadequate detailed knowledge of UK trust and tax laws. Many substitute UK trustee organisations in the UK are unregulated In particular, I would hope that the Review will shine the spotlight on those QCs who allowed their Opinions (whether right or wrong in their views as to the law) to be used to lend credence to the promotion of such arrangements. Likewise, those accounting firms – including the major UK firms – who chose to advise positively in favour of, or failed to counsel against, the adoption of such arrangements should also attract criticism. Those closely-owned companies and owner-managed businesses which entered into such marketed arrangements should also be the subject of criticism. HMRC is to blame for not acting sooner and for not seeking to secure a ‘Glasgow Rangers’ – type decision of the courts much earlier than it did. HMRC was clearly warned, but officers sat on their hands. For the reason given above, former Treasury Ministers are to blame for directing that the recovery of tax through the DR rules be structured as a charge on individuals, not on employers, thus giving rise to unnecessary complexity in the legislation (some 60+ pages of detailed provisions having been added to the statute book). HMRC is to blame for the lack of consistency in its procedures for securing settlement from employers and employees. There have been at least 3 distinct regimes over the years (including the Lichtenstein Disclosure Facility) under which employers and employees have been encouraged to settle their tax liabilities. HMRC should have consulted outside of HMT/HMRC as to the most effective manner in which to engage in settlement discussions and made clearer from the outset the basis on which HMRC would expect to settle. There has been confusion and an inconsistency of approach in relation to the inheritance tax aspects of settlements, with no clear exposition from HMRC as to how they will seek to impose charges to IhT under sections 64, 72 and/or 65 IhTA 1984. In this respect, much turns on the detailed structuring of the trust arrangements and whether (for example) use has been made of sub-trusts or sub-funds and whether or not the trusts involved are, or have at some time been, within the scope of s86 IhTA 1984. In many cases neither the promoters or the trustees are familiar with the detailed provisions of the Inheritance Tax Act and have failed to appreciate the actual and potential charges which arise in relation to the EBT loan arrangements. Ministers and HMRC might have succeeded in collecting more tax through settlements had they made a policy decision (or legislated) from the outset to treat all such arrangements in relation to which a ‘Glasgow Rangers-style’ charge applies – and regardless of the nuances of the drafting of trust documentation – as outside the scope of the charges to IhT and thereby encouraging more engagement with employers and individuals. Is the Loan Charge an appropriate response to the tax avoidance behaviour in question? For the reason I have described, and in particular the fact that participants have, until the Loan Charge, continued to benefit from a failure on the part of the creditor to call for immediate repayment of a loan – a current and continuing benefit which is not charged to tax under the ‘beneficial loan’ provisions – the Loan Charge is a perfectly fair, reasonable and proportionate response and necessary to bring to an end to such arrangements and to the unfairness as between those employees who suffered PAYE tax and NICs on the full amount of their earnings and those who have not. My colleague in Chambers, Keith Gordon, has asserted (in Tax Journal 27 Sept 2019) that “In substance, the loan charge is a tax on the loans made in earlier years…” and that it is wrong in principle to impose a charge on something which should have been brought into charge years ago, but for which HMRC is now out of time for doing so. I disagree. This ignores the ongoing and continuing benefit of the creditor determining from day to day that an open-ended loan need not be repaid. It is that distinct, and real, economic benefit at which the Loan Charge is (presumably), or should be, properly directed. Income tax is an annual tax and there is no reason in principle why a government should not determine to levy a tax on an employment-related benefit which accrues on an on-going basis. Have the changes announced by the government in advance of, and since, the Loan Charge came into effect addressed any legitimate concerns raised about the impact on individuals, including affordability for those affected? No, not the legitimate concerns noted below. Whilst the Loan Charge is PAYE earnings, provision has been made which allows HMRC to collect the tax directly from the individual if it is not promptly accounted for by the employer or if, as in many cases, the employer has ceased to exist. The effect of imposing in a single tax year a charge on amounts which represent earnings accrued over many years is unfair, given the failures on the part of HMRC/HMT and government to have taken action sooner and therefore allowed many promoters and individuals to believe(wrongly) that such arrangements were legitimate and acceptable to HMRC. Whilst the Loan Charge itself is, for the reason given above, perfectly fair, there is a legitimate concern as to the manner in which the tax is collected. In particular, the announcement by the Financial Secretary that “HMRC will not apply the Loan Charge to a tax year where (sic.) an enquiry was closed on the basis of fully disclosed information” is surely misguided. Why should those who happen to be in that situation receive more favourable treatment than those who, for whatever reason, were not the subject of an enquiry? If the policy reason for the Loan Charge is to tax the ongoing benefit (see above), the fact that such benefit has been enjoyed by all participants (regardless of whether an enquiry has been opened and closed), means that this policy applies in an arbitrary and unfair manner – possibly to the advantage of those whose other tax planning activities prompted the enquiry in the first place. A legitimate concern relates to the manner in which HMRC has dealt with settlement negotiations. HMRC staff assigned to dealing with individuals, companies and their advisers have clearly not had sufficient training, and/or general knowledge of the relevant (complex) tax laws, or of how to understand company accounts, so as to be able to engage effectively and address technical questions arising. The advice received from more senior technical staff has on occasions fallen short of the standard to be expected and, particularly in the early days of settlements, showed a lack of consistency. What should now be done? I would respectfully suggest that consideration be given to recommending that government: should not suspend the Loan Charge, as this would result in thousands of individuals having benefitted unfairly – when compared with the millions of employees and contractors who have duly accounted for tax on their earnings and profits – from having entered into such arrangements, whether they did so voluntarily or having been obliged to do so as a condition of securing work. It cannot be right that individuals who continue to benefit from egregious tax planning should be relieved of liability on what is an ongoing and continuing benefit (of not having to repay the loan) by reason only of the passage of time since the arrangements were first entered into. Further, given the number of settlements already reached, the idea of suspending or revoking the Loan Charge at this stage would mean that a substantial amount of work would be needed to make refunds and compensation payments to those who have already chosen to settle; withdraw the policy statement of the Financial Secretary (referred to above) on the basis that it is arbitrary and unfair in its application; direct HMRC to allow, in those cases in which the tax cannot be collected from the employer under PAYE, individuals with modest means (regardless of their current annual earnings) to have the benefit of much extended periods for payment so that the period equates broadly with that over which the loans were successively made. In this regard, I would suggest that the threshold below which such an extended facility be offered to individuals be set at, say, current annual income of £150,000 or capital assets (excluding house and pension) of less than £250,000; direct HMRC to devote greater resource to training the front-line staff charged with reaching settlements with companies and individuals to allow for direct and meaningful engagement with advisers; direct HMRC to consult in future more widely outside of government/HMT/HMRC when seeking to address issues such as an actual or potential haemorrhaging of tax through the development of new techniques. HMRC should be more trustful of the views and opinions of individuals with recognised experience and expertise, whilst clearly taking care to avoid those who have been responsible for giving opinions which support egregious tax planning. In my experience there is a genuine willingness on the part of many able and gifted advisers to make a positive contribution to addressing such issues. The idea that anyone outside of HMRC is likely to undermine the government’s efforts is misconceived. I would point to the success of the SIP/EMI legislation which was (for the first time) put together by a team recruited from outside of HMT/HMRC and has well stood the test of time. David Pett Temple Tax Chambers davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment September 27, 2019 12 Minutes Briefing Note on ‘the Loan Charge’ In response to concerted pressure from MPs and lobby groups, and in fulfilment of a promise made by Boris Johnson to Parliament, the government has asked Sir Amyas Morse (former Head of the National Audit Office) to conduct a review, to be completed by November 2019, into whether the ‘Loan Charge’, “as it applies to individuals who have directly entered into disguised remuneration schemes, is an appropriate response to the tax avoidance behaviour in question”. To understand what this is all about, read on…. Many relatively low-paid employees and contractors have been lured into providing their personal services to clients, including government departments, on the basis that, each year, the individual worker would receive minimum wage payments, subject to income tax and NICs under PAYE, and the balance of the consideration for their services being made up of loans – typically advanced by the trustees of an offshore trust funded directly or indirectly by the client . The loans were generally represented to be ‘open-ended’, that is, there was no expectation that the worker would be required to repay the loan for many years, if at all. (Broadly, it was anticipated that the loan would be released, free of tax, after the worker’s death.) The loan element was – so it was represented – not “earnings”, and therefore not subject to deduction of income tax and NICs under PAYE. Such arrangements were widely promoted by accountants and other tax advisers in the period from c 1993 until (at least) 2010. They were adopted by a wide range of employers/engagers, both small and large, including government departments. In many cases the legitimacy of the arrangement was represented by promoters and advisers to be in reliance upon the written Opinions of well-known Q.C.s. Whilst never formally ‘approving’ such arrangements, HMRC were slow to challenge them or respond to disclosures of their intended use or open enquiries into returns which made full disclosure of them. The practice of having third-party trustees make such loans to employees and directors was effectively stopped when, in 2011, the ‘disguised remuneration’ rules (in Part 7A, ITEPA 2003) were introduced. It is understood that Ministers insisted that this legislation be framed as imposing a charge on individual employees, rather than as a levy on the employer funding the arrangement. Similar rules relating to workers who were not employees or directors took effect from 6 April 2017. In 2017, the Supreme Court (in the “Glasgow Rangers” case) ultimately held that payments for or in respect of an employee’s services which are re-directed with the consent or acquiescence of the employee to a third party (such as trustees) nevertheless fall to be taxed as payments of earnings subject to deduction of tax and NICs under PAYE. The disguised remuneration rules did not, of themselves, bring into charge to income tax the benefit enjoyed by employees and workers of having existing pre-2011 loans remain outstanding, and employers/clients, and individual taxpayers, were showing an obvious reluctance to come forward and agree settlements with HMRC, accepting that the amounts outstanding were properly to be taxed as earnings or profits of a trade. Accordingly, the government introduced a ‘one-off’ charge to income tax (and NICs) on (broadly) the aggregate amount of loans outstanding as at 5 April 2019 (“the Loan Charge”). The charge applies to all loans made as far back as 1999 in circumstances which, if such a loan was now made, would fall within the scope of the ‘disguised remuneration’ charges introduced in relation to employees and directors, in 2011 and, for certain other workers and close company participants, in 2017. Criticism of the Loan Charge has been voiced on the basis that: (a) It is perceived as ‘retrospective’ in effect, as it applies to loan arrangements made as far back as 1999. However, the charge is levied on the current, ongoing, benefit to an individual of the lender failing to call for repayment of the loan, that being a benefit which accrues daily for so long as it remains unpaid. The charge did not apply in relation to a loan if it had been repaid in cash before 6 April 2019. (b) The Loan Charge imposes an immediate charge to income tax (and NICs), on a single occasion, on amounts which represent the aggregation of income accrued over up to 20 years. A reporting obligation must be satisfied by 30 September. The tax, if not accounted for under PAYE, must be accounted for by self-assessment, with the deadline for submission of SA Returns being 31st January 2020 (and an earlier deadline of 5 October for paper returns). Whilst HMRC has offered deferred payment terms to those individuals with gross annual earnings of less than £50,000, the burden on many individuals to fund the tax is very substantial and it has been reported that, in extreme cases, individual taxpayers have been driven to suicide as a consequence. (c) In most cases, the burden of the charge falls on the individual, rather than upon the employer or client who, typically, stood to benefit from the arrangement as it meant that the net cost of the arrangement was reduced below that of paying earnings in cash, principally because of the saving of employers’ 13.8 % NICs. Whilst extant employers are primarily liable to account for tax under the Loan Charge, in the case of those which have ceased to exist, or are no longer the PAYE employer, HMRC is exercising power to recover the tax directly from the individual. (d) In reality, many individual participants benefitted only marginally, in terms of net ‘cash in hand’, as much of the perceived ‘savings’ were taken by the promoters/advisers in fees. Many lower-paid employees and contractors had little or no choice as to whether to participate in such arrangements as the employer/intermediary/client made such participation a condition of securing the paid employment/engagement. (e) So far as many individual participants were concerned, it was represented to them that such arrangements were ‘legitimate’ and ‘acceptable’ to HMRC, and this understanding was reinforced by the fact that HMRC did not in fact challenge such arrangements even when the full circumstances were disclosed to them, either by way of formal ‘up-front’ ‘disclosures [by the promoters] of a tax avoidance scheme’, or in response to enquiries opened into an individual’s self-assessment return. (f) Those who in fact gained most from such arrangements (as implemented in relation to relatively low-paid workers), namely the promoters and advisers, have effectively avoided sanctions. It is not possible, under existing laws, for HMRC to secure recovery, from the promoter/adviser, of the tax now due from an individual participant. (g) Whilst HMRC has, until recently, offered, to both employers and individuals, ‘settlement opportunities’ which would allow an individual to avoid the Loan Charge by the employer or employee agreeing to account for tax on the loans as if they were earnings of the relevant years, the tactics used by HMRC to ‘persuade’ taxpayers – particularly individuals – to reach settlement agreements have been strongly criticised as “strong-armed”. David Pett, Temple Tax Chambers 11 September 2019 davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment September 11, 2019 September 17, 2019 5 Minutes In Defence of the ‘Outstanding Loan’ Charge The former Financial Secretary to the Treasury recently announced in a letter to MPs that “HMRC will not apply the Loan Charge to a tax year where (sic) an enquiry was closed on the basis of fully disclosed information.” I venture to suggest that this is misguided, both as a matter of law and as a matter of social policy. There are two economic benefits of a loan enjoyed by the person to whom it is made: (a) the value of the loan in the sense that the price being paid for it (in terms of the interest rate payable) is less than the market value of such credit on the same terms. One measure of this is the difference between the amount of interest actually paid, and the rate at which it would have been charged if the loan had been made on arm’s length/open-market terms. In the case of an employment-related loan the amount of such benefit is (broadly) charged to income tax by reference to the Official Rate of interest; and (b) if it is not a ‘fixed term’ loan, that of the continuing forbearance of the lender in not calling for immediate repayment. The latter is not taxed as ‘general earnings’ (under the benefits code) of the borrower, but there is no reason in law why Parliament should not have determined that such an ongoing benefit is properly to be the subject of a charge to income tax in much the same way that other profits or gains not obviously income in nature (such as, e.g. share option gains) have been brought within the charge to income tax, regardless of whether the loan was linked to an employment or a self-employed trading activity. This is, in effect, what Parliament has done in legislating to impose the Loan Charge as at 5 April 2019. The fact that the loan was made pursuant to arrangements made as far back as 1999 has no bearing on the fact that, if the loan has not been repaid, a benefit is still being enjoyed on a current daily basis. It is said that it is wrong in principle, and/or as a matter of law, that a taxpayer should be at risk of a charge to tax on the benefit of an arrangement made many years ago and which was fully disclosed to HMRC in, or in respect of, the tax year in which it was entered into and which HMRC chose, for whatever reason, not to challenge. The existing legislation provides a balance between the obligations of a taxpayer to self-assess his or her income and gains, and the statutory time limits on HMRC’s power to enquire into a return or make a discovery. It is important that the courts uphold this balance, and they do so (see, for example, the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Tooth v HMRC [2019] EWCA Civ 826). But the point is that income tax is charged on an annual basis and the need to maintain that balance in relation to historic earnings or benefits cannot be taken to restrict Parliament from deciding to impose a charge to tax on what is, in effect, a continuing current benefit enjoyed from day to day for so long as a creditor chooses not to call for immediate repayment of an open-ended loan. The passage quoted above suggests that those individuals (typically contractors, not employees) who are continuing to enjoy the ongoing benefit of not having to repay loans made to them in lieu of payments of taxable income may avoid the Loan Charge if an enquiry was opened into their tax affairs in respect of the year in which the loan was made, or possibly a later year, and since closed, and the existence of the loan was then fully disclosed but not challenged by HMRC. By contrast, those who were not the subject of such an enquiry will not avoid the Loan Charge. If correct, this will mean that individuals who continue to benefit from outstanding unpaid loans will now be taxed differently according to whether or not HMRC happened to have opened, and since closed, an enquiry in respect of an earlier year. Looked at from the point of view of the millions of taxpayers who have not enjoyed the benefit of receiving profits of their employment or trading activities in the form of loans, this would surely be seen as unfair discrimination in favour of those who have ‘shouted loudest’ yet benefitted at the expense of all other taxpayers. It is certainly the case that HMRC should have acted sooner to put an end to the egregious tax planning arrangements and to the activities of those advisers who promoted such structures and profited handsomely from doing so. Ministers are properly to be criticised for having failed to do so. There was a strong case for action to have been taken long before 2011 to impose charges to tax on such loans as if they were earnings, or, as appropriate, trading income, of the recipients and taxed accordingly – in the case of employees, by imposing the charge primarily upon the employer, not the employee. The decision of the Supreme Court in the Glasgow Rangers’ case was too late in the day to stop the use of EBT loan arrangements. It was asserted that, at least in relation to employment-related arrangements, if (per the Supreme Court in Glasgow Rangers) contributions to the trust which made the loans were properly to be taxed as income of the employee at that time, no further charge should arise on the basis that the loan by the trustee was merely an application of the employee’s earnings. The government moved to head off such arguments by making clear, in what is now s554A (5A) to(5C) ITEPA 2003, that the use of such ‘re-directed earnings’ does not obviate the application of the disguised remuneration rules (including the Loan Charge) to loans made out of such taxable earnings. (The Loan Charge applies in relation to individuals who are not employees by reason of the arrangements having fallen within s 23A ITTOIA 2005 and Schedule 12 F(No.2)A 2017.) In any event, the idea that HMRC is entitled to challenge a loan arrangement only within a limited period after the tax year in which it was entered into ignores the fact that, for so long as the loan remains outstanding, that arrangement in itself affords a distinct and ongoing benefit which is a legitimate target of the government in seeking to ensure that all taxpayers are dealt with fairly. davidpetttax Uncategorized Leave a comment July 31, 2019 September 1, 2019 4 Minutes	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1722
__label__wiki	0.680143	0.680143	RECRUITING: Recapping week one of the spring evaluation period Jared Stansbury, Apr 21 • 0 Comments The football recruiting spring evaluation period officially began last Saturday and the Iowa State coaching staff hit the road in full force starting on Monday. The evaluation period is a time when coaches are able to watch players workout and discuss prospects with high school coaches and administrators, but they can’t have face-to-face contact with prospects younger than seniors. During this period, you’ll see a large number of scholarship offers extended and that was the case with Iowa State. You can see some of the players Iowa State has offered so far this week in this thread on our forums. Here I’ll be going back over some of the notable prospects Iowa State watched during the spring evaluation period, listing their offers and, in some cases, going over how their recruitment stands at this time. Elijah Jones – Cornerback – Ellsworth C.C. This 6-foot-3, 175-pound defensive back picked up an Iowa State offer on March 31 and tight ends coach Alex Golesh stopped by to check him out on Monday. Jones, who posted 11 tackles and three interceptions last season for Ellsworth, also holds an offer Utah State. The Fort Meyers, Flor. native has also reportedly received interest from Oregon State and Colorado. Will McDonald – Defensive End – Waukesha, WI McDonald was Iowa State’s first commitment in the 2018 class and a member of the staff stopped by his high school to see him on Monday. The 6-foot-5, 210-pound three-star is rated as the No. 48 weak side defensive end in the country and No. 5 prospect by 247Composite. Bryson Williams – Defensive Tackle – Lincoln, NE Williams was on campus for Iowa State’s spring game earlier this month. The 6-foot-2, 290-pound Lincoln Southeast picked up an Iowa State offer after a visit from defensive line coach Eli Rasheed on Monday. His other offers include Iowa, Kansas State and quite a few smaller FBS programs. He’s the No. 3 prospect in Nebraska and No. 68 defensive tackle in the class, according to 247Composite. Nelson Ceaser – Defensive End – Missouri City, TX Iowa State became the second school to offer this 6-foot-4, 210-pound defensive end in the class of 2019 after linebackers coach Tyson Veidt stopped by his school on Monday. He’s rated as the four-star prospect, No. 76 prospect in the class, the No. 5 weak side defensive end and No. 10 player in Texas. His other offer is from Texas Tech. Sterling Galban – Wide Receiver – Burnet, TX Iowa State offered this 5-foot-10, 175-pound speedster on March 21 and he unofficially visited campus during the first weekend in April. He’s the No. 186 wide receiver in the class and No. 164 prospect in Texas. His other offers include Columbia, Cornell and Dartmouth. Trevor Downing – Offensive Tackle – Creston, IA Downing has long been one of the top targets on Iowa State’s board for the 2018 class and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The 6-foot-5, 290-pound three-star is the No. 4 prospect in Iowa and No. 33 offensive tackle in the class. He’s been on campus quite a few times and always one of the top priorities when coaches are able to hit the road. Iowa State’s top competition remains Iowa and Minnesota. Braelen Oliver – Outside Linebacker – Douglasville, GA This 6-foot-1, 210-pound three-star picked up an Iowa State offer earlier this month and the Cyclones have been one of the schools he’s heard from most. Oliver told Cyclone Fanatic on Tuesday that Iowa State, Wake Forest, Colorado State and Georgia Southern are the schools he’s had the most contact with so far. He’s the No. 48 outside linebacker in the 2018 class and No. 66 prospect in Georgia. Aaron Casey – Safety/Outside Linebacker – Douglasville, GA Casey, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound prospect, received an Iowa State offer last month and recently picked one up from West Virginia. He said those two schools along with South Alabama, Ball State and Georgia Southern are the ones he’s heard from most frequently. This is what he told Cyclone Fanatic on Tuesday about his interactions with Iowa State coaches: “They said they like my versatility,” Casey said. “How I can roll back and cover the field and also come down to make a hit.” Ezra Miller – Offensive Tackle – Holstein, IA Miller picked up an Iowa State offer during an unofficial visit for the spring game and offensive line coach Tom Manning stopped by Ridge View High School to watch him workout on Tuesday. He’s the No. 1 prospect in Iowa for the 2019 class, No. 9 offensive tackle in the country and No. 84 player overall. The four-star also holds an offer from Iowa. Mario Goodrich – Athlete – Lees Summit, MO Goodrich is rated as the No. 18 athlete in the country by 247Composite and is a four-star prospect. The 6-foot-2, 180-pound wide receiver and cornerback was visited by a member of the staff on Thursday. He’s considered a heavy Nebraska lean, but he also has offers from Iowa, Kansas, Kansas State as well as the Cyclones. Vincent Gray – Cornerback – Rochester, MI Iowa State offered Gray back in December and they’ve been hard after him ever since. He’s rated as the No. 55 cornerback in the class and No. 12 prospect in Michigan. His other offers include Washington State and Purdue. Daniel Parker – Defensive End – Blue Springs, MO The 6-foot-2, 268-pound three-star is rated as the No. 19 strong side defensive end in the class and No. 9 prospect in Missouri, by 247Composite. He was visited by a member of Iowa State’s staff on Thursday. His other offers include Missouri, Kansas State, Iowa and Illinois. Jared Stansbury View articles by Jared Stansbury administrator Jared a native of Clarinda, Iowa, started as the Cyclone Fanatic intern in August 2013, primarily working as a videographer until starting on the women’s basketball beat prior to the 2014-15 season. Upon earning his Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication from Iowa State in May 2016, Jared was hired as the site’s full-time staff writer, taking over as the primary day-to-day reporter on football and men’s basketball. He was elevated to the position of managing editor in January 2020. He is a regular contributor on 1460 KXNO in Des Moines and makes regular guest appearances on radio stations across the Midwest. Jared resides in Ankeny with his four-year-old puggle, Lolo. Follow @@JaredStansbury Previous Iowa State announces addition of Virginia transfer Marial Shayok Next RECRUITING: Cyclones listed in top five for four-star DE RECRUITING: Iowa State set to host impressive list of visitors for spring game RECRUITING: Where do the Cyclones stand heading into the dead period? RECRUITING: Cyclones offer four-star Georgia defensive end	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1732
__label__cc	0.58282	0.41718	ICC Cricket World Cup 2019: Ambati Rayudu reacts sarcastically after getting snubbed A day after the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced India’s squad for the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2019, leaving the probable prospect for the number 4 position Ambati Rayudu out from the 15-man squad. In the ODI tours of Australia and New Zealand earlier this year, Rayudu averaged 42.80 from seven games. Then when Australia toured India in March, he struggled with scores of 13, 18 and 2. The management then dropped him from the XI for the fourth and fifth ODIs. Meanwhile, all-rounder Vijay Shankar performed well since the Australia and New Zealand tour and therefore, he grabbed the much-debated number four slot for the World Cup. Everyone, however, was waiting for Rayudu to comment on his World Cup snub and the man has come up with a sarcastic message on Twitter. He indirectly took a dig mentioning about ordering the 3D glasses to watch the mega-event from home. “Just Ordered a new set of 3d glasses to watch the world cup,” Rayudu’s tweet read. Just Ordered a new set of 3d glasses to watch the world cup 😉😋.. — Ambati Rayudu (@RayuduAmbati) April 16, 2019 MSK Prasad gave the reason to leave Ambati Rayudu out of India’s World Cup squad When the BCCI chief of selectors MSK Prasad was asked the question about not picking Ambati Rayudu for the number 4 spot in the World Cup, despite giving him a decently long run at the spot. “After the Champions Trophy, we tried quite a few people at number 4. We gave a few more chances to Rayudu. What Vijay Shankar brings is three dimensional. We are looking at him at no. 4 to begin with,” the chief selector said while addressing the media. TAGS: Ambati Rayudu, ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 CATEGORY: Ambati Rayudu, News, World Cup	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1738
__label__wiki	0.768475	0.768475	IPL 2020: CSK coach Stephen Fleming explains how MS Dhoni & Co. spent the 6-day break ahead of SRH clash Posted On / October 2, 2020 / by Akshat Gaur Stephen Fleming, MS Dhoni (Image Source: Twitter) Fleming revealed how CSK prepared themselves during the 6-day break. 'We got some clarity around what we need to do': Fleming. Unlike previous editions, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) did not have an ideal start in the ongoing thirteenth season of Indian Premier League (IPL). The MS Dhoni-led side has lost two of their three games and that even attracted some criticism concerning their strategies and team combinations. However, the three-time champions got a much-needed six-day break after their successive defeats against Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Delhi Capitals (DC). The head coach of CSK, Stephen Fleming, said the break came at a right time. “It came at a good time because the first three games were in quick succession and all games were at different grounds, so you have to appreciate trying to read conditions, for each game being predominantly the first team to play there was tough,” Fleming told the CSK website. Fleming remarked that they have used the break to get lucidity about what they need to do in the competition. “And also coming off a couple of challenges we had off the field, we’ve used this break pretty well, we got some clarity around what we need to do and have practised very well,” he added. ‘Four games in Dubai will help to rectify mistakes we did against DC’: Fleming The next four out of five matches for CSK will take place in Dubai international cricket stadium, and Fleming said it would be helpful to settle in and try and read conditions at one ground. “I’m looking forward to putting in a bit of performance than we did the last time we played at Dubai where Delhi Capitals outplayed us. There were a number of areas that we weren’t happy with, and we’ve worked hard on those,” the former New Zealand international added further. Unlike other teams, CSK played their three matches at different grounds, and Fleming articulated that they learnt a lot after playing their fixtures at all the three bases. “I heard comments yesterday that teams are still learning, they’ve had the benefit of playing at one ground and are learning at other grounds, so I’m not sure. But from our point of view, we certainly learnt a lot, and even over the six days now, to watch and try and work the characteristics of each of the grounds has been beneficial,” concluded Fleming. TAGS: Chennai Super Kings, IPL 2020, MS Dhoni, Stephen Fleming	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1739
__label__wiki	0.955668	0.955668	« Best CDs of 2002 Amon Tobin v. Amon Tobin in Russia » Hip-Hop Producer Hides Electronica Album [ January 16, 2003 / Department: the crate / Leave a comment ] Often enough, the best electronic music lies just below a single track of vocals. Often as not, those vocals get the music filed in record stores under “hip-hop” or “r&b.” Case in point, the collected rap of the group Cypress Hill, who under the guidance of producer DJ Muggs coughed up album upon album of dense atmospherics. Cypress Hill’s sound was thicker than the marijuana smoke the group rapped about incessantly. Where Public Enemy’s producers, the Bomb Squad, achieved density with head-on sonic collisions, Muggs favored overlapping veils. Muggs has a full-length solo album, Dust, due out March 21, 2003, and it’s not what Cypress fans might be expecting — all in all, it’s a rock-pop album, 14 tracks of moody, downbeat emoting, including singing by Joshua Todd (of the defunct metal band Buckcherry, which rocked harder than it got credit for), Amy Trujillo, Everlast and Greg Dulli. Much of this will appeal to fans of Tricky’s brand of trip-hop, but for electronic aficionados there are also four experimental vocal-free tracks on Dust. (By the way, Tricky and Muggs both record for Anti- Records, which is also home to Tom Waits and to Nick Cave, whose band includes Blixa Bargeld, of Einsturzende Neubauten — now, isn’t that a label whose Christmas-party jam you’d like to witness?) Collected as an EP, the four vocal-free tracks from Dust would have made a nice little electronica set. Instead, they serve as interludes, each at less than two minutes in length: Track three (“Niente”) finds common ground between the Beatles’ psychedelic studio antics (a la Revolver‘s “I’m Only Sleeping”) and the melodrama of Angelo Badalementi’s soundtracks (Twin Peaks). Track six (“Shadows”) is water torture with a heart-pounding back beat and an underlay of intimate but undecipherable ham-radio jabbering. It closes with a bell ringing and a door opening: a self-deprecating maneuver that turns the track, de facto, into elevator music. Track eight (“Cloudy Days”) starts with sci-fi noises and segues quickly into a “Dust in the Wind”-style guitar exercise. Of the four vocal-less tracks on Dust, this is the only one that is remotely unsatisfying, and then only because the guitar melody demands a vocal that never arrives. When the song modulates down a notch midway through, it sounds like it could be a Guns N’ Roses cover, but instead it’s a nice bit of electro-acoustic noodling that might appeal to fans of Fennesz or Greg Davis. Track 12 (“Blip”) opens with the sound of a computer keyboard being pecked at. Muggs quickly matches that casual rhythm with Aphex Twin-style computerized percussion, which he proceeds to tweak until the sounds are about to disintegrate. [ Tag: i-hop / Leave a comment ]	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1745
__label__wiki	0.883315	0.883315	BiographiesFilmHistoryMusicTV You May Not Know Her By Name, But You’ve Probably Heard Her! Rose Heichelbech Once a high-profile entertainer, her name faded into obscurity after 1950. She isn’t a household name now, but in the ’40s and ’50s she most certainly was. And her story is not unlike many performers from the past. Fortunately, we have some quality recordings of her warm and spirited performances. Born in Trinidad in 1920 and raised in Harlem, Hazel Scott was a child prodigy on the piano, admitted to the Juilliard School of Music at only 8-years-old. Scott became known for her boogie versions of classical melodies and soon became an in-demand act. Scott’s jazz performances and unique renditions of classical composers made her truly one-of-a-kind. When Hollywood studios became interested, Scott had quite a few conditions before she should appear on screen. She would only appear as herself, playing music and singing, in costumes that she approved of. This was a huge step for African American entertainers, though not surprising coming from a woman who simply refused to play for segregated audiences. Via/ Flickr Her success landed her a radio show and a TV show, both of which were later over shadowed by the events of the McCarthy years. Scott married congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. in 1945, and as a politician’s wife, she did not fear losing work or being arrested since she was not a Communist. Unlike Lucille Ball, Scott was blacklisted. Even though she had voluntarily testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1950 and had nothing to hide, The Hazel Scott Show was cancelled, mainly because of her association with the Cafe Society club in Harlem- a suspected Communist hangout. This turn of events took her largely out of the spotlight and her career unfortunately faded. She still made many appearances on variety shows like Cavalcade of Stars throughout the ’50s and ’60s and performed in France where she had moved (she reportedly spoke 7 languages). But, we have many shining examples of her most incredible performances from the films she played in and her television appearances. And, talent like this certainly doesn’t come around everyday! Have a listen to her unbelievable piano skills as she plays two at a time from the film The Heat’s On (1943). You’ll be glad you did! The Oldest Car Still Being Driven in Germany Is a Doozie 9 Facts About the Baby Boom You Might Not Have Known Dolly Parton Breaks Down Her Fashion from the 1970s to Now The Reason Why Horseshoes Are Considered Lucky	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1746
__label__wiki	0.672335	0.672335	Rangers Limp Into Break Plus North Lamar Softball Standout Honored Again Photo by Greg Higgins Paris – For the second time since the season finished, North Lamar Pantherette Junior softball pitcher, Reagan Richardson is a 1st team All-State selection. This time by the Texas Sports Writers Association. Incoming senior Catcher, Bailee Nickerson, was a 3rd team selection. Earlier in the year, Richardson was also named 1st team All State by the Texas Girls Coaches Association. Nickerson and Richardson led the Pantherette softball to the State Championship game last month. The All-Star break couldn’t come soon enough for the Texas Rangers as they drop their first half finale to the Twins 15-5. Jurickson Profar went yard in the loss [AUDIO]. The Rangers pitching, however, couldn’t get the job done, giving up five runs in the fifth inning and seven runs in the seventh. Texas still goes into the All-Star break with the best record in the American League at 54-36 and lead Houston by 5.5 games in the AL West. The Rangers resume play on Friday when they visit the Chicago Cubs. Across the pond, Wimbledon concluded over the weekend and Serena Williams wins her 22nd Grand Slam Singles title, pulling her even with Steffi Graf for the 2nd most Grand Slam titles in the modern era, which began in 1968. Margaret Court has the most with 24. Serena and her sister Venus also won their 6th women’s double’s title at Wimbledon. And Andy Murray defeats Milos Raonic in straight sets to capture the Men’s Singles Title. In the Euro Championships, the French went in to the championship match as heavy favorites, but it would be Portugal coming out on top 1-0, thanks to an Eder goal in the 109′. France launched 18 shots with seven on goal, including three hitting posts. Portugal took nine shots with three on goal on their way to winning their first major European tournament. And UFC 200 was highlighted by a trio of victories as Daniel Cormier, Brock Lesner and Amanda Nunez all win their matches. Lesner, who’s been in WWE in recent years, won his first bout since 2011. UFC 200 will be the last event under the control of CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, who sold the company for $4 billion dollars. Previous CMT Bringing Rising Star to PJC Next MP Police Investigating Animal Case	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1748
__label__cc	0.598428	0.401572	The Last Veteran's Day – A Dream by Drick Boyd \| Nov 12, 2009 \| Uncategorized \| 1 comment The Year: November 11, some time in the future The Place: A VFW Hall The old veteran closed the door on the VFW. It was the last time he would ever do this special act. There was no point. He was the last veteran, and today was the last Veteran’s Day. The VA Administration had closed years ago and the VA hospitals had been turned back to their local communities. It wasn’t that people did not appreciate his service, or recognize his sacrifice (although truth to be told, he had just had a desk job). The people and the government had not turned their backs on their service men and women. The reason was simply that there were no more military veterans. Decades ago, the people of the United States had simply and consciously decided they were not going to initiate any more wars. After long consultations between former soldiers, academics, politicians and just plain regular folks, the people of the United States came to the conclusion that waging war was just not an effective way to spread peace, encourage democracy, secure human rights and provide so called “national security.” Instead some regular folks had started talking about encouraging peace and democracy by sharing their national resources and expertise, and building bridges of understanding rather than the hostilities and hatreds caused by war. Blogs, tweets, and text messages had proliferated on the Internet, and a new idea began to emerge that maybe there was another road to peace other than war. Websites, List serves and Social Networking sites were formed where people shared their ideas of how to build a more humane and safer world. Slowly, at first imperceptibly, the tide of public opinion began to change. Eventually entertainers, celebrities and media pundits started chanting the mantra of “wage peace, not war.” The politicians, sensing the winds of change, began claiming they had come up with “a new idea for a new century” and all of a sudden leaders started talking about the benefits of peace. Now don’t get me wrong, the change did not come without great struggle. First of all, the nation’s history had been written around the theme of wars won and heroes created. All the great presidents in the first two centuries had come to fame in part because of their conduct in time of war, either as soldiers or leaders or both. Words like “freedom” and “country” could not be without a simultaneous mention of war. The language of war and battle infused every area of life from education to business to sports to religion. The imagery and ethos of war was at the heart of American culture, and there were many staunch patriots, both liberal and conservative, who could not conceive of being an American without reference to war. The change had come at a great shift in values and perspectives. Even more difficult than the cultural transformation was the change in economic thinking. So many of the nation’s service, manufacturing and financial institutions had been built around the military’s demand for war supplies. The makers of planes, cars, guns, food, and all the materials that went into those items had become dependent on the nation being at war with someone somewhere in the world at all times. And of course whenever there was an economic down turn, as happened in 1929 and 2008, the economy could always count on the military to provide impoverished men and women with no viable vocational prospects to join up and fill the ranks of the troops needed overseas. After the tide of public opinion had begun to turn, there were reports that came out that the CEOs of some of the major world corporations had actually held secret meetings trying to manufacture wars just to keep their businesses afloat. The corporations with major military contracts lobbied hard in Congress and spent billions of dollars making their point that war was good for the country. It created jobs and made heroes out of otherwise normal men and women. However, the ones who had the hardest time were the politicians who had spent so much time trumpeting the power and prominence of the United States in the world. “God Bless America” had become the unofficial national anthem, and was used to pump up the crowds when realistic solutions to the nation’s problems seemed too difficult for these men and some women of leisure to work on. As long as there was war going on, they didn’t need to tackle the need for health care, better schools, responses to global warming and the like. They could cozy up to the lobbyists, get their fat checks, and basically do little to nothing to really improve life. The politicians had it made, and this change of the nation’s mind was hard for them to adjust to. Some didn’t, and were heard long after they had been voted out of office, mumbling “but I love my country” as they shuffled down the halls of the special politician respite care facilities that had been hastily constructed after so many of them basically had emotional breakdowns. What turned the tide is that the regular folks, who were suffering under the neglect of their elected officials and abuse by their corporate leaders, finally got fed up. Historians debate what actual “tipping point was” but most agreed it came as a result of the confluence of several events that occurred near the end of 2009. President Obama decided to send more troops to the war in Afghanistan, a war that was killing more and more US soldiers each day, and making the Afghan people less secure than when the soldiers arrived. Bankers were touting that the recession of 2008 was over and giving each other huge bonuses, while one in 10 people were out of work, and one in eight lived in dire poverty. The president’s efforts to pass a comprehensive health care bill got mired down in political name-calling. Small businesses struggled to make ends meet. Young people, especially those just out of college found it difficult to start their careers. People everywhere just got tired of the lies, the hypocrisy and frankly, the bullshit coming out of their leaders. So they hit the streets. They wrote letters. They walked into corporate headquarters and protested at bankers meetings. They marched on Wall Street, on Pennsylvania Ave, and on major streets in cities and towns throughout the country. They started emailing and texting their friends and family, and things began to shift. For a long time life in the US was chaotic. At times the police and the National Guard had to be called out to calm folks down. But then the police and guardsmen began deserting, not wanting to quell a movement that they themselves were in agreement with. There were reports in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Houston that police officers actually put down their guns and joined the marchers. There was even a governor’s wife in Minnesota who led a protest on her husband’s office at the capital. It was crazy, scary and exciting time. After it was clear that Obama’s decision to send in more troops was wrong-headed, he reversed himself and the war in Afghanistan was terminated. The president ordered out most of the troops and instead sent teams of teachers, doctors, social workers, business consultants, community developers and engineers into the country to help rebuild what the soldiers had destroyed. Halliburton, Boeing and some of the other huge military contract companies began to shift focus and started building supply ships, and cargo planes to take seeds and tools to the impoverished parts to the world. Over a period of several years the World Bank experienced a complete change of leadership, and the new folks in charge started using words like “sustainability”, “eco-friendly” and “localized economies” rather than “growth”, “bottom line” and “globalization.” The change didn’t happen overnight, and for a long it seemed like nothing was happening, but as people looked back they realized the shift started when people got fed up. And then the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the heads of the nation’s military branches, who had build their careers and professional identities on the need to conduct war, made an admission that shocked the nation. They asked for and received a prime time slot on national television. One by one these military leaders shared in graphic and often painful detail what war was really like. Each one shared his personal horror story of war, and then together they confessed their angst for sending men and women into the face of certain death for causes that rarely were clear and objectives that were never worthy. They talked about the lies and propaganda that were manufactured to justify their actions, and they asked for the nation’s forgiveness. They announced that they, the warrior heroes of the nation, were giving up their stations as military commanders, and were going to live more wholesome, productive lives. Shortly after that, the recruiting stations closed. Because there were fewer soldiers, as time went on there was less need for veterans services. So little by little VA hospitals and other programs began to close simply because they were not needed. Then, one day in the spring the President announced that the next November 11 would be the last Veteran’s Day, simply because there were no more veterans. Today was that day. The last veteran closed the door to the VFW hall, and smiled wryly. His granddaughter ran up and grabbed his hand as they walked together toward his car. He said to her “Want some ice cream?” “Can I have chocolate cherry cheesecake with whip cream?” He smiled “You can have anything you want. It’s a good day!” Anonymous on November 12, 2009 at 1:32 pm OMG! This is wonderful! I'm gonna send it to frends and relatives! Thanks Drick!!!!!	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1753
__label__wiki	0.863683	0.863683	June 18, 2019 Updated 18:18 GMT Homepage : Comment Homepage : Comment : Morsi wasn't perfect, but when it mattered, he was Egyptians' best hope for freedom Sam Hamad Morsi wasn't perfect, but when it mattered, he was Egyptians' best hope for freedom Supporters in Istanbul attend a symbolic funeral ceremony for Morsi [AFP] Date of publication: 18 June, 2019 Comment: Morsi had his flaws, but in all the key ways he represented an emerging Egyptian democracy that challenged decades of ingrained tyranny, writes Sam Hamad. Morsi, Egypt, democracy, freedom, transition, Arab Spring, tyranny "This was slow death." These are the words used to describe the last years of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first, only, and perhaps last ever democratically elected president, by his exiled Muslim Brotherhood comrade, Mohammed Sudan. For the past six years, Morsi has lived a life unworthy of living. Like most political prisoners locked away in Egypt's dungeons, in this case the much reviled El Mohaq, or Scorpion Prison, the conditions of his captivity were not even fit for an animal. During one of his failed pleas in court for adequate assessment by doctors in 2015, Morsi, who suffered from severe diabetes, once famously claimed that to eat the food provided to him in El Mohaq would lead to "a major crime," namely his death. Morsi knew that the authorities, while perhaps not brazen enough to outright murder him, were content to make his life as painful and tortuous as possible. There have been several independent accounts of the final painful years of Mohamed Morsi's life, but the main focus ought to be on why the president was forced to endure this persecution. Ironically, following the overthrow of the Mubarak regime and the emergence of a fledgeling democracy, it was never supposed to be Morsi who ran for president for the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the Brotherhood's political wing. Morsi's 'undoing' was precisely because he was committed to democratic transition The chosen one was the charismatic outspoken businessman and deputy supreme guide of the Brotherhood Khairat el-Shatar (himself currently on death row in Egypt). But the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) barred him from running and thus the relatively unknown Morsi was selected by the FJP to run for the presidency. Most pro-democracy Egyptians will never forget the moment it was announced that Morsi had defeated the counter-revolutionary candidate Ahmed Shafiq. The sheer volume of the roar that emanated from those gathered in Tahrir Square sends shivers down the spine. But it was never about Morsi the man, it was much more about what Morsi represented; the commitment from a majority of Egyptians to transition away from the tyranny that had ruled over and plundered the country for centuries. Read more: Egypt buries ousted president Morsi in closed, dawn ceremony amid tight security Even after Sisi's coup against Morsi, those pro-democracy protesters gathered at Rabaa and Nadha squares many were keen to emphasise that their presence there wasn't about devotion to Morsi, his party or the Muslim Brotherhood, but to the democracy that was being viciously dismantled before their eyes. And though death came more swiftly for the protesters at Rabaa, the fact they faced the same ultimate fate as Morsi - to die at the hands of the regime for the "crime" of supporting democracy over a tyrannical counter-revolution - is the most important point. The impossibility of Morsi's task became clear early on in his administration Though fatalism is not helpful in these matters, it's with retrospect that it's clear Morsi never really stood a chance as president. The impossibility of Morsi's task became clear early on in his administration. In fact, one event, which might seem petty, stands out as the perfect encapsulation of how Morsi was doomed to fail. After footage emerged of him declaring that "the Zionists" had no right to any of historic Palestine, the feloul (Mubarak loyalists) reacted with hysteria, claiming that Morsi was an Islamic extremist who would rip up the Camp David accords and lead Egypt to war with Israel. Roughly a week later, it emerged that Morsi had sent a letter to then Israeli president Shimon Peres expressing his commitment to peace between Egypt and Israel, prompting the same feloul, joined this time by some nominally pro-democracy liberals, to claim that Morsi was a Zionist. Article continues below interactive timeline According to his enemies, Morsi was simultaneously an Islamist who wanted war with nuclear-armed Israel, and a Zionist. This situation summed up the solitary year of Morsi's democratic rule, a year defined by the ceaseless campaigning, both by overt means and by way of subterfuge, of the ruling elites to pave the way for a coup. The intent was to intimately tie the image of Morsi and thus democracy, to economic and social chaos, to claim that Morsi was not a democrat, but a dangerous Islamist hellbent on creating an Islamic Republic in Egypt. Even as I write this, I notice a BBC commentator conceding that while Morsi briefly represented "change" in Egypt, his great undoing was his "Islamism" and his will to put the interests of the Brotherhood before the interests of Egypt. Morsi represented the commitment from a majority of Egyptians to transition away from the tyranny that had ruled over and plundered the country for centuries. While I'm not interested in hagiographies of Morsi, and I certainly didn't support much of the social aspect of his politics, or his reluctance to get rid of pre-existing laws against "insulting the presidency", the fact is, that Morsi's "undoing" was precisely because he was committed to democratic transition. Far from trying to establish patronage to the Muslim Brotherhood, only 8 out of 36 cabinet ministers under Morsi's presidency were members of the FJP. The vast majority of cabinet ministers, including the prime minister Hisham Qandil, were independent technocrats. His government had all the hallmarks of a transitional reformist one designed to steer Egypt through turbulent times and further embed democracy. Right up until the very moment that Sisi undertook a coup, Morsi could've been removed from office via a general election. Even if one believed Morsi to be inadequate or politically inept, he never put himself above democracy. Even if one believed Morsi to be inadequate or politically inept, he never put himself above democracy Though even liberal critics cite his infamous constitutional declaration of November 2012 as "power grabs," he was only giving himself such powers to counteract the anti-democratic activities of SCAF and the Supreme Constitutional Court, who were committed to undermining him at every turn, and threatening to dissolve Egypt's parliament. When Morsi tried to devolve economic power back to Egyptians and away from Mubarak-era kleptocrats and foreign corporations, he was accused of trying to destroy the economy. When, in act of solidarity with the revolution in Syria, Morsi cut all ties with Assad's genocidal regime and supported a no-fly zone to protect civilians, he was depicted again as an Islamist extremist who was committing Egypt to "jihad". Similarly, Morsi defied decades of Egypt-Israel relations by refusing to blame Hamas for Israel's massacre in Gaza during "Operation Pillar of Defence," with members of his government visiting the Strip during a ceasefire in an act of solidarity. All of these things were the final nails in the coffin of Egyptian democracy. Morsi wasn't perfect and he wasn't some radical who had the will or means to solve all of Egypt's ills, but in all the key ways he represented emerging democracy against ingrained tyranny. He was an imperfect and uncharismatic antithesis of both Mubarak and Sisi. Sisi could not openly execute Morsi, due to the potential for civil unrest, but he was also uncomfortable with the most powerful reminder of Egypt's alternative democratic path being kept alive. The result was the slow death of Mohamed Morsi. Nelson Mandela once said that one doesn't truly know a nation until one understands how it treats its prisoners. Hopefully Egyptians begin to wonder why this man, who the regime slandered with absurd charges, was truly killed in this way. Sam Hamad is an independent Scottish-Egyptian activist and writer. Join the conversation @The_NewArab Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff. Syrians mourn the death of Morsi, remembering his support Following the death of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, Syrians expressed their sadness on social media and remembered his support for Syrian refugees and the Syrian revolution. Mohamad Elmasry Mohamed Morsi didn't 'die' - he was killed Comment: Morsi will be remembered, tragically, for the message that was delivered by Arab despots after his electoral victory - that democracy will not be tolerated, writes Mohamad Elmasry.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1758
__label__wiki	0.782887	0.782887	Car markets in free fall in January. Romania drops 53% de Radu Rizea HotNews.ro Vineri, 13 februarie 2009, 12:23 English \| Business The new car registrations in Europe recorded a severe drop in January, losing an average of 27%. Out of 28 surveyed markets, all of them saw losses, while six dropped more than 50%, the European Car Constructors' Association informs. Following the trends of the past few months, Land Rover and Chrysler were the brands with the most significant sales drop. Romanian car producer Dacia sold 33% less cars in January, compared to January 2008. In all 28 states, a total of 958,000 new cars were registered in January, compared to over 1.3 million in January 2008. The most important losses were recorded in Iceland (-88%), Latvia (-77%), Lithuania (-67%), Ireland (-66%), Estonia (-62%) and Romania (-53%). The large markets were also affected, even though less catastrophic: Germany lost 14%, France - 8%, Spain - 42%, UK - 31%. The only brand that sold better in January, compared to last year's first month, was Jaguar, increasing 19%, up to 2,000 units. Land Rover lost 62%, from over 9,000 to less than 4,000 units, while Chrysler dropped from over 9,000 units to less than 5,000. The largest market share belongs to Volkswagen (11%), followed by Ford (9.3%), Peugeot (7.1%) and Fiat (7%).	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1759
__label__wiki	0.820151	0.820151	The 15 Biggest Failed Restaurant Chains For every immensely successful restaurant chain, like Applebee’s or T.G.I. Friday’s, there are the ones that didn’t make it. For one reason or another, plenty of once-major restaurant chains fall off the face of the earth, never to be heard from again. Here are 15 chains that, for one reason or another, are no longer with us. Pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10, Page 11, Page 12, Page 13, Page 14, Page 15, Page 16 PrevPREVThese 20 Celebrities Prove Anxiety Is Way More Common Than We Think NEXT20 Best Photos from President Donald Trump’s State Visit With Queen Elizabeth IINext	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1760
__label__wiki	0.779556	0.779556	Home » News » Electronic Waste on the Decline, New Study Finds Electronic Waste on the Decline, New Study Finds Older, bulkier electronics are disappearing from the waste stream, with ramifications for the future of e-waste recycling. By Geoffrey Giller iStock/baranozdemir A new study, led by a researcher at the Yale School of the Environment’s Center for Industrial Ecology and published recently in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, has found that the total mass of electronic waste generated by Americans has been declining since 2015. In an age when most of us can’t imagine life without our digital devices, this surprising finding has ramifications for both how we think about electronic waste’s future and for the laws and regulations regarding e-waste recycling, according to the study’s authors. The biggest contributor to this decline is the disappearance of the large, bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) televisions and computer monitors from American homes, says Callie Babbitt, a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability and one of the study’s authors. Since about 2011, CRT displays have been on the decline in the waste stream, helping to lead the overall decline in total e-waste mass. This decline in bulkier displays means that e-waste regulations may have to be rethought, says Babbitt. “If you look at the state laws that exist in many places for e-waste recycling, many of them set their targets based on product mass,” she says. As the overall mass of e-waste declines, meeting those targets becomes more difficult. Moreover, says Babbitt, the main goal of these regulations had been to keep electronics with high levels of lead and mercury out of landfills, where they can eventually leach into the surrounding environment. But these days, a more pertinent concern is how to recover elements like cobalt (used in lithium-ion batteries) or indium (found in flat-panel displays). These elements aren’t as environmentally toxic; rather, they are relatively scarce in the Earth’s crust, so failing to recapture them for reuse in new electronics is wasteful. “The e-waste recycling system is somewhat backwards-looking,” says Babbitt; it has struggled to keep pace with the changing nature of electronics. Shahana Althaf, the lead author on the study and a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Center for Industrial Ecology, notes that a shift in e-waste recycling to capture more of these critical elements could also help the United States secure its supply of the ingredients required for manufacturing electronic devices. Geopolitical uncertainties can pose threats to what Althaf terms “mineral security” for the U.S. “People are slowly realizing... the need to ensure domestic supply,” she says. Rather than mining the ore from the Earth’s crust, capturing the elements from electronic waste could instead provide these crucial elements. In addition to mineral security, this would reduce the environmental destruction that traditional mining often entails. The sheer number of electronic devices entering the waste stream is also leveling off or slightly declining, Babbitt and Althaf say. This is due to something that Babbitt terms “convergence”: gaming consoles, for example, can act as DVD players; smartphones are also cameras and video recorders. In the past, says Babbitt, people needed separate devices for each of those applications. To amass the data necessary for their study, the authors used material flow analysis, a technique for quantifying the resources going into or out of a system. They focused on twenty categories of digital devices — including computers, smartphones, digital cameras, and audio-visual equipment — and disassembled dozens of products in a lab in order to determine the relative content of various important elements, in addition to relying on previously published data. “This is a very important finding that cuts against the widely held idea that electronic waste is the ‘fastest growing waste stream,’ ” says Reid Lifset, the editor-in-chief of the Yale-based Journal of Industrial Ecology. “It shifts our understanding of the problem with e-waste,” he says. In the United States, e-waste recycling is regulated at the state level, and only half the states have e-waste recycling laws. That leads to a patchwork of regulations which makes it harder for companies to navigate if they wanted to make their products easier to recycle, says Babbitt. A more holistic, federal approach could help increase the overall capture of rare elements. Ultimately, we should “see waste as a resource,” says Althaf: an opportunity, rather than a problem. Note: Yale School of the Environment (YSE) was formerly known as the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). News articles posted prior to July 1, 2020, refer to the School's name at that time. - Masters Students - Doctoral Students Profiles / Features Interviews / Q&As Awards / Grants / Funding Subscribe to the YSE 3 weekly newsletter.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1761
__label__cc	0.533123	0.466877	07:30 Early retirement is proposed to be given to fighters against coronavirus Jewish Autonomous Region: Results - 2014 EastRussia.ru continues the cycle of publications "The Far East - Results of 2014". Expert materials are published on tangible achievements and shortcomings in the development of the regions of the Far Eastern Federal District. The results of the year in Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk и Primorsky Territory, Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), Kamchatka Territory и Chukotka Autonomous District. Today's publication is devoted to Jewish autonomous region. The Jewish Autonomous Region is traditionally considered to be one of the most economically weak and problematic regions of the FEFD. This year, for the first time after a long break, direct gubernatorial elections will be held there, and it is still not clear whether Alexander Vinnikov will retain his position or the president will appoint a new acting governor in February. Evaluation of the effectiveness of regional authorities for 2013, carried out by the government of the Russian Federation, put the Jewish Autonomous Region in last place among all subjects of the federation. First of all, the region is pulling down the social sphere, it took the last place in its development, and the penultimate in the dynamics of development. As for economic indicators, in terms of the level of economic development, the Jewish Autonomous Region was rather average (47th place), but the dynamics of development was again assessed by the government extremely negatively (78th place). In 2014, the trends in the socio-economic development of the Jewish Autonomous Region looked extremely ambiguous. On the one hand, there was industrial growth. In January-August 2014, the Jewish Autonomous Region took second place after Chukotka, another lagging and unstable region of the Far Eastern Federal District, in terms of the dynamics of industrial production growth. On the other hand, negative trends were observed in agriculture. In the first half of 2014, the region became the leader in the decline in agricultural production in the Far Eastern Federal District (which is partly due to the flooding of 2013). Details in the section Regions. The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Shoe Painting Discord As in Yakutia a stupid joke almost turned into an ethnic conflict Opinions What can the Far East Leonid Blyakher about whether anyone can develop the Far East, except for its inhabitants Trans-Baikal Territory Budget block The arrest of accounts of organizations in the Trans-Baikal Territory can lead to unpredictable consequences	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1764
__label__wiki	0.721217	0.721217	The battle in Primorye completed the exercise "East-2014" This year's largest exercise, Vostok-2014, which was held from the Arctic to Vladivostok, ended on Thursday with a large-scale battle at the Baranovsky training ground in Primorye. There, more than a thousand servicemen, with the support of aviation and armored vehicles, worked out the actions of troops in defense and the application of a counterstrike. In general, the exercises, in which more than 155 thousand people took part, proved that the combat capability of the army is at its best, and the servicemen are ready to perform the most difficult tasks in extreme conditions. The exercises started on 19 September and passed more than on 20 land, sea and aviation test ranges of the Eastern Military District from Anadyr to Vladivostok. These large-scale training completed the cycle of sudden combat readiness checks of troops in 2014 year. The exercises involved the staffs of all levels, units and military units of the types and branches of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as well as civil organizations and even about 6 thousand reservists. Tellingly, the legend of the exercise was not announced to the participants until the very last moment. In general, it can be stated that the main goals of these large-scale trainings were to practice the transfer of personnel and equipment over long distances, as well as the interaction of various types of troops in the defense of the sea coast and subsequent counterattacks of the imaginary enemy. The highlight of the exercise was the performance of live firing with Iskander-M operational-tactical missile systems at the training ground near Birobidzhan (two targets were hit at a distance of 200 kilometers), as well as the firing of land, sea and air-based cruise missiles. The most important part of the maneuvers took place in Kamchatka near Cape Skalisty. There, an interspecies grouping of troops and forces conducted a naval counter-sabotage operation. During this stage, we recall that the S-300PS division of anti-aircraft missile systems conducted training firing from especially difficult conditions - the launches were made in pursuit of the departing target. With such firing, the presence of the target missile in the affected area is no more than a minute and the calculation for making a decision has no more than 15 seconds, during which the target must be detected, identified, destroyed. On the Arctic borders, a detachment of warships of the Northern Fleet, together with the vessels of the Murmansk Shipping Company and icebreakers of Rosatomflot, transferred a tactical group and equipment to Kotelny Island (Novosibirsk Islands). The Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile-gun system was deployed there, which successfully hit the training target. At the same time, the large anti-submarine ship "Admiral Levchenko" fired the "Dagger" anti-aircraft missile system. Meanwhile, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu inspected the 5th separate brigade of the Railway Troops in Abakan, where a new generation of military camp is being built. In 2014-2015, a total of about 100 objects should be built here. More than 6,5 billion rubles have been allocated for these purposes. Shoigu examined the site where the buildings of the residential, administrativeeconomic, cultural, leisure and other purposes, as well as the universal sports and training complex "Atlant", equipped with a swimming pool and ice rink. The minister ordered to tighten control over the implementation of the construction work schedule and ordered to increase the groups of builders at the sites. Sakhalin Region "Good deeds" in a new place As a manager from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk moved to Kaliningrad and became a volunteer The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) Green trend of the Far Eastern energy sector The Kamchatka Territory has become one of the first regions where new technologies change the energy sector Primorsky Krai Plans for fells Head of VEB.RF Igor Shuvalov promised to improve the urban environment of Vladivostok	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1765
__label__wiki	0.777694	0.777694	geographical region in the Middle East; use Q42620 for the interim government Palestine is a geographic region in Western Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. It is sometimes considered to include adjoining territories. The name was used by Ancient Greek writers, and was later used for the Roman province Syria Palaestina, the Byzantine Palaestina Prima, and the Islamic provincial district of Jund Filastin. The region is more commonly known as the Land of Israel (Hebrew: ארץ־ישראל Eretz-Yisra'el), the Holy Land or Promised Land, and historically has been known as the southern portion of wider regional designations such as Canaan, Syria, ash-Sham, and the Levant. Situated at a strategic location between Egypt, Syria and Arabia, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity, the region has a long and tumultuous history as a crossroads for religion, culture, commerce, and politics. Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute, thereby becoming a member of the States Parties of the International Criminal Court. The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) filed an amicus brief on March 16, 2020, urging the ICC to confirm its jurisdiction over Palestine. ~Marjorie Cohn Recently, hundreds of PBS stations around the United States were scheduled to broadcast a powerful new Frontline documentary: One Day in Gaza. But viewers tuning in found that it had been replaced...~View the Frontline Documentary on Gaza that PBS pulled, Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest (23 May 2019) What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What is Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. Eastern West Bank was Palestine. ~ Golda Meir Quotes aboutEdit (alphabetical... by author/source) People don't feel that safe being part of something that will be associated with the U.S. They get intimidated because they think they'll be on some type of grid. Kefah Abukhdeir, a Palestinian American in Jerusalem originally from Atlanta, talking about trying to start a chapter of Democrats Abroad for Palestinians in Highly Motivated': In Israel, U.S. Voters Lean Toward Trump published November 3, 2020 Palestine is the cement that holds the Arab world together, or it is the explosive that blows it apart. Yasser Arafat, as quoted in TIME (November 11, 1974) Vol. 104, No. 20. If you want to see the picture, you have to see whole picture, if you talked about violence, let's talk about 4000 Palestinians killed during the last five years while from Israeli side a few hundreds killed, So if you want to talk about the violence and you called this violence "terrorism" Israel kills more, more Palestinian than Palestinian kills on Israel, Second, You have to see both sides. You talk about Hamas, what they did in Israel but don't talk about Israel and what they did in Palestinian Territories, and they commit assassinations from time to time and in public, they said "we're going to kill..." It's the whole picture. Bashar al-Assad, Interview with Charlie Rose - 60 Minutes, CBS News (2006) If you want to talk about the violence and you called this violence "terrorism" Israel kills more, more Palestinian than Palestinian kills on Israel, Second, You have to see both sides. You talk about Hamas, what they did in Israel but don't talk about Israel and what they did in Palestinian Territories, and they commit assassinations from time to time and in public, they said "we're going to kill..." ~ Bashar al-Assad What do the Palestinians have to do to the Holocaust to pay the price? This is one question we asked. ~ Bashar al-Assad Not there's no Holocaust, let say they exaggerated the Holocaust. We don't say many people...but they say there's Holocaust but they are exaggerating, so there's such perception of this event of this title, the Holocaust, in our region...It's not the matter how many were killed, six million or one million, or half...killing is killing, I mean how many Soviets were killed? eight million, so why didn't we talk about them? the problem is not how many were killed. How do they do use it? what do the Palestinians have to do to the Holocaust to pay the price? This is one question we asked...We know that there was massacre against Jewish and against others...what's going on in Palestine we see it the same way, but you don't see it the same way... Where is the 'alleged' zeal and passion that they showed towards Syria or the Syrian people? Why haven't they supported Gaza with money and arms? Where are their jihadists and why didn't they send jihadists to defend our people in Palestine? ~ Bashar al-Assad Had this 'Spring' been genuine, it would've started in the backward Arab countries. Were it a call for freedom, democracy, justice, it would've began in the most oppressive and tyrannical states. The states behind every hardship that befell this nation, and every war against it. States behind the intellectual and religious deviation and moral decline. Their existence is the best success for the west and the main reason for Israel's continued existence. There is no clearer evidence than their current stand regarding the Israeli aggression against Gaza. Where is the 'alleged' zeal and passion that they showed towards Syria or the Syrian people? Why haven't they supported Gaza with money and arms? Where are their jihadists and why didn't they send jihadists to defend our people in Palestine? Bashar al-Assad, 2014 Presidential Inauguration Speech (2014) Though it will supposedly stave off Israeli annexation of the West Bank and encourage tourism and trade between both countries, in reality, it is nothing more than a scheme to give an Arab stamp of approval to Israel’s status quo of land theft, home demolitions, arbitrary extrajudicial killings, apartheid laws, and other abuses of Palestinian rights. The deal should be seen in the context of over three years of Trump administration policies that have tightened Israel’s grip on the Palestinians: moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and creating a so-called peace plan with no Palestinian participation or input. While no U.S. administration has successfully brokered a resolution to Israel’s now 53-year-long occupation, the Trump years have been especially detrimental to the Palestinian cause. Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi wrote on Twitter that with this deal, “Israel got rewarded for not declaring openly what it’s been doing to Palestine illegally & persistently since the beginning of the occupation.” Medea Benjamin in The Deceptive Trump, UAE-Israel ‘Peace Deal’, Consortium News, (14 August 2020) Among the most brutal aspects of this period for Palestinians have been the loss of support for their cause in neighboring Arab states. The Arab political party in Israel, Balad, said that by signing this pact, “the UAE has officially joined Israel against Palestine, and placed itself in the camp of the enemies of the Palestinian people.” The UAE’s change from supporting Palestinian dignity and freedom to supporting Israel’s never-ending occupation is a calculated move by UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, a shrewd Middle East dictator who uses his country’s military and financial resources to thwart moves towards democracy and respect for human rights under the guise of fighting Islamic terrorism. Today, I announce that following a thorough, independent and objective assessment of all reliable information available to my Office, the preliminary examination into the Situation in Palestine has concluded with the determination that all the statutory criteria under the Rome Statute for the opening of an investigation have been met. I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine... In brief, I am satisfied that (i) war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip ("Gaza")...; (ii) potential cases arising from the situation would be admissible; and (iii) there are no substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice. Fatou Bensouda, Statement of ICC Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, on the conclusion of the preliminary examination of the Situation in Palestine, and seeking a ruling on the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction (20 December 2019) I, along with my Office, execute our mandate under the Rome Statute with utmost independence, objectivity, fairness and professional integrity. We will continue to meet our responsibilities as required by the Rome Statute without fear or favor. Fatou Bensouda, ICC delays jurisdiction ruling on Israel war crimes case over document length, Times of Israel, (22 January 2020) The Prosecutor is satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to initiate an investigation into the situation in Palestine under article 53(1) of the Rome Statute, and that the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction comprises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza (“Occupied Palestinian Territory”). The Prosecutor nonetheless requested the Pre-Trial Chamber to confirm the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in Palestine, under article 19(3).1 Such a ruling will presumptively resolve this question for the purpose of the Court’s future proceedings—according to the principle of res judicata, subject to articles 19(2) and (4)—and place the conduct of further proceedings by the Court on the soundest legal foundation. 2. As the Prosecution recalled, this course of action was taken, exceptionally, in light of the uniquely complex legal and factual issues associated with the Occupied Palestinian Territory and contrary views expressed. Fatou Bensouda, International Criminal Court Document 01/18 Situation in the State of Palestine, (30 April 2020) By seizing the Pre-Trial Chamber of this matter, under article 19(3), the Prosecution sought a forum in which the legal representatives of victims, the referring State (Palestine), Israel, and other States and interested parties could assist in the proper determination of the presented question. The Prosecution expresses its appreciation to the Chamber for convening such a process,5 and to the numerous legal representatives of victims,6 States Parties, intergovernmental organisations, and amici curiae, who have answered this call.... Given this inclusive approach—aiming to ensure, through a fair and transparent process, that the Court reaches a proper determination of jurisdiction, and where the Prosecution itself acknowledged the need to ventilate and resolve the divergence of legal opinions by bringing this matter on its own volition to the Chamber—the adversarial tone of a small minority of participants would seem to be misplaced. The Prosecution approached this situation with the independence and impartiality required by article 42 of the Statute, as it always does. I have support for the Palestinians in general…the top priority in my international life has been to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors. I think the only way to do it is to treat the Palestinians fairly and let them have their own state alongside Israel. Jimmy Carter quoted in Jimmy Carter on Jerusalem, Trump and 'the Prince of Peace', CBN news (17 May 2018) It is important that we recognise the struggle of the Palestinian people and look at concrete ways in which we can assist them....We need to fight settler colonialism that is taking place in occupied spaces. We need action based on international law... ~Ismail Coovadia The only way to do it is to treat the Palestinians fairly and let them have their own state alongside Israel. ~Jimmy Carter [Israel's new Nation-State Law is] racist... It’s wrong & I disagree... it oppresses Palestinians... I only hope that we will really love our neighbors & work together. ~Natalie Portman (13 December 2018) (Image: Portman in 2005) A war crimes complaint has been filed against President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump adviser Jared Kushner in the International Criminal Court (ICC).... The complaint, filed by Middlesex University law professor William Schabas on June 30 on behalf of four Palestinians who live in the West Bank, states “there is credible evidence” that Trump, Netanyahu and Kushner “are complicit in acts that may amount to war crimes relating to the transfer of populations into occupied territory and the annexation of the sovereign territory of the State of Palestine.”... Marjorie Cohn in Trump Is Trying to Hide US & Israeli War Crimes by Attacking the International Criminal Court, TruthOut, (8 July 2020) Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute, thereby becoming a member of the States Parties of the International Criminal Court. The International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) filed an amicus brief on March 16, 2020, urging the ICC to confirm its jurisdiction over Palestine. IADL bureau member Richard Harvey wrote: The ICC’s normative power and legal authority will be strengthened by confirming its jurisdiction over the State of Palestine, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and opening an investigation into the Palestinian situation. Thereby the equal rights of all peoples to justice for international crimes will receive much-needed affirmation. Recently, hundreds of PBS stations around the United States were scheduled to broadcast a powerful new Frontline documentary: One Day in Gaza. But viewers tuning in found that it had been replaced by a slightly updated Frontline report on Robert Mueller that had been broadcast two months before and had been streaming online ever since. PBS no longer has the Gaza film listed on its schedule. The documentary was to be aired on the one-year anniversary of events that took place on May 14, 2018, when tens of thousands of men, women, and children in Gaza gathered with the intention of deploying the tactics Gandhi had used in freeing India from British control. The demonstration that day was the 8th march in what Gazans named the Great March of Return. Palestinians months earlier had announced their plan for a mass, peaceful demonstration in which Gazans would march for an end to Israel’s crippling 12-year blockade and, especially, for their right to return to homes stolen by Israel... Palestinians’ right to return to their homes and ancestral land is well established in international law. Israel had responded by immediately deploying a hundred snipers. In the first seven weekly marches, Israeli forces killed about 50 of the marchers and injured over 7,000. During the 8th march on May 14, the day depicted in the film, Israeli forces killed 60 more and shot 1,000 – an average of one person every 30 seconds. View the Frontline Documentary on Gaza that PBS pulled, Alison Weir, Council for the National Interest (23 May 2019) The legacies of Mandela and Arafat can never be underestimated. They were at the forefront of fighting for freedom for their people. Therefore it is important that we recognise the struggle of the Palestinian people and look at concrete ways in which we can assist them....We need to fight settler colonialism that is taking place in occupied spaces. We need action based on international law... we need your support to confront the continuous attacks that have been taking place at the UN and attacks against international legitimacy and the multilateral valued based international system. Ismail Coovadia (Former South African ambassador to Israel) quoted in LOOK: 'It's important that we recognise the struggle of Palestinian people' by Noni Mokati (29 November 2018) For 40 years, Israel has been ruled mostly by a series of right-wing governments – more and more openly racist and abusive of Palestinian rights. It’s not the land of tree-planting, kibbutzim and “a country treating its Arab minority nicely” that we were sold as youngsters. That’s why a large number of proud Jewish Americans – raised to believe in civil liberties and open discussion – are appalled by the campaign to muzzle Rep. Ilhan Omar, as well as Speaker Pelosi’s role in it. We’re also appalled that human-rights-abusing Israel is virtually off-limits to debate. Jeff Cohen: This Jew Tells Speaker Pelosi: “You May Well Prove Ilhan Omar Correct,” CounterPunch, (7 March 2019) Many observers, including myself, had long since ceased to believe there ever was any serious intention on the part of Israel to permit a meaningful Palestinian state to come into being alongside Israel; successive far-Right election victories have exposed the true face and end game of the Israeli Right — endlessly enabled by the charade of the so-called US “peace process.” The US has given Israel everything it wants and more without negotiations: Jerusalem as the capital of Israel for Jews only, massive military subsidies more than to any other country in the world, the end of any pretense on limiting Jewish encroachment onto ancient Palestinian lands, ever more draconian security controls over Palestinians, and now even sweeping attempts to criminalize within the US any efforts by Americans to boycott Israeli firms operating on Palestinian lands. Graham E. Fuller in The Fate of the Palestinians, Lobe Log, June 9, 2019 No influence, direct or indirect, over the Holy Places of Islam will ever be tolerated by Indian Mussulmans. It follows, therefore, that even Palestine must be under Mussulman control. So far as I am aware, there never has been any difficulty put in the way of Jews and Christians visiting Palestine and performing all their religious rites. No canon, however, of ethics or war can possibly justify the gift by the Allies of Palestine to Jews. It would be a breach of implied faith with Indian Mussulmans in particular and the whole of India in general. Mahatma Gandhi, Daily Herald, 16 March 1921. Quoted from Hinduism and Judaism compilation The Jews cannot receive sovereign rights in a place which has been held for centuries by Muslim powers by right of religious conquest. The Muslim soldiers did not shed their blood in the late War for the purpose of surrendering Palestine out of Muslim control. Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, 6 April 1921. Quoted from Hinduism and Judaism compilation But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home. The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews. Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan, 26 November 1938. Quoted from Hinduism and Judaism compilation And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regarded as an unwarrantable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. But, in my opinion, they have erred grievously in seeking to impose themselves on Palestine with the aid of America and Britain and now with the aid of naked terrorism. Their citizenship of the world should have and would have made them honoured guests of any country. Their thrift, their varied talent, their great industry should have made them welcome anywhere. It is a blot on the Christian world that they have been singled out, owing to a wrong reading of the New Testament, for prejudice against them. "If an individual Jew does a wrong, the whole Jewish world is to blame for it." If an individual Jew like Einstein makes a great discovery or another composes unsurpassable music, the merit goes to the authors and not to the community to which they belong. No wonder that my sympathy goes out to the Jews in their unenviably sad plight. But one would have thought adversity would teach them lessons of peace. Why should they depend upon American money or British arms for forcing themselves on an unwelcome land? Why should they resort to terrorism to make good their forcible landing in Palestine? If they were to adopt the matchless weapon of non-violence whose use their best Prophets have taught and which Jesus the Jew who gladly wore the crown of thorns bequeathed to a groaning world, their case would be the world’s and I have no doubt that among the many things that the Jews have given to the world, this would be the best and the brightest. It is twice blessed. It will make them happy and rich in the true sense of the word and it will be a soothing balm to the aching world Mahatma Gandhi, Harijan, Harijan, 21 July 1946. Quoted from Hinduism and Judaism compilation As with all so-called humanitarian crises, it is essential to remember that the social conditions found across most of the countries of the South are the direct product of how these states are inserted into the hierarchies of the world market. Historically, this included a long encounter with Western colonialism, which has continued, into contemporary times, with the subordination of poorer countries to the interests of the world’s wealthiest states and largest transnational corporations. Since the mid-1980s, repeated bouts of structural adjustment — often accompanied by Western military action, debilitating sanctions regimes, or support for authoritarian rulers — have systematically destroyed the social and economic capacities of poorer states, leaving them ill-equipped to deal with major crises such as COVID-19. [...] One microcosm of this can be seen in the Gaza Strip, where over 70 percent of the population are refugees living in one of the most densely packed areas in the world. The first two cases of COVID-19 were identified in Gaza on March 20 (a lack of testing equipment, however, has meant that only 92 people out of the 2-million-strong population have been tested for the virus). Reeling from thirteen years of Israeli siege and the systematic destruction of essential infrastructure, living conditions in the Strip are marked by extreme poverty, poor sanitation, and a chronic lack of drugs and medical equipment (there are, for example, only sixty-two ventilators in Gaza, and just fifteen of these are currently available for use). Under blockade and closure for most of the past decade, Gaza has been shut to the world long before the current pandemic. The region could be the proverbial canary in the COVID-19 coalmine — foreshadowing the future path of the infection among refugee communities across the Middle East and elsewhere. Adam Hanieh, "This is a Global Pandemic – Let's Treat it as Such" (27 March 2020), Verso Books What do we know of the Palestinians? What would the Palestinians do to the Jews in Israel if the power imbalance were reversed? Well, they have told us what they would do. For some reason, Israel’s critics just don’t want to believe the worst about a group like Hamas, even when it declares the worst of itself. We’ve already had a Holocaust and several other genocides in the 20th century. People are capable of committing genocide. When they tell us they intend to commit genocide, we should listen. There is every reason to believe that the Palestinians would kill all the Jews in Israel if they could. Would every Palestinian support genocide? Of course not. But vast numbers of them—and of Muslims throughout the world—would. Needless to say, the Palestinians in general, not just Hamas, have a history of targeting innocent noncombatants in the most shocking ways possible. They’ve blown themselves up on buses and in restaurants. They’ve massacred teenagers. They’ve murdered Olympic athletes. They now shoot rockets indiscriminately into civilian areas. And again, the charter of their government in Gaza explicitly tells us that they want to annihilate the Jews—not just in Israel but everywhere... Imagine the Israelis holding up their own women and children as human shields. Of course, that would be ridiculous. The Palestinians are trying to kill everyone. Killing women and children is part of the plan. Reversing the roles here produces a grotesque Monty Python skit. Sam Harris, "Why Don't I Criticize Israel?" (27 July 2014) The US has been complicit in far too many of...[Israel's] useless “victories”. ~Charles Kaiser Palestine is a state and the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction involving its cases, the ICC prosecutor ruled Thursday, which could pave the way for a war crimes investigation against Israel. A three-judge panel of the ICC Pretrial Chamber must now affirm the decision by Fatou Bensouda. Israel has been accused of committing war crimes in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip... Under Bensouda’s 60-page decision, the ICC may exercise its jurisdiction in “territory” that “comprises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.” Israel could be prosecuted for war crimes with International Criminal Court ruling that Palestine is a state, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, (30 April 2020) The International Criminal Court (ICC's) mandate to investigate war crimes has thus been hampered by the unwillingness of the world’s sole superpower to commit to the organization.... Recent statements...suggest that the United States is now preparing to go to war against the ICC itself, motivated largely by an effort to silence investigations into alleged American war crimes committed in Afghanistan, as well as alleged crimes committed by Israel during the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip... Murtaza Hussain, 'The U.S. Goes To War Against the ICC to Cover Up Alleged War Crimes in Afghanistan, The Intercept, (12 September 2018) Anziska found proof in the notebooks of the state department...that the secretary of state, Alexander Haig, effectively gave Sharon the green light... The invasion led to the... massacre by Christian Phalange militiamen who “raped, killed and dismembered at least 800 women, children and elderly men while Israeli flares illuminated the camps’ narrow and darkened alleyways”....the invasion was “both a moral stain and a strategic disaster, undercutting US influence in the region and precipitating further military involvement in the Lebanese civil war”. A document he discovered, he wrote this week in the New York Review of Books, “demonstrated how the slaughter of civilians in the Palestinian refugee camps of south Beirut was prolonged” by Morris Draper, an American diplomat who acquiesced in “Sharon’s “deceptive claim of ‘terrorists’ remaining behind”. Anziska quotes the Israeli intellectual Amos Oz: “After Lebanon, we can no longer ignore the monster, even when it is dormant, or half-asleep, or when it peers out from behind the lunatic fringe … It dwells, drowsing, virtually everywhere...” Anziska has made a major contribution to the history of this conflict. As the Trump administration repeats the errors of so many predecessors, with moves to delegitimize and defund the PLO, Anziska reminds us that America has always shared responsibility for the lopsided competition between Israel and the Palestinians... The US has been complicit in far too many of...[Israel's] useless “victories”. Charles Kaiser in Preventing Palestine review: a fine history of Israel's negation of a nation, The Guardian (18 September 2018) When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the Mandate over Palestine? What is Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. Eastern West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 and 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs. Golda Meir, "Iron Lady of Israeli politics", Thames TV (1970) On Friday The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) welcomed the news that the International Criminal Court (ICC) Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda reiterated her position that Palestine is a state for the purposes of transferring criminal jurisdiction over its territory to The Hague, Wafa News Agency reported. Bensouda confirmed her position that the ICC has jurisdiction over the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem. Palestine welcomes ICC report on jurisdiction over Palestinian territories, Middle East Monitor (2 May 2020) The Palestinian people [do] not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism... For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa. While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan. Zuheir Muhsin, late Military Department head of the PLO and member of its Executive Council, in an interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw (31 March 1977) The people inhabiting it [Palestine] are predominantly Muslim Arabs, and they demand freedom and unity with their fellow-Arabs of Syria. But the British policy has created a special minority problem here – that of the Jews – and the Jews side with the British and oppose the freedom of Palestine, as they fear that would mean Arab rule.....On the Arab side are numbers, on the other side great financial resources and the world-wide organization of Jewry...... The Jews are a very remarkable people. Originally they were a small tribe, or several tribes, in Palestine, and their early story is told in the old Testament of the Bible. Rather conceited they were, thinking of themselves as the Chosen People, But this is a conceit in which nearly all people have indulged...... They [British] declared it was their intention to establish a “Jewish National Home” in Palestine. This declaration was made to win the good will of international Jewry, and this was important from the money point of view. It was welcomed by most Jews. ... But there was one little drawback, one not unimportant fact seems to have been overlooked. Palestine was not a wilderness, or an empty, uninhabited place. It was already somebody else’s home. So that this generous gesture of the British Government was really at the expense of the people who already lived in Palestine, and these people, including Arabs, non- Arabs, Muslims, Christians, and , in fact, everybody who was not a Jew, protested vigorously at the declaration...... The Jewish population is already nearly a quarter of the Muslim population, and their economic power is far greater. They seem to look forward to the day when they will be the dominant community in Palestine. The Arabs tried to gain their co-operation in the struggle for national freedom and democratic government, but they rejected these advances. They have preferred to take sides with the foreign ruling Power, and have thus helped it to keep back freedom from the majority of the people. It is not surprising that this majority, comprising the Arabs, chiefly, and also the Christians, bitterly resent this attitude of the Jews. Jawaharlal Nehru, Glimpses of World History (1949). Quoted from Hinduism and Judaism compilation It is the psychological problem of how to reconcile two powerful movements — the time-old yearning of the Jews to return to the Promised Land and to possess a home which is theirs as of right, and the Palestinian Arab desire for promotion to national status. Great Britain and Palestine: 1915 - 1939, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1937 Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman again lashed at Israeli policies in an interview published in a Palestinian-owned newspaper Thursday, calling the controversial Nation-State Law "racist" and a "mistake." Portman, born Neta-Lee Hershlag in Jerusalem, also told the London-based Al- Quds Al-Arabi that law “oppressed Palestinians.”... The Nation-State Law... defines Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people.” It also drops Arabic as an official language... it has stoked anger among critics who, like Portman, argue that it is racist. Portman said she “doesn’t agree” with the principle of the contentious law. "It’s a mistake… I only hope that we will really love our neighbors and work together," she said. Daniel Salami in Natalie Portman to Arab paper: Israel's Nation-State Law is racist, Ynetnews (13 December 2018) The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said last month that there was a “reasonable basis” to open a war crimes probe into Israeli military actions in the Gaza Strip as well as Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. She also asked the court to determine whether she has territorial jurisdiction before proceeding with the case. Her request to the court, which exceeded the 30-page limit, was accompanied by a request to extend the page limit to 110 pages, citing “the unique and complex factual and legal circumstances in this situation.” ... According to Haaretz, the ruling means a decision on Bensouda pushing ahead with the case will be delayed by several months. International law expert Nick Kaufman wrote.. that the decision was a “slap in the face” of Bensouda. Israel, which is not a member of the ICC, has said the court has no jurisdiction and accused Bensouda of being driven by anti-Semitism... There was no immediate reaction from Bensouda. But she recently told The Times of Israel that accusing her of anti-Semitism was “particularly regrettable” and “without merit... I, along with my Office, execute our mandate under the Rome Statute with utmost independence, objectivity, fairness and professional integrity. We will continue to meet our responsibilities as required by the Rome Statute without fear or favor,” she said ICC delays jurisdiction ruling on Israel war crimes case over document length, Times of Israel, (22 January 2020) Palestine is not the original home of the Jews. It was acquired by them after a ruthless conquest, and they have never occupied the whole of it, which they now openly demand. They have no more valid claim to Palestine, than the descendants of the ancient Romans have to this country. The Romans occupied Britain as long as the Israelites occupied Palestine, and they left behind them in this country far more valuable and useful work. If we are going admit claims based on conquest thousands of years ago, the whole world will have to be turned upside down. Lord Sydenham, Hansard, House of Lords, 21 June 1922 Right and wrong are the same in Palestine as anywhere else. What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offence and has turned a deaf ear to the victims. Arnold J. Toynbee. Forward to The Transformation of Palestine. Northwestern University Press, USA,1971. The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on Thursday reiterated her position that Palestine is a state for the purposes of transferring criminal jurisdiction over its territory to The Hague... Fatou Bensouda’s view, laid out in great detail in a 60-page document, could pave the way for an investigation of alleged war crimes committed in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. “The Prosecution has carefully considered the observations of the participants and remains of the view that the Court has jurisdiction over the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” she wrote. Chief prosecutor insists ICC has jurisdiction to probe war crimes in ‘Palestine’, Raphael Ahren, The Times of Israel, (30 April 2020) On December 20, concluding a five-year preliminary examination of the “situation in Palestine,” Bensouda said she has “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed” in those regions by both the Israel Defense Forces and Hamas and other “Palestinian armed groups." At the time, she said that she herself believes the court indeed has jurisdiction to investigate possible war crimes in the regions, but, due to the controversial nature of the case, asked for a definitive ruling on the matter from a pre-trial chamber. Member states and independent experts were invited to weigh on the matter as well. “Such a wide variety of perspectives will afford considerable legitimacy to the Court’s ultimate decision,” Bensouda wrote. In the document she published Thursday, Bensouda reiterated that her position is not about the question of Palestinian statehood per se, but rather about whether the “State of Palestine,” which is a member of the ICC, can convey criminal jurisdiction to the court. In her view, Palestine indeed fulfills all required criteria to do that. Both the Germans and the Zionists wanted as many Jews as possible to move to Palestine. The Germans preferred to have them out of Western Europe, and the Zionists themselves wanted the Jews in Palestine to outnumber the Arabs as quickly as possible. (...) In both cases, the purpose was a kind of 'ethnic cleansing', that is, a violent change in the ratio of ethnic groups in the population. Slavoj Žižek, discussing a meeting between Feivel Polkes and Adolf Eichmann in Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle, p. 59, ISBN 1844675408 Palestinian National Authority Palestine (region) Look up Palestine in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikivoyage has a travel guide for: What every American should know about Israel/Palestine A 501(c)3 tax-exempt, independent research and information-dissemination institute, with particular focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Retrieved from "https://en.wikiquote.org/w/index.php?title=Palestine&oldid=2900130"	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1768
__label__wiki	0.655887	0.655887	2019 Do it yourself A shot into the future: a do-it-yourself Gaussian gun Possessing a weapon that can only be found in computer games only in the laboratory of a mad scientist or near a temporary portal to the future is cool. To watch how people indifferent to technology involuntarily fix their gaze on the device, and avid gamers hastily pick up their jaw - it’s worth spending a day to assemble a Gauss gun. Non-Newtonian fluid: DIY When adjacent layers of particles (molecules) in a fluid move relative to each other, they collide, due to which the velocities in different layers equalize, and the energy of any external action is transferred in space. In such cases, one speaks of the forces of internal friction, or viscous friction How to make a lava lamp with your own hands The story of lava lamps began in the 1960s when a simple accountant Edward Craven Walker filed a patent application for a lighting fixture with an exciting visual effect. Walker's original recipe included tinted water and a mixture of clear oil with translucent paraffin and tetrachloromethane. Pour in water Dry Ice Experience: Beauty and Cold The focus of dry ice is that from a solid state it immediately passes into a gaseous state without an intermediate liquid phase (this process is called sublimation). The sublimation temperature of carbon dioxide is -78.5 ° C. Dry ice is freely sold in two forms - briquettes and granules. For experiments, it is more convenient to use granules, since they are small in size, they are easier to dose. How to explain to a child what a Foucault pendulum is Recall that the Foucault pendulum is an experimental device with which you can visually observe the daily rotation of the Earth. It is a fairly long (in the original design of Jean Foucault length was 67 m) steel wire, on which the load is suspended. Over time, the plane of oscillation of the pendulum changes, slowly turning in the direction opposite to the direction of rotation of the Earth, and the geographical position (latitude) of the device affects the rate of change Building a Tesla transformer at home The essence of Tesla’s invention is simple. If you power the transformer with a current with a frequency equal to the resonance for its secondary winding, the output voltage increases by tens or even hundreds of times. In fact, it is limited by the electric strength of the surrounding air (or other medium) and the transformer itself, as well as by the loss of radiation of radio waves. 7 sites for selling things you did not know about Vinted Vinted.com Here you can sell any clothes, shoes or accessories that you no longer wear. Similarly, you can save a decent amount by diversifying your wardrobe. In addition, people not only exchange things, but also make new friends - what else can you dream of. Chairish Chairish.com Suppose you bought a chair or sofa, which you disagreed in a few months How to make virtual reality glasses from cardboard? But recently, people paid a lot of money for this! In those days when virtual reality glasses did not leave the cinema screens, in life only wealthy enthusiasts could afford them. For the window into the virtual world, one had to lay out several thousand dollars - because the coveted device used miniature color displays with a resolution of at least 640 x 480 (and the corresponding pixel size) and amazing “gyroscopic” sensors. Fa 5 easy ways to light a match-free fire in nature Friction Perhaps the oldest and most reliable way to make fire in the wild is to use a dry tree. Remember how Tom Hanks washed his hands in the movie Outcast to Blood? In fact, such sacrifices are not necessary at all. First, dig a small hole in the ground to allow air to flow. After that, take a dry flat piece of wood and drill a small recess in it - this can be done with a regular sharp pebble Do-it-yourself jet engine The valveless PuVRD is an amazing design. It has no moving parts, compressor, turbine, valves. The simplest PuVRD can do without even an ignition system. This engine can work on just about anything: replace the propane tank with a gas canister and it will continue to pulsate and create traction. Unfortunately, PuVRD proved to be insolvent in aviation, but recently they have been seriously considered as a source of heat in the production of biofuels Ballpoint Pen: History of the Invention The first step was taken in 1888, when the American inventor John Laud received a patent for an ink pen capable of writing “on rough surfaces - such as wood, rough wrapping paper and others”, without clinging to pen irregularities. The pen itself was absent - ink was supplied to the surface by a “marking sphere”, which was supported by a number of smaller balls. The de In 1934, he successfully graduated from the Ritsumeikan University School of Economics in Kyoto and received Japanese citizenship. Things were going well, but after the end of World War II, there was a decline. Ando in 1948 was sentenced to prison for tax evasion, and his company went bankrupt. However, Ando did not despair and soon began again from scratch, having founded a company for the production of edible salt How to clean tools from rust: 5 easy ways Vinegar and lemon juice The simplest “folk” rust remover is a mixture of vinegar and lemon juice. We mix them in equal proportions and apply to the rusty surface with a sponge or cotton swab (while avoiding contact with mucous and wound surfaces). After a couple of hours - it is important to ensure that the mixture does not dry out and periodically moisten the tool again - the rust will dissolve and it can be washed off with a stream of water and the surface cleaned to dry. Ba How to make liquid oxygen: an unusual experiment At first glance, the easiest way to get a little liquid oxygen for experiments is to open an oxygen cylinder cooled to the desired temperature. Having sweated a lot, the “King of Random” found out that this strategy is no good, because, despite the high cost, there is very little oxygen in the cylinders. Th Pure sand is a mixture of small grains of various rocks (mainly quartz). When the sand gets wet, quartz crystals are attracted to each other due to the forces of the surface tension of water, and therefore rather stable structures can be built from wet sand. When the water evaporates, there are not enough forces fastening the system, and the sand castle collapses Paper Technology: Report from the Manufactory The paper machine was born at the turn of the 18th – 19th centuries and became one of the great inventions of the era of the industrial revolution. This machine, and at the same time a roll (mill for grinding cellulose raw materials) made paper a mass product, significantly cheaper it, gave it standard quality, but .. Reaction: if sodium is thrown into water Sodium is a ductile metal of silver color, rather electrically conductive and thermally conductive. It is used in industry as a strong reducing agent, as well as for the production of batteries. The video demonstrates that sodium reacts very violently with water. A slice of sodium thrown into the water ignites due to abundant heat, and begins to melt 10 ways to survive in a plane crash Recently, the media have increasingly reported problems with the operation of airliners, aircraft crashes and other extreme situations in the air. If you fly regularly and want to be prepared for emergency situations, follow these guidelines. What can be done before the flight? 1. Choose large planes Do it yourself: how to make the world's fastest paper airplane John Collins approaches the creation of his paper planes with the scrupulousness of a true engineer. “Every paper airplane is a little scientific experiment, ” he says. “You make an assumption about which design and which“ settings ”will be better, conduct an experiment - throw - and then you get the results and analyze them.” Among C Drawing with light: what is freezelight Freezelight - long exposure photography, the key feature of which is the creation of meaningful images and abstractions using various light sources. An important condition is the lack of computer processing of the image. Such a definition appears on the web. But the term freezelight did not come from abroad at all The true story of QWERTY: who invented the keyboard layout The classic version of the history of the appearance of the QWERTY keyboard layout is widely known. It says that one of the inventors of the typewriter, Christopher Latham Scholes, faced a technical problem when designing his mechanisms. Professional typists at work developed such a printing speed that with a quick press of several letters in a row, the levers with letters did not have time to move away from the roller with the paper and jammed How to make a "snow globe" with your own hands They started releasing "snow balls" in France in the 19th century, from there they penetrated into England, and in the 1920s crossed the ocean and gained incredible popularity in the USA. By the mid-twentieth century, this souvenir became one of the classic gifts for Christmas and New Year and often appeared in commercials and films Simple and humane do-it-yourself mousetrap Do you need a thick wire, a plastic bottle with a cap, a clothespin? a pair of nails, a plank, a hammer and a drill. no complicated springs are needed. In the video, peanut butter is used as bait, but you can take any other product. Build a potato gun! Our loyal readers remember how in March 2008 we tested the potato cannon and, having come to it with complete enthusiasm, promised to build a more perfect model in the future. And three years later, we were again drawn to vegetable artillery. Last time, we were satisfied with the accuracy and range, and now we decided to improve the rate of fire A Christmas tree was born in the forest ... And what will happen to it next Residents of fairly northern countries have long had an illogical New Year's custom - to decorate some pretty coniferous tree with beautiful, in human opinion, toys, put gifts under it for children and enjoy the procedure itself and its atmosphere. They say that this tradition is also among the inhabitants of insufficiently northern countries, but they have some other plants in use there Who invented the pencil when? Over the past centuries, several generations of writing tools have changed. Goose feathers were replaced by fountain pens, then ballpoint pens. However, the design of another tool - a pencil - turned out to be so brilliantly simple that it almost without changes came from the Middle Ages to the present day and, possibly, will stretch for more than one century DIY magnetic levitation At the end of the video, the user of the Magnet Tricks channel makes it clear how this works. The top itself is two neodymium magnetic rings with a non-metallic plate between them and a copper wire on top for balance. The surface above which the spinning top hovers is a copper plate weighing 1 kg, under which there are four rings of ferrite magnets How Indian Yoga Levitates The classic name for this trick is levitating man trick (we will call it LMT for short). They came up with it a long time ago - Indian yogis practiced “levitation” at least 1000 years ago and, thanks to their amazing abilities, collected quite decent alms. There are several varieties of LMT. For example, sometimes two people take part in a composition. Th Refined sugar: an invention made because of a woman In 1829, the brothers Thomas and Frantisek Grebner founded the first sugar factory in the western part of the Austrian Empire in the village of Kostelni Vidří near the town of Dacice (South Bohemia). Sugar beets were grown on three hectares of land in the neighborhood, but the soil turned out to be unsuitable, and in 1833 the production was moved to Dacice, where sugar cane was brought from Italian Trieste (switched to beets much later, in 1844). Military Technology: Why M & M's Invented In 1920, the company moved to Minneapolis and changed its name to MAR-O-BAR, and in 1923 it released the incredibly popular Milky Way bars. Soon, the company changed its name to Mars and moved to Chicago. Meanwhile, Forrest, having graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and then Yale, returned to his father's house with an engineering degree and the character of a businessman to help his father manage the company	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1769
__label__wiki	0.968756	0.968756	Global coronavirus cases near five million A woman in a protective mask walks from the supermarket during outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Queens New York. Reuters The number of officially confirmed coronavirus cases across the world is getting closer to five million as the cases stood at 4.72 million, according to Worldometer, as of Sunday morning, UNB reports. So far, the virus has killed 313,220 people and the death toll is feared to rise as another 44,827 of those infected remain in critical condition. Coronavirus cases, first reported in China in December last year, peaked in mid-March, data from Worldometer show. The virus is currently affecting 213 countries and territories around the world and two international conveyances. Globally, the US has the highest number of cases at more than 1.5 million and its death toll is 90,113, also the highest in the world. Bangladesh has seen a surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks. The country reported its first cases on 8 March and the first death on 18 March. Currently, the number of confirmed cases in Bangladesh stands at 20,995 and deaths at 314. The death rate is 1.5 per cent, according to the government. In Bangladesh, the cases peaked from mid-April. So far, 4,117 patients have recovered and 16,564 others are undergoing treatment with one of them being in serious condition. The government declared a general holiday and shut down all non-essential services to curb the transmission of coronavirus. But it recently decided to reopen some sectors gradually. Prime minister Sheikh Hasina has announced a series of stimulus packages to tackle the economic impact of the virus. In an address to the nation on 25 March, she said the fight against coronavirus was a war. “In this war, your responsibility is to stay home. Inshallah, we’ll win the war with everyone’s efforts,” she said. Global COVID-19 cases top 95.5m: Johns Hopkins Global COVID-19 deaths top 2 million Global COVID-19 caseload tops 94.4m: Johns Hopkins	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1770
__label__wiki	0.83277	0.83277	Marion, Massachusetts Town in Massachusetts, United States Marion Town House Location in Plymouth County in Massachusetts 20 ft (6 m) 190/sq mi (72/km2) UTC-5 (Eastern) www.marionma.gov Marion is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 4,907 at the 2010 census.[2] For geographic and demographic information on the village of Marion Center, please see the article Marion Center, Massachusetts. 4 Government 6 Infrastructure 6.1 Transportation Marion was first settled in 1679 as "Sippican", a district of Rochester, Massachusetts. The name, which also lends itself to the river which passes through the north of town and the harbor at the heart of town, was the Wampanoag name for the local tribe. The town was mostly known for its many local sea captains and sailors whose homes were in town, although there were also some small shipbuilding operations on the harbor as well. By the late 1840s, however, tensions between the village of Mattapoisett and the town led to a battle which sought to redraw the town lines and effectively take over Sippican Village.[citation needed] This caused the villagers to form a committee, which went to Boston to petition for incorporation as its own town. Thus, with the help of a powerful local ally, the town was incorporated on May 14, 1852, and renamed Marion in honor of Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion.[3][4] Mattapoisett was incorporated in 1857.[1] Since that time, Marion's economy has mostly relied on the waters of Buzzards Bay, both for fishing and for the summer tourism industry.[5] Recreational sailing is a major seasonal activity for residents and visitors. Sippican Harbor According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 26.1 square miles (67.7 km2), of which 14.0 square miles (36.2 km2) is land and 12.1 square miles (31.4 km2), or 46.46%, is water.[6] The town is bordered by Mattapoisett to the southwest, Rochester to the northwest, and Wareham to the north and northeast. The town is approximately 15 miles (24 km) by road west of the Cape Cod Canal, 12 miles (19 km) east of New Bedford, 40 miles (64 km) east-southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, and 50 miles (80 km) south of Boston. Marion is located on Buzzards Bay, and its geography is shaped by the water. Much of the town is separated into two halves by Sippican Harbor, with Converse Point to the west and Sippican Neck to the east. To the west of Converse Point is Aucoot Cove, where Aucoot Creek and Borden's Brook empty into the bay. Sprague's Cove, Hammetts Cove (which is directly east of Little Neck), Blankenship Cove and Planting Island Cove are all coves off of Sippican Harbor. To the east of Sippican Neck is Wings Cove, which separates the neck from Great Hill Point. Along the northeastern border of town is the Weweantic River, which separates the town from Wareham. The Sippican River is also a tributary to this river, and further divides the town from Wareham. Between Sippican Harbor and the Weweantic River lies the Great Swamp. To the North of Marion lies Rochester, Massachusetts. Marion has several parks, as well as wharves, beaches, The Beverly Yacht Club, Little Marion G.C. (public), and The Kittansett Club G.C. (private). Marion is a typical old New England town that has a small quaint village with many traditional Cape Cod style homes. The village includes The Marion General Store that dates back to the 1800s. See also: List of Massachusetts locations by per capita income ±% 896 −2.4% 958 +6.9% 1,460 +61.9% 1,288 −11.8% 4,907 −4.2% * = population estimate. Source: United States Census records and Population Estimates Program data.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] As of the census[16] of 2000, there were 5,123 people, 1,996 households, and 1,441 families residing in the town. The population density was 350.2 people per square mile (135.2/km2). There were 2,439 housing units at an average density of 166.7 per square mile (64.4/km2). The racial makeup of the town was 92.17% White, 1.58% African American, 0.10% Native American, 0.35% Asian, 0.08% Pacific Islander, 3.46% from other races, and 2.26% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.55% of the population. There were 1,996 households, out of which 31.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.4% were married couples living together, 8.4% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.8% were non-families. 24.1% of all households were made up of individuals, and 11.9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.51 and the average family size was 3.00. Front Street with 4th of July banner In the town, the population was spread out, with 25.1% under the age of 18, 4.2% from 18 to 24, 24.7% from 25 to 44, 28.3% from 45 to 64, and 17.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 42 years. For every 100 females, there were 92.4 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.8 males. The median income for a household in the town was $71,250, and the median income for a family was $104,265. Males had a median income of $46,711 versus $35,911 for females. The per capita income for the town was $47,265. About 3.5% of families and 4.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.0% of those under age 18 and 2.0% of those age 65 or over. Government[edit] Marion is represented in the Massachusetts House of Representatives as a part of the Tenth Bristol district, which also includes Fairhaven, Mattapoisett, Rochester and a portion of Middleborough. The town is represented in the Massachusetts Senate as a part of the First Plymouth and Bristol district, which also includes Berkley, Bridgewater, Carver, Dighton, Middleborough, Raynham, Taunton, and Wareham.[17] The town is patrolled by the Marion Police Department. On the national level, Marion is a part of Massachusetts's 9th congressional district, and is currently represented by William R. Keating. The state's senior member of the United States Senate is Elizabeth Warren. The junior senator is Ed Markey. Marion uses the open town meeting form of government, which is led by a board of selectmen. The town's police, as well as the post office, are all located in the town's central village. The village is also the site of the Elizabeth Taber Library, which is a member of the SAILS Library Network. The Fire/EMS Department is almost completely on-call with only (2) full-time or career members. Fire stations are located at Station No. 1 in the central village on Spring Street and Station No. 2 in East Marion at the corner of Point and Creek Rd. near the Great Swamp. Tabor Academy Marion is a member of the 2,700-student Old Rochester Regional School District. The town, along with Mattapoisett and Rochester, operate as a single school system with each town having its own school subcommittee. Marion operates the Sippican School for students from pre-kindergarten to grade 6. Seventh- and eighth-grade students attend Old Rochester Regional Junior High School, and high school students attend Old Rochester Regional High School. Both regional schools are located on Route 6 in Mattapoisett, just over the Marion town line. The high school competes in the South Coast Conference for athletics. Their mascot is the bulldog, and their colors are red, black, and white. The town's Thanksgiving Day football rival is Apponequet Regional High School, in Lakeville. Marion students may also choose to attend Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical School, a technical high school located in Bourne on the Cape side of the canal. The town is the site of Tabor Academy, a private academy serving grades 9-12. Infrastructure[edit] As a small New England town the major infrastructures are the roads, water, and the waste disposal. Marion also has a fine harbor facility with a wide concrete vehicle accessible jetty. Boats can tie up on three sides to load and unload from vehicles right on the jetty. A wooden ramp runs from the jetty to the Harbormaster lookout. There is a large adjoining unpaved parking lot. Marion is home to one of the largest sailing fleets in Massachusetts showing a forest of masts in the inner harbor. Directly adjacent to the Harbormaster is a small shellfish area which is stocked by the town. There is a public beach at the end of Front St. It is groomed and has a lifeguard station. It also has a large parking lot. The town Library (Elizabeth Taber Library) is on the ground floor of a colonial building next to the Town offices on Spring St. Transportation[edit] Interstate 195 passes through the town, and has an exit at Massachusetts Route 105. Route 105's southern terminus is at its intersection with U.S. Route 6, which also passes through the town. The nearest regional bus and air service can be reached in New Bedford. The nearest national air service can be reached at T. F. Green Airport in Rhode Island, and the nearest international airport is Logan International Airport in Boston. There are no railroad services in town; the nearest rail service can be reached in Middleborough, at the terminus to the Middleborough-Lakeville line of the MBTA's commuter rail service. The nearest freight rail service is in Wareham. Notable people[edit] Capt. Benjamin Briggs, Master of the Mary Celeste President Grover Cleveland, summer resident Dom DiMaggio, Red Sox centerfielder Rear Admiral Andrew A. Harwood, career naval officer Frances Folsom Cleveland Preston, former first lady to United States President Grover Cleveland, summer resident Geraldo Rivera, summer resident James Spader, summer resident Greg F. Gifune, Novelist, Editor, Film Producer, former resident, grew up in Marion President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, summer resident Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd, first man to fly over both the North and South Poles, summer resident Henry James, novelist Charles Dana Gibson, artist, creator of the "Gibson Girl" look Augustus Saint-Gaudens, sculptor, summer resident ^ a b "Official Website of the Townof Marion Massachusetts". Official Website of the Townof Marion Massachusetts. Archived from the original on October 19, 2012. Retrieved October 4, 2012. ^ "Profile of General Population and Housing Characteristics: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (DP-1): Marion town, Plymouth County, Massachusetts". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 20, 2012. ^ "Profile for Marion, Massachusetts, MA". ePodunk. Retrieved October 4, 2012. ^ Town of Marion History Archived 2007-01-14 at the Wayback Machine ^ "Geographic Identifiers: 2010 Demographic Profile Data (DP-1): Marion town, Plymouth County, Massachusetts". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved March 20, 2012. ^ "TOTAL POPULATION (P1), 2010 Census Summary File 1, All County Subdivisions within Massachusetts". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved September 13, 2011. ^ "Massachusetts by Place and County Subdivision - GCT-T1. Population Estimates". United States Census Bureau. Archived from the original on November 3, 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2011. ^ "1990 Census of Population, General Population Characteristics: Massachusetts" (PDF). US Census Bureau. December 1990. Table 76: General Characteristics of Persons, Households, and Families: 1990. 1990 CP-1-23. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 7, 2013. Retrieved July 12, 2011. ^ "1950 Census of Population" (PDF). 1: Number of Inhabitants. Bureau of the Census. 1952. Section 6, Pages 21-10 and 21-11, Massachusetts Table 6. Population of Counties by Minor Civil Divisions: 1930 to 1950. Retrieved July 12, 2011. Cite journal requires \|journal= (help) ^ "U.S. Census website". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2008-01-31. ^ Index of Legislative Representation by City and Town, from Mass.gov Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marion, Massachusetts. Town of Marion official website Elizabeth Taber Library (public library) Marion Gym- workout facility (athletic facility at town building) SouthCoastToday.com: Marion The Marconi radio transmitter station in Marion Live area Police & Fire Scanner Radio SOCO magazine Municipalities and communities of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States County seats: Brockton and Plymouth Bridgewater (CDP) Duxbury (CDP) Green Harbor-Cedar Crest Hanson (CDP) Hingham (CDP) Kingston (CDP) Marion Center Marshfield (CDP) Mattapoisett Center Middleborough Center North Lakeville North Pembroke North Plymouth North Scituate Ocean Bluff-Brant Rock The Pinehills Plymouth Center Scituate (CDP) South Duxbury Wareham Center West Wareham Weweantic White Island Shores Chiltonville Manomet Micajah Heights Plymouth Beach Priscilla Beach South Carver Vallerville Wellingsley West Plymouth West Wind Shores MBAREA: a34c7847-1ccc-43c2-84ab-6853e155e42a WorldCat Identities: lccn-n2009020223 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Marion,_Massachusetts&oldid=996727499" Populated coastal places in Plymouth County, Massachusetts Towns in Plymouth County, Massachusetts 1679 establishments in Massachusetts CS1: long volume value Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz area identifiers	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1771
__label__wiki	0.723911	0.723911	AUD GBP CAD EUR TWD USD English French German Italian Spanish 繁体中文 Russian Portuguese Europe Polish Português GoDeal24.com Search: All Categories PC Games Steam Games Uplay Games Origin Games Epic Games Far Cry 3 Uplay Key GLOBAL Far Cry 3 is a first-person shooter action-adventure game, developed by Ubisoft Montreal and Published by Ubisoft. The game is the third installment of the critically acclaimed Far Cry series. In the game player controls the character of Jason Brody, an American student, who is kidnapped by pirates while on a cruise trip with his friends. The gameplay involves the exploration of the open-world setting, carrying out story missions and side quests for the NPCs and more. Far Cry 3 received almost universal critical acclaim, with reviewers pointing out the exploration mechanics and multitude of activities in the game world as its strongest points. Action gameplay in an open world environment FarCry 3 is set on a fictional Rook Islands archipelago. The player, as Jason Brody, can freely explore the environment, either on foot or using various other means of transportation, such as vehicles, boats, glides, and wingsuits. The islands are inhabited by different species of animals, which interact with each other. These include sharks, jaguars, tigers different species of birds, etc. The animals can be hunted and harvested for supplies necessary for crafting. The human inhabitants of the Rook Islands include the locals and a group of pirates who had taken over control over the archipelago. The native islanders will provide the player with help, either by trading with them or giving them side missions to carry out. The islanders live in small settlements where the player can resupply and accept missions. The pirates, on the other hand, are vicious and encountering them will inevitably end in a firefight. For that purpose, the game provides the player with a selection of weapons, from pistols, through assault and sniper rifles, to rocket and grenade launchers. The pirate’s control outposts located on the islands. Taking them over frees a given location from their influence. The player can decide whether to take the outpost guns blazing or to rely on stealth, eliminating the enemies without raising an alarm. Story summary Jason Brody planned an epic adventure to commemorate his younger brother’s birthday – a skydiving trip to the remote Rook Islands, somewhere on the Pacific. But what was meant to be a great bonding time between a group of friends, soon became a nightmare. The Rook Islands are controlled by a group of murderous pirates, lead by charismatic and unstable Vaas Montenegro. With is friends and his brother captured, Jason has to seek help from the locals to fight for their freedom. Armed and determined, the young man will have to face not only the pirates but the darkest parts of his own psyche. Far Cry 3 for PC received nearly universal acclaim from both the critics and players alike. The game’s open world filled with a ton of activity was considered one of the strengths of the game. Reviewers noted how well the game blended the stealth and action elements, providing the player with a choice of how they want to approach the gameplay. Combined with a multitude of side missions and other activities, the third installment of the cult series was considered as a new standard of the genre. Far Cry 3 won several awards, including British Academy Video Game Awards for Best Action Game and Game of the Year at the 4th Canadian Videogame Awards An epic FPS adventure set in an open world environment Follow Jason as he traverses the thick jungles of Rook Islands in search of his kidnapped friends Use a variety of weapons to fend off the enemy’s ore take them down quietly. Hunt or be hunted – kill animals to acquire resources for crafting Join up in a four-player co-op and take the challenge of Rook Islands together with other players Minimal requirements ProcessorIntel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.6 GHz / AMD Athlon64 X2 6000+ 3.0 Ghz Graphics1 GB VRAM - AMD Radeon HD 2900 / GeForce 8800 GTX Memory4 GB RAM Disk space15 GB HD SystemWindows XP / Windows Vista / Windows 7 Other: Internet Languages: Czech, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, English Shun Feng International Centre 3B-09, 182 Queen's Road East, Wanchai, Hong Kong service@godeal24.com © GoDeal24. 2020. All Rights Reserved	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1772
__label__wiki	0.685959	0.685959	Photo Credit: Mr. Bill Andrade Mr. Bill Andrade coaches his team from the sidelines. Graham Grant, Staff Writer All great journeys must come to an end. For Mr. Bill Andrade, his 24 year coaching career at FHS concluded with the Boy’s Varsity 19-20 season. A devoted man on and off the field, Mr. Andrade has coached multiple teams, bonding with each and every player, offering wisdom and guidance for their future. One key lesson Coach Andrade taught his players was the importance of desire–the hunger to go out and achieve something. He believes that no one can succeed without effort. It’s the factor that separates the good from the great. It’s a crucial element in achieving your goals, the Coach explained. In this final season, he felt a lack of desire from his players at the beginning, initially resulting in a disappointing start even though he had a great team. “I saw many talented juniors and knowing the quality of the seniors, we were on the verge of a great season.” The belief in the talent was strong between the players and the Coach. As games went on, Coach Andrade often reminded the team of how they were playing “good soccer” and how they “put up a good fight against the other top teams.” This push to motivate and encourage the team created results after starting the season with 4 losses. The team went on to claim 7 wins, beating a majority of teams that had previously defeated the Clippers. Such turnarounds are only one of the many possibilities that can occur in the world of sports, along with tough losses, injuries, and top competition, but Coach Andrade is a true veteran that experienced them all. Embracing the challenge he says, “opened up my eyes on how powerful people can become when unified.” He was amazed at how complete strangers can come together to form a family. “The bond between everyone is one of my favorite parts of being a coach.” The Coach’s passion for the game is evident to all he has influenced. “He gives the team his full effort on and off the field,” said Nick Hardin, one of the four captains. Along with his players, other coaches feel the same way. “He makes a great coach with his love for the game,” said Assistant Coach, Mr. Girouard. What’s next for Coach Andrade after his long career? Although he has stopped coaching, he won’t stray too far away from the sport. Rather, he will support his son, Colby Andrade, with his future in soccer. Such commitment to the sport demonstrates how much soccer means to the Coach. “I just love the sport. It has been my greatest passion throughout my life.” Graham Grant is a junior here at FHS. He writes sports journalism and produces podcasts. He enjoys playing soccer, spending time with friends, and listening...	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1774
__label__wiki	0.531891	0.531891	THE SUMMER HOME By admin \| April 22, 2012 The Summer Home opens late at night with a couple in a state of crisis. While the woman (Wonder Russell) in the backseat is covered in blood, presumably from a miscarriage, the man (Paul Vitulli) pulls over to the side of the road and runs to find help. Instead of help, he comes across an empty house, which he breaks into before collecting his mate for recovery. The film then follows the young couple as they both heal in their appropriated abode, not just from the physical trauma of that evening, but also from the emotional trauma caused by the miscarriage. If I’m not being more precise with whether they were married, names, etc, it is because the film is very sparse in its dialogue. Almost everything is left to one’s ability to follow the couple’s body language or other nuances, and a sound effect later on in the short is really the first confirmation of exactly what happened to the woman. As you can imagine, then, the soul of the film resides less in what we know and more about how the performances make us feel, and how that translates to inform us about events. To that end, actors Paul Vitulli and Wonder Russell are truly tasked with a challenge, however both prove to be up to it. It would be easy to go the over-the-top, grieving couple histrionic route, but the two play it more as a couple that is extremely damaged from their tragedy, but still functioning. In their time at the house, they’re even able to let their fantasy of what life would’ve been play out, allowing for a certain amount of emotional closure. The Summer Home is a film about healing. As anyone who has gone through the tragedy of a miscarriage can attest to, the emotional wounds it can leave are not always the most overt, but they also don’t just disappear. Kris and Lindy Boustedt’s short film manages to respect the gravity of that trauma, while also allowing the audience a chance to relate and heal. French/Icelandic art film Carcasse presents an abstract whose meaning will come from the viewer. Choose your own elucidation. From the filmmakers... LIBBY, MONTANA (DVD) Much like “Chernobyl Heart”, and basically many documentaries to come out this year, “Libby Montana” profiles a basically hopeless environmental... CAPTAIN CORELLI’S MANDOLIN Take a well-regarded novel, an epic historical setting, an Academy Award-winning actor, the director of a recent Best Picture winner, and the current...	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1775
__label__cc	0.602577	0.397423	Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole Douglas H. Keefe A single tone hole may be generally represented in the transmission-lines description of a woodwind musical instrument by a T-section circuit. This circuite element is comprised of a shunt and series impedance whose values differ depending on whether the hole is open or closed. The imaginary parts of these impedances have here been calculated as functions of frequency in terms of the main bore diameter, and the tone-hole chimney height and diameter. The loss-free wave equationis solved for a single tone hole placed through the wall of a cylindrical main bore. Green function expansions are made in both the main air column and tone hole. These two expansions must be equal on the surface of intersection between the main bore and tone hole, and this condition may be expressed by an integral equation over the surface. An approximate solution to the integral equation is obtained by Schwinger's variational formulation and the impedance parameters in the T section are there by computed and displayed in a form for use by musical acousticians. The series impedance for both open and closed holes is a negativeinertance. The shunt impedance of a closed hole is a compliance which is simply relatedto the closed-hole volume. The shunt impedance of an open hole is written in terms of the open-hole effective length and expressed as a function of the tone-hole proportions. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America https://doi.org/10.1121/1.388248 10.1121/1.388248 Fingerprint Dive into the research topics of 'Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole'. Together they form a unique fingerprint. Woodwind Arts & Humanities Hole Arts & Humanities impedance Physics & Astronomy shunts Physics & Astronomy Equations Arts & Humanities integral equations Physics & Astronomy chimneys Physics & Astronomy Keefe, D. H. (1982). Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 72(3), 676-687. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.388248 Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole. / Keefe, Douglas H. In: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 72, No. 3, 09.1982, p. 676-687. Keefe, DH 1982, 'Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole', Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. 72, no. 3, pp. 676-687. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.388248 Keefe DH. Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 1982 Sep;72(3):676-687. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.388248 Keefe, Douglas H. / Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole. In: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 1982 ; Vol. 72, No. 3. pp. 676-687. @article{7ece2846a51d4cd08c0ef7147b102f0d, title = "Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole", abstract = "A single tone hole may be generally represented in the transmission-lines description of a woodwind musical instrument by a T-section circuit. This circuite element is comprised of a shunt and series impedance whose values differ depending on whether the hole is open or closed. The imaginary parts of these impedances have here been calculated as functions of frequency in terms of the main bore diameter, and the tone-hole chimney height and diameter. The loss-free wave equationis solved for a single tone hole placed through the wall of a cylindrical main bore. Green function expansions are made in both the main air column and tone hole. These two expansions must be equal on the surface of intersection between the main bore and tone hole, and this condition may be expressed by an integral equation over the surface. An approximate solution to the integral equation is obtained by Schwinger's variational formulation and the impedance parameters in the T section are there by computed and displayed in a form for use by musical acousticians. The series impedance for both open and closed holes is a negativeinertance. The shunt impedance of a closed hole is a compliance which is simply relatedto the closed-hole volume. The shunt impedance of an open hole is written in terms of the open-hole effective length and expressed as a function of the tone-hole proportions.", author = "Keefe, {Douglas H.}", doi = "10.1121/1.388248", journal = "Journal of the Acoustical Society of America", publisher = "Acoustical Society of America", T1 - Theory Of The Single Woodwind Tone Hole AU - Keefe, Douglas H. N2 - A single tone hole may be generally represented in the transmission-lines description of a woodwind musical instrument by a T-section circuit. This circuite element is comprised of a shunt and series impedance whose values differ depending on whether the hole is open or closed. The imaginary parts of these impedances have here been calculated as functions of frequency in terms of the main bore diameter, and the tone-hole chimney height and diameter. The loss-free wave equationis solved for a single tone hole placed through the wall of a cylindrical main bore. Green function expansions are made in both the main air column and tone hole. These two expansions must be equal on the surface of intersection between the main bore and tone hole, and this condition may be expressed by an integral equation over the surface. An approximate solution to the integral equation is obtained by Schwinger's variational formulation and the impedance parameters in the T section are there by computed and displayed in a form for use by musical acousticians. The series impedance for both open and closed holes is a negativeinertance. The shunt impedance of a closed hole is a compliance which is simply relatedto the closed-hole volume. The shunt impedance of an open hole is written in terms of the open-hole effective length and expressed as a function of the tone-hole proportions. AB - A single tone hole may be generally represented in the transmission-lines description of a woodwind musical instrument by a T-section circuit. This circuite element is comprised of a shunt and series impedance whose values differ depending on whether the hole is open or closed. The imaginary parts of these impedances have here been calculated as functions of frequency in terms of the main bore diameter, and the tone-hole chimney height and diameter. The loss-free wave equationis solved for a single tone hole placed through the wall of a cylindrical main bore. Green function expansions are made in both the main air column and tone hole. These two expansions must be equal on the surface of intersection between the main bore and tone hole, and this condition may be expressed by an integral equation over the surface. An approximate solution to the integral equation is obtained by Schwinger's variational formulation and the impedance parameters in the T section are there by computed and displayed in a form for use by musical acousticians. The series impedance for both open and closed holes is a negativeinertance. The shunt impedance of a closed hole is a compliance which is simply relatedto the closed-hole volume. The shunt impedance of an open hole is written in terms of the open-hole effective length and expressed as a function of the tone-hole proportions. U2 - 10.1121/1.388248 DO - 10.1121/1.388248 JO - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America JF - Journal of the Acoustical Society of America	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1779
__label__wiki	0.661318	0.661318	No matter your age, gender or background, we can provide support to help you put an end to abuse in your relationship. From accommodation to support programmes, our team can help you and your children with an immediate and long term plan. We provide the following support: Find a way out of your abusive relationship Access safe accommodation Rebuild your life, with dedicated individual, family and group support recovery support Recognise healthy and unhealthy behaviour to help you make more informed relationship choices in the future Get specialist support and advice on how to stay safe Things can change “I wouldn’t say that I’m fixed, I’m a work in progress, but I know I’ve got that helping hand should I need it. I like to be continuously involved with Glow because I feel like I owe them so much. I will always come back to Glow whenever I’m needed.” Back to our approach What was the challenge? Andrew was referred to Glow after being separated from his abusive partner. He described his partner as “unpredictable”, excusing and tolerating her behaviour because “she had recently suffered bereavement and was on medication for depression”. Even worse, he feared he couldn’t seek help in case false allegations were made against him or his children would be removed from him. Andrew felt helpless and embarrassed. Having previously worked in security, he thought because of his build and his experience resolving violent incidents at work, nobody would believe he was a victim of violence himself. On the brink of suicide, Andrew said he couldn’t see a way out from the situation. Although the police and his GP were providing support, Andrew was disappointed that no charges were being brought against his partner in regard to her abuse of their children. As a father, he was ashamed that he wasn’t aware of her abusive behaviour toward the children and felt like he failed as a father because he didn’t safeguard them. Friends and associates blamed him for the relationship breakdown, and, even though the children didn’t want to have contact with their mother, he was ridiculed for denying his partner access to their children. With the stress and anxiety of it all, he wasn’t able to continue working, and, being self-employed, this put even more stress on his situation. How did glow help? The first step was helping Andrew address and fully understand the situation he was in. Through an initial assessment with our team, he was able to understand and come to terms with himself that the behaviour he experienced really was abuse, commenting, “I would apologise if she hurt herself hitting me.” Our team worked to help Andrew stop blaming himself for what he experienced and clearly identify the types of abuse used by his ex-partner so a clear record of events could be captured. Through 1:1 support, Andrew was able to use those recounts to become more knowledgeable on how to better identify abusive behaviour and put his partner’s behaviour into perspective to help him begin to heal and overcome his experience. Once we helped Andrew to begin address his emotional and mental health needs, our team worked with Andrew to devise a support plan, including support in accessing a solicitor and legal aid, finances, welfare benefits, housing and continued emotional support. Andrew is currently being supported by our team in the family courts regarding his child custody and child contact arrangements. What was the impact? Although we are still supporting Andrew to this day, there are many successes Andrew has experienced along his journey. Presently, the court is ruling in his favour and the wishes of the children, in addition to: Andrew obtained a non-molestation order against his ex-partner Andrew is in a new, healthy relationship and working full-time Andrew wants to become a volunteer helping to support other male victims of relationship abuse All names have been changed to protect the privacy of our customers. When Jenny first came to Glow, she was 5 months pregnant and was homeless. After leaving her violent partner, her sofa surfing quickly didn’t work out, leaving her feeling helpless on what to do. She had 4 children with very limited contact to them, 2 young daughters living with her ex-partner’s mother and 2 older sons. She had a conviction for possession with intent to supply a class A drug, and, with a previous heroin addiction, was on a daily script methadone programme. Jenny felt isolated, having limited contact to her immediate family and only some contact with her partner’s mother. She had a history of very violent relationships with several partners and had visible scarring from the physical abuse and suffered from mental health difficulties from emotional abuse. Without a fixed address, her benefits had been suspended, and, because of her current circumstances, her unborn baby was on a Child Protection Plan with a high possibility the baby would be removed at birth. Desperate to keep her baby, Jenny needed support to help her find accommodation urgently and help with her physical and mental health needs. The Glow team needed to work quickly to find a support plan that addressed all of the different concerns she had urgently. The first step was addressing Jenny’s immediate care priorities, sourcing accommodation and financial support. Through Glow’s guidance, Jenny was able to reinstate her Employment and Support Allowance as well as her Housing Benefit. Next, the team worked in collaboration with the local substance misuse agency to arrange a daily methadone script and support with her overall health concerns. With her housing, financial, substance and health circumstances improving, the team worked with social care to monitor and reassess the Child Protection Plan in place, with a successful outcome of helping Jenny to keep her baby. Once the baby was born, the team wanted to focus support for Jenny both in her role as a mother to a newborn, as well as provide support to help her address and overcome her experiences with abusive relationships. Through the children’s worker in the refuge she was residing in, Jenny was able to access emotional support and advice when needed, and the support team helped source donations for items like a brand new cot and moses basket. Through our courses at the Sunrise Centre, Jenny completed Freedom and Parenting and Recovery Toolkit, giving her knowledge and skills for the future, as well as confidence and self esteem that she can make the appropriate decisions for her and her baby’s safety and wellbeing. As a result of our team’s support and Jenny’s cooperation: Jenny adhered to her Child Protection Plan and was able to keep her baby Jenny left her refuge accommodation and resettled into the community Jenny is completely off her methadone script Jenny’s self-esteem and confidence has increased Social care involvement with the child has stopped Don't wait. Get in touch with our team now. Whether you are currently experiencing abusive behaviour or you think you may be responsible for abusive behaviour we can help. Just reach out, and our team will be there.	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1781
__label__wiki	0.824204	0.824204	Home / Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989) 109 S.Ct. 1775 Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989) 109 S.Ct. 1775 PRICE WATERHOUSE v. HOPKINS, 490 U.S. 228 (1989) 109 S.Ct. 1775 PRICE WATERHOUSE v. HOPKINS CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT No. 87-1167. Argued October 31, 1988 Decided May 1, 1989 Respondent was a senior manager in an office of petitioner professional accounting partnership when she was proposed for partnership in 1982. She was neither offered nor denied partnership but instead her candidacy was held for reconsideration the following year. When the partners in her office later refused to repropose her for partnership, she sued petitioner in Federal District Court under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, charging that it had discriminated against her on the basis of sex in its partnership decisions. The District Court ruled in respondent's favor on the question of liability, holding that petitioner had unlawfully discriminated against her on the basis of sex by consciously giving credence and effect to partners' comments about her that resulted from sex stereotyping. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Both courts held that an employer who has allowed a discriminatory motive to play a part in an employment decision must prove by clear and convincing evidence that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination, and that petitioner had not carried this burden. Held: The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded. 263 U.S.App.D.C. 321, 825 F.2d 458, reversed and remanded. JUSTICE BRENNAN, joined by JUSTICE MARSHALL, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE STEVENS, concluded that when a plaintiff in a Title VII case proves that her gender played a part in an employment decision, the defendant may avoid a finding of liability by proving by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have made the same decision even if it had not taken the plaintiff's gender into account. The courts below erred by requiring petitioner to make its proof by clear and convincing evidence. Pp. 237-258. (a) The balance between employee rights and employer prerogatives established by Title VII by eliminating certain bases for distinguishing among employees while otherwise preserving employers' freedom of choice is decisive in this case. The words "because of" in Ã‚Â§ 703(a)(1) of the Act, which forbids an employer to make an adverse decision against an employee "because of such individual's . . . sex," requires looking at all of the reasons, both legitimate and illegitimate, contributing to the decision at the time it is made. The preservation of employers' freedom of choice means that an employer will not be liable if it can prove that, if Page 229 it had not taken gender into account, it would have come to the same decision. This Court's prior decisions demonstrate that the plaintiff who shows that an impermissible motive played a motivating part in an adverse employment decision thereby places the burden on the defendant to show that it would have made the same decision in the absence of the unlawful motive. Here, petitioner may not meet its burden by merely showing that respondent's interpersonal problems Ã¢â‚¬â€ abrasiveness with staff members Ã¢â‚¬â€ constituted a legitimate reason for denying her partnership; instead, petitioner must show that its legitimate reason, standing alone, would have induced petitioner to deny respondent partnership. Pp. 239-252. (b) Conventional rules of civil litigation generally apply in Title VII cases, and one of these rules is that the parties need only prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence. Pp. 252-255. (c) The District Court's finding that sex stereotyping was permitted to play a part in evaluating respondent as a candidate for partnership was not clearly erroneous. This finding is not undermined by the fact that many of the suspect comments made about respondent were made by partners who were supporters rather than detractors. Pp. 255-258. JUSTICE WHITE, although concluding that the Court of Appeals erred in requiring petitioner to prove by clear and convincing evidence that it would have reached the same employment decision in the absence of the improper motive, rather than merely requiring proof by a preponderance of the evidence as in Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, which sets forth the proper approach to causation in this case, also concluded that the plurality here errs in seeming to require, at least in most cases, that the employer carry its burden by submitting objective evidence that the same result would have occurred absent the unlawful motivation. In a mixed-motives case, where the legitimate motive found would have been ample grounds for the action taken, and the employer credibly testifies that the action would have been taken for the legitimate reasons alone, this should be ample proof, and there is no special requirement of objective evidence. This would even more plainly be the case where the employer denies any illegitimate motive in the first place but the court finds that illegitimate, as well as legitimate, factors motivated the adverse action. Pp. 258-261. JUSTICE O'CONNOR, although agreeing that on the facts of this case, the burden of persuasion should shift to petitioner to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision absent consideration of respondent's gender, and that this burden shift is properly part of the liability phase of the litigation, concluded that the plurality misreads Title VII's substantive causation requirement to command burden shifting if the employer's decisional process is Page 230 "tainted" by awareness of sex or race in any way, and thereby effectively eliminates the requirement. JUSTICE O'CONNOR also concluded that the burden shifting rule should be limited to cases such as the present in which the employer has created uncertainty as to causation by knowingly giving substantial weight to an impermissible criterion. Pp. 261-279. (a) Contrary to the plurality's conclusion, Title VII's plain language making it unlawful for an employer to undertake an adverse employment action "because of" prohibited factors and the statute's legislative history demonstrate that a substantive violation only occurs when consideration of an illegitimate criterion is the "but-for" cause of the adverse action. However, nothing in the language, history, or purpose of the statute prohibits adoption of an evidentiary rule which places the burden of persuasion on the defendant to demonstrate that legitimate concerns would have justified an adverse employment action where the plaintiff has convinced the factfinder that a forbidden factor played a substantial role in the employment decision. Such a rule has been adopted in tort and other analogous types of cases, where leaving the burden of proof on the plaintiff to prove "but-for" causation would be unfair or contrary to the deterrent purposes embodied in the concept of duty of care. Pp. 262-269. (b) Although the burden shifting rule adopted here departs from the careful framework established by McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, and Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 Ã¢â‚¬â€ which clearly contemplate that an individual disparate treatment plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion throughout the litigation Ã¢â‚¬â€ that departure is justified in cases such as the present where the plaintiff, having presented direct evidence that the employer placed substantial, though unquantifiable, reliance on a forbidden factor in making an employment decision, has taken her proof as far as it could go, such that it is appropriate to require the defendant, which has created the uncertainty as to causation by considering the illegitimate criterion, to show that its decision would have been justified by wholly legitimate concerns. Moreover, a rule shifting the burden in these circumstances will not conflict with other Title VII policies, particularly its prohibition on preferential treatment based on prohibited factors. Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977, distinguished. Pp. 270-276. (c) Thus, in order to justify shifting the burden on the causation issue to the defendant, a disparate treatment plaintiff must show by direct evidence that decisionmakers placed substantial negative reliance on an illegitimate criterion in reaching their decision. Such a showing entitles the factfinder to presume that the employer's discriminatory animus made a difference in the outcome, and, if the employer fails to carry its burden of persuasion, to conclude that the employer's decision was made "because of" consideration of the illegitimate factor, thereby satisfying Page 231 the substantive standard for liability under Title VII. This burden shifting rule supplements the McDonnell Douglas-Burdine framework, which continues to apply where the plaintiff has failed to satisfy the threshold standard set forth herein. Pp. 276-279. BRENNAN, J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, and STEVENS, JJ., joined. WHITE, J., post, p. 258, and O'CONNOR, J., post, p. 261, filed opinions concurring in the judgment. KENNEDY, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and SCALIA, J., joined, post, p. 279. Kathryn A. Oberly argued the cause for petitioner. With her on the briefs were Paul M. Bator, Douglas A. Poe, Eldon Olson, and Ulric R. Sullivan. James H. Heller argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Douglas B. Huron.[fn] [fn] Page 231 Robert E. Williams and Douglas S. McDowell filed a brief for the Equal Employment Advisory Council as amicus curiae urging reversal. Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations by Marsha S. Berzon and Laurence Gold; for the American Psychological Association by Donald N. Bersoff; for the Committees on Civil Rights, Labor and Employment Law, and Sex and Law of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York by Jonathan Lang, Eugene S. Friedman, Arthur Leonard, and Colleen McMahon; and for the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund et al. by Sarah E. Burns, Lynn Hecht Schafran, Joan E. Bertin, John A. Powell, and Donna R. Lenhoff. Solicitor General Fried, Assistant Attorney General Reynolds, Deputy Solicitor General Merrill, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Clegg, Brian J. Martin, and David K. Flynn filed a brief for the United States as amicus curiae. JUSTICE BRENNAN announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which JUSTICE MARSHALL, JUSTICE BLACKMUN, and JUSTICE STEVENS join. Ann Hopkins was a senior manager in an office of Price Waterhouse when she was proposed for partnership in 1982. She was neither offered nor denied admission to the partnership; instead, her candidacy was held for reconsideration the following year. When the partners in her office later refused Page 232 to repropose her for partnership, she sued Price Waterhouse under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 2000e et seq., charging that the firm had discriminated against her on the basis of sex in its decisions regarding partnership. Judge Gesell in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in her favor on the question of liability, 618 F. Supp. 1109 (1985), and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed. 263 U.S.App.D.C. 321, 825 F.2d 458 (1987). We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict among the Courts of Appeals concerning the respective burdens of proof of a defendant and plaintiff in a suit under Title VII when it has been shown that an employment decision resulted from a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate motives. 485 U.S. 933 (1988). I At Price Waterhouse, a nationwide professional accounting partnership, a senior manager becomes a candidate for partnership when the partners in her local office submit her name as a candidate. All of the other partners in the firm are then invited to submit written comments on each candidate Ã¢â‚¬â€ either on a "long" or a "short" form, depending on the partner's degree of exposure to the candidate. Not every partner in the firm submits comments on every candidate. After reviewing the comments and interviewing the partners who submitted them, the firm's Admissions Committee makes a recommendation to the Policy Board. This recommendation will be either that the firm accept the candidate for partnership, put her application on "hold," or deny her the promotion outright. The Policy Board then decides whether to submit the candidate's name to the entire partnership for a vote, to "hold" her candidacy, or to reject her. The recommendation of the Admissions Committee, and the decision of the Policy Board, are not controlled by fixed guidelines: a certain number of positive comments from partners will not guarantee a candidate's admission to the partnership, nor will a specific Page 233 quantity of negative comments necessarily defeat her application. Price Waterhouse places no limit on the number of persons whom it will admit to the partnership in any given year. Ann Hopkins had worked at Price Waterhouse's Office of Government Services in Washington, D.C., for five years when the partners in that office proposed her as a candidate for partnership. Of the 662 partners at the firm at that time, 7 were women. Of the 88 persons proposed for partnership that year, only 1 Ã¢â‚¬â€ Hopkins Ã¢â‚¬â€ was a woman. Forty-seven of these candidates were admitted to the partnership, 21 were rejected, and 20 Ã¢â‚¬â€ including Hopkins Ã¢â‚¬â€ were "held" for reconsideration the following year.[fn1] Thirteen of the 32 partners who had submitted comments on Hopkins supported her bid for partnership. Three partners recommended that her candidacy be placed on hold, eight stated that they did not have an informed opinion about her, and eight recommended that she be denied partnership. In a jointly prepared statement supporting her candidacy, the partners in Hopkins' office showcased her successful 2-year effort to secure a $25 million contract with the Department of State, labeling it "an outstanding performance" and one that Hopkins carried out "virtually at the partner level." Plaintiff's Exh. 15. Despite Price Waterhouse's attempt at trial to minimize her contribution to this project, Judge Gesell Page 234 specifically found that Hopkins had "played a key role in Price Waterhouse's successful effort to win a multi-million dollar contract with the Department of State." 618 F. Supp., at 1112. Indeed, he went on, "[n]one of the other partnership candidates at Price Waterhouse that year had a comparable record in terms of successfully securing major contracts for the partnership." Ibid. The partners in Hopkins' office praised her character as well as her accomplishments, describing her in their joint statement as "an outstanding professional" who had a "deft touch," a "strong character, independence and integrity." Plaintiff's Exh. 15. Clients appear to have agreed with these assessments. At trial, one official from the State Department described her as "extremely competent, intelligent," "strong and forthright, very productive, energetic and creative." Tr. 150. Another high-ranking official praised Hopkins' decisiveness, broadmindedness, and "intellectual clarity"; she was, in his words, "a stimulating conversationalist." Id., at 156-157. Evaluations such as these led Judge Gesell to conclude that Hopkins "had no difficulty dealing with clients and her clients appear to have been very pleased with her work" and that she "was generally viewed as a highly competent project leader who worked long hours, pushed vigorously to meet deadlines and demanded much from the multidisciplinary staffs with which she worked." 618 F. Supp., at 1112-1113. On too many occasions, however, Hopkins' aggressiveness apparently spilled over into abrasiveness. Staff members seem to have borne the brunt of Hopkins' brusqueness. Long before her bid for partnership, partners evaluating her work had counseled her to improve her relations with staff members. Although later evaluations indicate an improvement, Hopkins' perceived shortcomings in this important area eventually doomed her bid for partnership. Virtually all of the partners' negative remarks about Hopkins Ã¢â‚¬â€ even those of partners supporting her Ã¢â‚¬â€ had to do with her "interpersonal Page 235 skills." Both "[s]upporters and opponents of her candidacy," stressed Judge Gesell, "indicated that she was sometimes overly aggressive, unduly harsh, difficult to work with and impatient with staff." Id., at 1113. There were clear signs, though, that some of the partners reacted negatively to Hopkins' personality because she was a woman. One partner described her as "macho" (Defendant's Exh. 30); another suggested that she "overcompensated for being a woman" (Defendant's Exh. 31); a third advised her to take "a course at charm school" (Defendant's Exh. 27). Several partners criticized her use of profanity; in response, one partner suggested that those partners objected to her swearing only "because it's a lady using foul language." Tr. 321. Another supporter explained that Hopkins "ha[d] matured from a tough-talking somewhat masculine hard-nosed mgr to an authoritative, formidable, but much more appealing lady ptr candidate." Defendant's Exh. 27. But it was the man who, as Judge Gesell found, bore responsibility for explaining to Hopkins the reasons for the Policy Board's decision to place her candidacy on hold who delivered the coup de grace: in order to improve her chances for partnership, Thomas Beyer advised, Hopkins should "walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry." 618 F. Supp., at 1117. Dr. Susan Fiske, a social psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology at Carnegie-Mellon University, testified at trial that the partnership selection process at Price Waterhouse was likely influenced by sex stereotyping. Her testimony focused not only on the overtly sex-based comments of partners but also on gender-neutral remarks, made by partners who knew Hopkins only slightly, that were intensely critical of her. One partner, for example, baldly stated that Hopkins was "universally disliked" by staff (Defendant's Exh. 27), and another described her as "consistently annoying and irritating" (ibid.); yet these were people who had had very little contact with Hopkins. According to Page 236 Fiske, Hopkins' uniqueness (as the only woman in the pool of candidates) and the subjectivity of the evaluations made it likely that sharply critical remarks such as these were the product of sex stereotyping Ã¢â‚¬â€ although Fiske admitted that she could not say with certainty whether any particular comment was the result of stereotyping. Fiske based her opinion on a review of the submitted comments, explaining that it was commonly accepted practice for social psychologists to reach this kind of conclusion without having met any of the people involved in the decisionmaking process. In previous years, other female candidates for partnership also had been evaluated in sex-based terms. As a general matter, Judge Gesell concluded, "[c]andidates were viewed favorably if partners believed they maintained their femin[in]ity while becoming effective professional managers"; in this environment, "[t]o be identified as a `women's lib[b]er' was regarded as [a] negative comment." 618 F. Supp., at 1117. In fact, the judge found that in previous years "[o]ne partner repeatedly commented that he could not consider any woman seriously as a partnership candidate and believed that women were not even capable of functioning as senior managers Ã¢â‚¬â€ yet the firm took no action to discourage his comments and recorded his vote in the overall summary of the evaluations." Ibid. Judge Gesell found that Price Waterhouse legitimately emphasized interpersonal skills in its partnership decisions, and also found that the firm had not fabricated its complaints about Hopkins' interpersonal skills as a pretext for discrimination. Moreover, he concluded, the firm did not give decisive emphasis to such traits only because Hopkins was a woman; although there were male candidates who lacked these skills but who were admitted to partnership, the judge found that these candidates possessed other, positive traits that Hopkins lacked. The judge went on to decide, however, that some of the partners' remarks about Hopkins stemmed from an impermissibly Page 237 cabined view of the proper behavior of women, and that Price Waterhouse had done nothing to disavow reliance on such comments. He held that Price Waterhouse had unlawfully discriminated against Hopkins on the basis of sex by consciously giving credence and effect to partners' comments that resulted from sex stereotyping. Noting that Price Waterhouse could avoid equitable relief by proving by clear and convincing evidence that it would have placed Hopkins' candidacy on hold even absent this discrimination, the judge decided that the firm had not carried this heavy burden. The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court's ultimate conclusion, but departed from its analysis in one particular: it held that even if a plaintiff proves that discrimination played a role in an employment decision, the defendant will not be found liable if it proves, by clear and convincing evidence, that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination. 263 U.S. App. D.C., at 333-334, 825 F.2d, at 470-471. Under this approach, an employer is not deemed to have violated Title VII if it proves that it would have made the same decision in the absence of an impermissible motive, whereas under the District Court's approach, the employer's proof in that respect only avoids equitable relief. We decide today that the Court of Appeals had the better approach, but that both courts erred in requiring the employer to make its proof by clear and convincing evidence. II The specification of the standard of causation under Title VII is a decision about the kind of conduct that violates that statute. According to Price Waterhouse, an employer violates Title VII only if it gives decisive consideration to an employee's gender, race, national origin, or religion in making a decision that affects that employee. On Price Waterhouse's theory, even if a plaintiff shows that her gender played a part in an employment decision, it is still her burden to show that the decision would have been different if the employer had Page 238 not discriminated. In Hopkins' view, on the other hand, an employer violates the statute whenever it allows one of these attributes to play any part in an employment decision. Once a plaintiff shows that this occurred, according to Hopkins, the employer's proof that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination can serve to limit equitable relief but not to avoid a finding of liability.[fn2] We conclude that, as often happens, the truth lies somewhere in between. Page 239 A In passing Title VII, Congress made the simple but momentous announcement that sex, race, religion, and national origin are not relevant to the selection, evaluation, or compensation of employees.[fn3] Yet, the statute does not purport to limit the other qualities and characteristics that employers may take into account in making employment decisions. The converse, therefore, of "for cause" legislation,[fn4] Title VII eliminates certain bases for distinguishing among employees while otherwise preserving employers' freedom of choice. This balance between employee rights and employer prerogatives turns out to be decisive in the case before us. Congress' intent to forbid employers to take gender into account in making employment decisions appears on the face of the statute. In now-familiar language, the statute forbids Page 240 an employer to "fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment," or to "limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual's . . . sex." 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 2000e-2(a)(1), (2) (emphasis added).[fn5] We take these words to mean that gender must be irrelevant to employment decisions. To construe the words "because of" as colloquial shorthand for "but-for causation," as does Price Waterhouse, is to misunderstand them.[fn6] But-for causation is a hypothetical construct. In determining whether a particular factor was a but-for cause of a given event, we begin by assuming that that factor was present at the time of the event, and then ask whether, even if that factor had been absent, the event nevertheless would have transpired in the same way. The present, active tense of the operative verbs of Ã‚Â§ 703(a)(1) ("to fail or refuse"), in contrast, turns our attention to the actual moment of the Page 241 event in question, the adverse employment decision. The critical inquiry, the one commanded by the words of Ã‚Â§ 703(a)(1), is whether gender was a factor in the employment decision at the moment it was made. Moreover, since we know that the words "because of" do not mean "solely because of,"[fn7] we also know that Title VII meant to condemn even those decisions based on a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate considerations. When, therefore, an employer considers both gender and legitimate factors at the time of making a decision, that decision was "because of" sex and the other, legitimate considerations Ã¢â‚¬â€ even if we may say later, in the context of litigation, that the decision would have been the same if gender had not been taken into account. To attribute this meaning to the words "because of" does not, as the dissent asserts, post, at 282, divest them of causal significance. A simple example illustrates the point. Suppose two physical forces act upon and move an object, and suppose that either force acting alone would have moved the object. As the dissent would have it, neither physical force was a "cause" of the motion unless we can show that but for one or both of them, the object would not have moved; apparently both forces were simply "in the air" unless we can identify at least one of them as a but-for cause of the object's movement. Ibid. Events that are causally overdetermined, in other words, may not have any "cause" at all. This cannot be so. We need not leave our common sense at the doorstep when we interpret a statute. It is difficult for us to imagine that, in the simple words "because of," Congress meant to obligate a plaintiff to identify the precise causal role played by legitimate and illegitimate motivations in the employment decision she challenges. We conclude, instead, that Congress meant Page 242 to obligate her to prove that the employer relied upon sex-based considerations in coming to its decision. Our interpretation of the words "because of" also is supported by the fact that Title VII does identify one circumstance in which an employer may take gender into account in making an employment decision, namely, when gender is a "bona fide occupational qualification [(BFOQ)] reasonably necessary to the normal operation of th[e] particular business or enterprise." 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 2000e-2(e). The only plausible inference to draw from this provision is that, in all other circumstances, a person's gender may not be considered in making decisions that affect her. Indeed, Title VII even forbids employers to make gender an indirect stumbling block to employment opportunities. An employer may not, we have held, condition employment opportunities on the satisfaction of facially neutral tests or qualifications that have a disproportionate, adverse impact on members of protected groups when those tests or qualifications are not required for performance of the job. See Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977 (1988); Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971). To say that an employer may not take gender into account is not, however, the end of the matter, for that describes only one aspect of Title VII. The other important aspect of the statute is its preservation of an employer's remaining freedom of choice. We conclude that the preservation of this freedom means that an employer shall not be liable if it can prove that, even if it had not taken gender into account, it would have come to the same decision regarding a particular person. The statute's maintenance of employer prerogatives is evident from the statute itself and from its history, both in Congress and in this Court. To begin with, the existence of the BFOQ exception shows Congress' unwillingness to require employers to change the very nature of their operations in response to the statute. And our emphasis on "business necessity" in disparate-impact Page 243 cases, see Watson and Griggs, and on "legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason[s]" in disparate-treatment cases, see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973); Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981), results from our awareness of Title VII's balance between employee rights and employer prerogatives. In McDonnell Douglas, we described as follows Title VII's goal to eradicate discrimination while preserving workplace efficiency: "The broad, overriding interest, shared by employer, employee, and consumer, is efficient and trustworthy workmanship assured through fair and racially neutral employment and personnel decisions. In the implementation of such decisions, it is abundantly clear that Title VII tolerates no racial discrimination, subtle or otherwise." 411 U.S., at 801. When an employer ignored the attributes enumerated in the statute, Congress hoped, it naturally would focus on the qualifications of the applicant or employee. The intent to drive employers to focus on qualifications rather than on race, religion, sex, or national origin is the theme of a good deal of the statute's legislative history. An interpretive memorandum entered into the Congressional Record by Senators Case and Clark, comanagers of the bill in the Senate, is representative of this general theme.[fn8] According to their memorandum, Title VII "`expressly protects the employer's right to insist that any prospective applicant, Negro or white, must meet the applicable job qualifications. Indeed, the very purpose of title VII is to promote hiring on the basis of job qualifications, rather than on the basis of race or color.'"[fn9] 110 Cong. Rec. 7247 (1964) quoted in Griggs v. Page 244 Duke Power Co., supra, at 434. The memorandum went on: "To discriminate is to make a distinction, to make a difference in treatment or favor, and those distinctions or differences in treatment or favor which are prohibited by section 704 are those which are based on any five of the forbidden criteria: race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Any other criterion or qualification for employment is not affected by this title." 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964). Many other legislators made statements to a similar effect; we see no need to set out each remark in full here. The central point is this: while an employer may not take gender into account in making an employment decision (except in those very narrow circumstances in which gender is a BFOQ), it is free to decide against a woman for other reasons. We think these principles require that, once a plaintiff in a Title VII case shows that gender played a motivating part in an employment decision, the defendant may avoid a finding of liability[fn10] only by proving that it would have made the same Page 245 decision even if it had not allowed gender to play such a role. This balance of burdens is the direct result of Title VII's balance of rights. Our holding casts no shadow on Burdine, in which we decided that, even after a plaintiff has made out a prima facie case of discrimination under Title VII, the burden of persuasion does not shift to the employer to show that its stated legitimate reason for the employment decision was the true reason. 450 U.S., at 256-258. We stress, first, that neither Page 246 court below shifted the burden of persuasion to Price Waterhouse on this question, and in fact, the District Court found that Hopkins had not shown that the firm's stated reason for its decision was pretextual. 618 F. Supp., at 1114-1115. Moreover, since we hold that the plaintiff retains the burden of persuasion on the issue whether gender played a part in the employment decision, the situation before us is not the one of "shifting burdens" that we addressed in Burdine. Instead, the employer's burden is most appropriately deemed an affirmative defense: the plaintiff must persuade the factfinder on one point, and then the employer, if it wishes to prevail, must persuade it on another. See NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U.S. 393, 400 (1983).[fn11] Price Waterhouse's claim that the employer does not bear any burden of proof (if it bears one at all) until the plaintiff has shown "substantial evidence that Price Waterhouse's explanation for failing to promote Hopkins was not the `true reason' for its action" (Brief for Petitioner 20) merely restates its argument that the plaintiff in a mixed-motives case Page 247 must squeeze her proof into Burdine's framework. Where a decision was the product of a mixture of legitimate and illegitimate motives, however, it simply makes no sense to ask whether the legitimate reason was "the `true reason'" (Brief for Petitioner 20 (emphasis added)) for the decision Ã¢â‚¬â€ which is the question asked by Burdine. See Transportation Management, supra, at 400, n. 5.[fn12] Oblivious to this last point, the dissent would insist that Burdine's framework perform work that it was never intended to perform. It would require a plaintiff who challenges an adverse employment decision in which both legitimate and illegitimate considerations played a part to pretend that the decision, in fact, stemmed from a single source Ã¢â‚¬â€ for the premise of Burdine is that either a legitimate or an illegitimate set of considerations led to the challenged decision. To say that Burdine's evidentiary scheme will not help us decide a case admittedly involving both kinds of considerations is not to cast aspersions on the utility of that scheme in the circumstances for which it was designed. Page 248 B In deciding as we do today, we do not traverse new ground. We have in the past confronted Title VII cases in which an employer has used an illegitimate criterion to distinguish among employees, and have held that it is the employer's burden to justify decisions resulting from that practice. When an employer has asserted that gender is a BFOQ within the meaning of Ã‚Â§ 703(e), for example, we have assumed that it is the employer who must show why it must use gender as a criterion in employment. See Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 332-337 (1977). In a related context, although the Equal Pay Act expressly permits employers to pay different wages to women where disparate pay is the result of a "factor other than sex," see 29 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 206(d)(1), we have decided that it is the employer, not the employee, who must prove that the actual disparity is not sex linked. See Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U.S. 188, 196 (1974). Finally, some courts have held that, under Title VII as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, it is the employer who has the burden of showing that its limitations on the work that it allows a pregnant woman to perform are necessary in light of her pregnancy. See, e. g., Hayes v. Shelby Memorial Hospital, 726 F.2d 1543, 1548 (CA11 1984); Wright v. Olin Corp., 697 F.2d 1172, 1187 (CA4 1982). As these examples demonstrate, our assumption always has been that if an employer allows gender to affect its decision-making process, then it must carry the burden of justifying its ultimate decision. We have not in the past required women whose gender has proved relevant to an employment decision to establish the negative proposition that they would not have been subject to that decision had they been men, and we do not do so today. We have reached a similar conclusion in other contexts where the law announces that a certain characteristic is irrelevant to the allocation of burdens and benefits. In Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977), the Page 249 plaintiff claimed that he had been discharged as a public school teacher for exercising his free-speech rights under the First Amendment. Because we did not wish to "place an employee in a better position as a result of the exercise of constitutionally protected conduct than he would have occupied had he done nothing," id., at 285, we concluded that such an employee "ought not to be able, by engaging in such conduct, to prevent his employer from assessing his performance record and reaching a decision not to rehire on the basis of that record." Id., at 286. We therefore held that once the plaintiff had shown that his constitutionally protected speech was a "substantial" or "motivating factor" in the adverse treatment of him by his employer, the employer was obligated to prove "by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision as to [the plaintiff] even in the absence of the protected conduct." Id., at 287. A court that finds for a plaintiff under this standard has effectively concluded that an illegitimate motive was a "but-for" cause of the employment decision. See Givhan v. Western Line Consolidated School Dist., 439 U.S. 410, 417 (1979). See also Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 270-271, n. 21 (1977) (applying Mt. Healthy standard where plaintiff alleged that unconstitutional motive had contributed to enactment of legislation); Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, 228 (1985) (same). In Transportation Management, we upheld the NLRB's interpretation of Ã‚Â§ 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, which forbids a court to order affirmative relief for discriminatory conduct against a union member "if such individual was suspended or discharged for cause." 29 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 160(c). The Board had decided that this provision meant that once an employee had shown that his suspension or discharge was based in part on hostility to unions, it was up to the employer to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have made the same decision in the absence of this impermissible motive. In such a situation, we emphasized, Page 250 "[t]he employer is a wrongdoer; he has acted out of a motive that is declared illegitimate by the statute. It is fair that he bear the risk that the influence of legal and illegal motives cannot be separated, because he knowingly created the risk and because the risk was created not by innocent activity but by his own wrongdoing." 462 U.S., at 403. We have, in short, been here before. Each time, we have concluded that the plaintiff who shows that an impermissible motive played a motivating part in an adverse employment decision has thereby placed upon the defendant the burden to show that it would have made the same decision in the absence of the unlawful motive. Our decision today treads this well-worn path. C In saying that gender played a motivating part in an employment decision, we mean that, if we asked the employer at the moment of the decision what its reasons were and if we received a truthful response, one of those reasons would be that the applicant or employee was a woman.[fn13] In the specific context of sex stereotyping, an employer who acts on the basis of a belief that a woman cannot be aggressive, or that she must not be, has acted on the basis of gender. Although the parties do not overtly dispute this last proposition, the placement by Price Waterhouse of "sex stereotyping" in quotation marks throughout its brief seems to us an insinuation either that such stereotyping was not present in this case or that it lacks legal relevance. We reject both possibilities. Page 251 As to the existence of sex stereotyping in this case, we are not inclined to quarrel with the District Court's conclusion that a number of the partners' comments showed sex stereotyping at work. See infra, at 255-256. As for the legal relevance of sex stereotyping, we are beyond the day when an employer could evaluate employees by assuming or insisting that they matched the stereotype associated with their group, for "`[i]n forbidding employers to discriminate against individuals because of their sex, Congress intended to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women resulting from sex stereotypes.'" Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702, 707, n. 13 (1978), quoting Sprogis v. United Air Lines, Inc., 444 F.2d 1194, 1198 (CA7 1971). An employer who objects to aggressiveness in women but whose positions require this trait places women in an intolerable and impermissible catch 22: out of a job if they behave aggressively and out of a job if they do not. Title VII lifts women out of this bind. Remarks at work that are based on sex stereotypes do not inevitably prove that gender played a part in a particular employment decision. The plaintiff must show that the employer actually relied on her gender in making its decision. In making this showing, stereotyped remarks can certainly be evidence that gender played a part. In any event, the stereotyping in this case did not simply consist of stray remarks. On the contrary, Hopkins proved that Price Waterhouse invited partners to submit comments; that some of the comments stemmed from sex stereotypes; that an important part of the Policy Board's decision on Hopkins was an assessment of the submitted comments; and that Price Waterhouse in no way disclaimed reliance on the sex-linked evaluations. This is not, as Price Waterhouse suggests, "discrimination in the air"; rather, it is, as Hopkins puts it, "discrimination brought to ground and visited upon" an employee. Brief for Respondent 30. By focusing on Hopkins' specific proof, however, we do not suggest a limitation on the possible ways Page 252 of proving that stereotyping played a motivating role in an employment decision, and we refrain from deciding here which specific facts, "standing alone," would or would not establish a plaintiff's case, since such a decision is unnecessary in this case. But see post, at 277 (O'CONNOR, J., concurring in judgment). As to the employer's proof, in most cases, the employer should be able to present some objective evidence as to its probable decision in the absence of an impermissible motive.[fn14] Moreover, proving "`that the same decision would have been justified . . . is not the same as proving that the same decision would have been made.'" Givhan, 439 U.S., at 416, quoting Ayers v. Western Line Consolidated School District, 555 F.2d 1309, 1315 (CA5 1977). An employer may not, in other words, prevail in a mixed-motives case by offering a legitimate and sufficient reason for its decision if that reason did not motivate it at the time of the decision. Finally, an employer may not meet its burden in such a case by merely showing that at the time of the decision it was motivated only in part by a legitimate reason. The very premise of a mixed-motives case is that a legitimate reason was present, and indeed, in this case, Price Waterhouse already has made this showing by convincing Judge Gesell that Hopkins' interpersonal problems were a legitimate concern. The employer instead must show that its legitimate reason, standing alone, would have induced it to make the same decision. III The courts below held that an employer who has allowed a discriminatory impulse to play a motivating part in an employment decision must prove by clear and convincing evidence that it would have made the same decision in the absence Page 253 of discrimination. We are persuaded that the better rule is that the employer must make this showing by a preponderance of the evidence. Conventional rules of civil litigation generally apply in Title VII cases, see, e. g., United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 716 (1983) (discrimination not to be "treat[ed] . . . differently from other ultimate questions of fact"), and one of these rules is that parties to civil litigation need only prove their case by a preponderance of the evidence. See, e. g., Herman & MacLean v. Huddleston, 459 U.S. 375, 390 (1983). Exceptions to this standard are uncommon, and in fact are ordinarily recognized only when the government seeks to take unusual coercive action Ã¢â‚¬â€ action more dramatic than entering an award of money damages or other conventional relief Ã¢â‚¬â€ against an individual. See Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745, 756 (1982) (termination of parental rights); Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 427 (1979) (involuntary commitment); Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276 (1966) (deportation); Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118, 122, 125 (1943) (denaturalization). Only rarely have we required clear and convincing proof where the action defended against seeks only conventional relief, see, e. g., Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 342 (1974) (defamation), and we find it significant that in such cases it was the defendant rather than the plaintiff who sought the elevated standard of proof Ã¢â‚¬â€ suggesting that this standard ordinarily serves as a shield rather than, as Hopkins seeks to use it, as a sword. It is true, as Hopkins emphasizes, that we have noted the "clear distinction between the measure of proof necessary to establish the fact that petitioner had sustained some damage and the measure of proof necessary to enable the jury to fix the amount." Story Parchment Co. v. Paterson Parchment Paper Co., 282 U.S. 555, 562 (1931). Likewise, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulation does require federal agencies proved to have violated Page 254 Title VII to show by clear and convincing evidence that an individual employee is not entitled to relief. See 29 C.F.R. Ã‚Â§ 1613.271(c)(2) (1988). And finally, it is true that we have emphasized the importance of make-whole relief for victims of discrimination. See Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405 (1975). Yet each of these sources deals with the proper determination of relief rather than with the initial finding of liability. This is seen most easily in the EEOC's regulation, which operates only after an agency or the EEOC has found that "an employee of the agency was discriminated against." See 29 C.F.R. Ã‚Â§ 1613.271(c) (1988). Because we have held that, by proving that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination, the employer may avoid a finding of liability altogether and not simply avoid certain equitable relief, these authorities do not help Hopkins to show why we should elevate the standard of proof for an employer in this position. Significantly, the cases from this Court that most resemble this one, Mt. Healthy and Transportation Management, did not require clear and convincing proof. Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S., at 287; Transportation Management, 462 U.S., at 400, 403. We are not inclined to say that the public policy against firing employees because they spoke out on issues of public concern or because they affiliated with a union is less important than the policy against discharging employees on the basis of their gender. Each of these policies is vitally important, and each is adequately served by requiring proof by a preponderance of the evidence. Although Price Waterhouse does not concretely tell us how its proof was preponderant even if it was not clear and convincing, this general claim is implicit in its request for the less stringent standard. Since the lower courts required Price Waterhouse to make its proof by clear and convincing evidence, they did not determine whether Price Waterhouse had proved by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have placed Hopkins' candidacy on hold even if it had not permitted Page 255 sex-linked evaluations to play a part in the decision-making process. Thus, we shall remand this case so that that determination can be made. IV The District Court found that sex stereotyping "was permitted to play a part" in the evaluation of Hopkins as a candidate for partnership. 618 F. Supp., at 1120. Price Waterhouse disputes both that stereotyping occurred and that it played any part in the decision to place Hopkins' candidacy on hold. In the firm's view, in other words, the District Court's factual conclusions are clearly erroneous. We do not agree. In finding that some of the partners' comments reflected sex stereotyping, the District Court relied in part on Dr. Fiske's expert testimony. Without directly impugning Dr. Fiske's credentials or qualifications, Price Waterhouse insinuates that a social psychologist is unable to identify sex stereotyping in evaluations without investigating whether those evaluations have a basis in reality. This argument comes too late. At trial, counsel for Price Waterhouse twice assured the court that he did not question Dr. Fiske's expertise (App. 25) and failed to challenge the legitimacy of her discipline. Without contradiction from Price Waterhouse, Fiske testified that she discerned sex stereotyping in the partners' evaluations of Hopkins, and she further explained that it was part of her business to identify stereotyping in written documents. Id., at 64. We are not inclined to accept petitioner's belated and unsubstantiated characterization of Dr. Fiske's testimony as "gossamer evidence" (Brief for Petitioner 20) based only on "intuitive hunches" (id., at 44) and of her detection of sex stereotyping as "intuitively divined" (id., at 43). Nor are we disposed to adopt the dissent's dismissive attitude toward Dr. Fiske's field of study and toward her own professional integrity, see post, at 293-294, n. 5. Page 256 Indeed, we are tempted to say that Dr. Fiske's expert testimony was merely icing on Hopkins' cake. It takes no special training to discern sex stereotyping in a description of an aggressive female employee as requiring "a course at charm school." Nor, turning to Thomas Beyer's memorable advice to Hopkins, does it require expertise in psychology to know that, if an employee's flawed "interpersonal skills" can be corrected by a soft-hued suit or a new shade of lipstick, perhaps it is the employee's sex and not her interpersonal skills that has drawn the criticism.[fn15] Price Waterhouse also charges that Hopkins produced no evidence that sex stereotyping played a role in the decision to place her candidacy on hold. As we have stressed, however, Hopkins showed that the partnership solicited evaluations from all of the firm's partners; that it generally relied very heavily on such evaluations in making its decision; that some of the partners' comments were the product of stereotyping; and that the firm in no way disclaimed reliance on those particular comments, either in Hopkins' case or in the past. Certainly a plausible Ã¢â‚¬â€ and, one might say, inevitable Ã¢â‚¬â€ conclusion to draw from this set of circumstances is that the Policy Board in making its decision did in fact take into account all of the partners' comments, including the comments that were motivated by stereotypical notions about women's proper deportment.[fn16] Page 257 Price Waterhouse concedes that the proof in Transportation Management adequately showed that the employer there had relied on an impermissible motivation in firing the plaintiff. Brief for Petitioner 45. But the only evidence in that case that a discriminatory motive contributed to the plaintiff's discharge was that the employer harbored a grudge toward the plaintiff on account of his union activity; there was, contrary to Price Waterhouse's suggestion, no direct evidence that that grudge had played a role in the decision, and, in fact, the employer had given other reasons in explaining the plaintiff's discharge. See 462 U.S., at 396. If the partnership considers that proof sufficient, we do not know why it takes such vehement issue with Hopkins' proof. Nor is the finding that sex stereotyping played a part in the Policy Board's decision undermined by the fact that many of the suspect comments were made by supporters rather than detractors of Hopkins. A negative comment, even when made in the context of a generally favorable review, nevertheless may influence the decisionmaker to think less highly of the candidate; the Policy Board, in fact, did not simply tally the "yesses" and "noes" regarding a candidate, but carefully reviewed the content of the submitted comments. The additional suggestion that the comments were made by "persons outside the decisionmaking chain" (Brief for Petitioner 48) Ã¢â‚¬â€ and therefore could not have harmed Hopkins Ã¢â‚¬â€ simply ignores the critical role that partners' comments played in the Policy Board's partnership decisions. Price Waterhouse appears to think that we cannot affirm the factual findings of the trial court without deciding that, instead of being overbearing and aggressive and curt, Hopkins is, in fact, kind and considerate and patient. If this is indeed its impression, petitioner misunderstands the theory Page 258 on which Hopkins prevailed. The District Judge acknowledged that Hopkins' conduct justified complaints about her behavior as a senior manager. But he also concluded that the reactions of at least some of the partners were reactions to her as a woman manager. Where an evaluation is based on a subjective assessment of a person's strengths and weaknesses, it is simply not true that each evaluator will focus on, or even mention, the same weaknesses. Thus, even if we knew that Hopkins had "personality problems," this would not tell us that the partners who cast their evaluations of Hopkins in sex-based terms would have criticized her as sharply (or criticized her at all) if she had been a man. It is not our job to review the evidence and decide that the negative reactions to Hopkins were based on reality; our perception of Hopkins' character is irrelevant. We sit not to determine whether Ms. Hopkins is nice, but to decide whether the partners reacted negatively to her personality because she is a woman. V We hold that when a plaintiff in a Title VII case proves that her gender played a motivating part in an employment decision, the defendant may avoid a finding of liability only by proving by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have made the same decision even if it had not taken the plaintiff's gender into account. Because the courts below erred by deciding that the defendant must make this proof by clear and convincing evidence, we reverse the Court of Appeals' judgment against Price Waterhouse on liability and remand the case to that court for further proceedings. It is so ordered. [fn1] Page 233 Before the time for reconsideration came, two of the partners in Hopkins' office withdrew their support for her, and the office informed her that she would not be reconsidered for partnership. Hopkins then resigned. Price Waterhouse does not challenge the Court of Appeals' conclusion that the refusal to repropose her for partnership amounted to a constructive discharge. That court remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings to determine appropriate relief, and those proceedings have been stayed pending our decision. Brief for Petitioner 15, n. 3. We are concerned today only with Price Waterhouse's decision to place Hopkins' candidacy on hold. Decisions pertaining to advancement to partnership are, of course, subject to challenge under Title VII. Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69 (1984). [fn2] Page 238 This question has, to say the least, left the Circuits in disarray. The Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Circuits require a plaintiff challenging an adverse employment decision to show that, but for her gender (or race or religion or national origin), the decision would have been in her favor. See, e. g., Bellissimo v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 764 F.2d 175, 179 (CA3 1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1035 (1986); Ross v. Communications Satellite Corp., 759 F.2d 355, 365-366 (CA4 1985); Peters v. Shreveport, 818 F.2d 1148, 1161 (CA5 1987); McQuillen v. Wisconsin Education Assn. Council, 830 F.2d 659, 664-665 (CA7 1987). The First, Second, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits, on the other hand, hold that once the plaintiff has shown that a discriminatory motive was a "substantial" or "motivating" factor in an employment decision, the employer may avoid a finding of liability only by proving that it would have made the same decision even in the absence of discrimination. These courts have either specified that the employer must prove its case by a preponderance of the evidence or have not mentioned the proper standard of proof. See, e. g., Fields v. Clark University, 817 F.2d 931, 936-937 (CA1 1987) ("motivating factor"); Berl v. Westchester County, 849 F.2d 712, 714-715 (CA2 1988) ("substantial part"); Terbovitz v. Fiscal Court of Adair County, Ky., 825 F.2d 111, 115 (CA6 1987) ("motivating factor"); Bell v. Birmingham Linen Service, 715 F.2d 1552, 1557 (CA11 1983). The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as shown in this case, follows the same rule except that it requires that the employer's proof be clear and convincing rather than merely preponderant. 263 U.S.App.D.C. 321, 333-334, 825 F.2d 458, 470-471 (1987); see also Toney v. Block, 227 U.S.App.D.C. 273, 275, 705 F.2d 1364, 1366 (1983) (Scalia, J.) (it would be "destructive of the purposes of [Title VII] to require the plaintiff to establish . . . the difficult hypothetical proposition that, had there been no discrimination, the employment decision would have been made in his favor"). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit also requires clear and convincing proof, but it goes further by holding that a Title VII violation is made out as soon as the plaintiff shows that an impermissible motivation played a part in an employment Page 239 decision Ã¢â‚¬â€ at which point the employer may avoid reinstatement and an award of backpay by proving that it would have made the same decision in the absence of the unlawful motive. See, e. g. Fadhl v. City and County of San Francisco, 741 F.2d 1163, 1165-1166 (1984) (Kennedy, J.) ("significant factor"). Last, the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit draws the same distinction as the Ninth between the liability and remedial phases of Title VII litigation, but requires only a preponderance of the evidence from the employer. See, e. g., Bibbs v. Block, 778 F.2d 1318, 1320-1324 (1985) (en banc) ("discernible factor"). [fn3] Page 239 We disregard, for purposes of this discussion, the special context of affirmative action. [fn4] Page 239 Congress specifically declined to require that an employment decision have been "for cause" in order to escape an affirmative penalty (such as reinstatement or backpay) from a court. As introduced in the House, the bill that became Title VII forbade such affirmative relief if an "individual was . . . refused employment or advancement, or was suspended or discharged for cause." H.R. Rep. No. 7152, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 77 (1963) (emphasis added). The phrase "for cause" eventually was deleted in favor of the phrase "for any reason other than" one of the enumerated characteristics. See 110 Cong. Rec. 2567-2571 (1964). Representative Celler explained that this substitution "specif[ied] cause"; in his view, a court "cannot find any violation of the act which is based on facts other . . . than discrimination on the grounds of race, color, religion, or national origin." Id., at 2567. [fn5] Page 240 In this Court, Hopkins for the first time argues that Price Waterhouse violated Ã‚Â§ 703(a)(2) when it subjected her to a biased decisionmaking process that "tended to deprive" a woman of partnership on the basis of her sex. Since Hopkins did not make this argument below, we do not address it. [fn6] Page 240 We made passing reference to a similar question in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273, 282, n. 10 (1976), where we stated that when a Title VII plaintiff seeks to show that an employer's explanation for a challenged employment decision is pretextual, "no more is required to be shown than that race was a `but for' cause." This passage, however, does not suggest that the plaintiff must show but-for cause; it indicates only that if she does so, she prevails. More important, McDonald dealt with the question whether the employer's stated reason for its decision was the reason for its action; unlike the case before us today, therefore, McDonald did not involve mixed motives. This difference is decisive in distinguishing this case from those involving "pretext." See infra, at 247, n. 12. [fn7] Page 241 Congress specifically rejected an amendment that would have placed the word "solely" in front of the words "because of." 110 Cong. Rec. 2728, 13837 (1964). [fn8] Page 243 We have in the past acknowledged the authoritativeness of this interpretive memorandum, written by the two bipartisan "captains" of Title VII. See, e. g., Firefighters v. Stotts, 467 U.S. 561, 581, n. 14 (1984). [fn9] Page 243 Many of the legislators' statements, such as the memorandum quoted in text, focused specifically on race rather than on gender or religion or national origin. We do not, however, limit their statements to the context of Page 244 race, but instead we take them as general statements on the meaning of Title VII. The somewhat bizarre path by which "sex" came to be included as a forbidden criterion for employment Ã¢â‚¬â€ it was included in an attempt to defeat the bill, see C. & B. Whalen, The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act 115-117 (1985) Ã¢â‚¬â€ does not persuade us that the legislators' statements pertaining to race are irrelevant to cases alleging gender discrimination. The amendment that added "sex" as one of the forbidden criteria for employment was passed, of course, and the statute on its face treats each of the enumerated categories exactly the same. By the same token, our specific references to gender throughout this opinion, and the principles we announce, apply with equal force to discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin. [fn10] Page 244 Hopkins argues that once she made this showing, she was entitled to a finding that Price Waterhouse had discriminated against her on the basis of sex; as a consequence, she says, the partnership's proof could only limit the relief she received. She relies on Title VII's Ã‚Â§ 706(g), which permits a court to award affirmative relief when it finds that an employer "has intentionally engaged in or is intentionally engaging in an unlawful employment practice," and yet forbids a court to order reinstatement of, or backpay to, "an individual . . . if such individual was refused . . . employment or advancement Page 245 or was suspended or discharged for any reason other than discrimination on account of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 2000e-5(g) (emphasis added). We do not take this provision to mean that a court inevitably can find a violation of the statute without having considered whether the employment decision would have been the same absent the impermissible motive. That would be to interpret Ã‚Â§ 706(g) Ã¢â‚¬â€ a provision defining remedies Ã¢â‚¬â€ to influence the substantive commands of the statute. We think that this provision merely limits courts' authority to award affirmative relief in those circumstances in which a violation of the statute is not dependent upon the effect of the employer's discriminatory practices on a particular employee, as in pattern-or-practice suits and class actions. "The crucial difference between an individual's claim of discrimination and a class action alleging a general pattern or practice of discrimination is manifest. The inquiry regarding an individual's claim is the reason for a particular employment decision, while `at the liability stage of a pattern-or-practice trial the focus often will not be on individual hiring decisions, but on a pattern of discriminatory decisionmaking.'" Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 467 U.S. 867, 876 (1984), quoting Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 360, n. 46 (1977). Without explicitly mentioning this portion of Ã‚Â§ 706(g), we have in the past held that Title VII does not authorize affirmative relief for individuals as to whom, the employer shows, the existence of systemic discrimination had no effect. See Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U.S. 747, 772 (1976); Teamsters v. United States, supra, at 367-371; East Texas Motor Freight System, Inc. v. Rodriguez, 431 U.S. 395, 404, n. 9 (1977). These decisions suggest that the proper focus of Ã‚Â§ 706(g) is on claims of systemic discrimination, not on charges of individual discrimination. Cf. NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U.S. 393 (1983) (upholding the National Labor Relations Board's identical interpretation of Ã‚Â§ 10(c) of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 160(c), which contains language almost identical to Ã‚Â§ 706(g)). [fn11] Page 246 Given that both the plaintiff and defendant bear a burden of proof in cases such as this one, it is surprising that the dissent insists that our approach requires the employer to bear "the ultimate burden of proof." Post, at 288. It is, moreover, perfectly consistent to say both that gender was a factor in a particular decision when it was made and that, when the situation is viewed hypothetically and after the fact, the same decision would have been made even in the absence of discrimination. Thus, we do not see the "internal inconsistency" in our opinion that the dissent perceives. See post, at 285-286. Finally, where liability is imposed because an employer is unable to prove that it would have made the same decision even if it had not discriminated, this is not an imposition of liability "where sex made no difference to the outcome." Post, at 285. In our adversary system, where a party has the burden of proving a particular assertion and where that party is unable to meet its burden, we assume that that assertion is inaccurate. Thus, where an employer is unable to prove its claim that it would have made the same decision in the absence of discrimination, we are entitled to conclude that gender did make a difference to the outcome. [fn12] Page 247 Nothing in this opinion should be taken to suggest that a case must be correctly labeled as either a "pretext" case or a "mixed-motives" case from the beginning in the District Court; indeed, we expect that plaintiffs often will allege, in the alternative, that their cases are both. Discovery often will be necessary before the plaintiff can know whether both legitimate and illegitimate considerations played a part in the decision against her. At some point in the proceedings, of course, the District Court must decide whether a particular case involves mixed motives. If the plaintiff fails to satisfy the factfinder that it is more likely than not that a forbidden characteristic played a part in the employment decision, then she may prevail only if she proves, following Burdine, that the employer's stated reason for its decision is pretextual. The dissent need not worry that this evidentiary scheme, if used during a jury trial, will be so impossibly confused and complex as it imagines. See, e. g., post, at 292. Juries long have decided cases in which defendants raised affirmative defenses. The dissent fails, moreover, to explain why the evidentiary scheme that we endorsed over 10 years ago in Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977), has not proved unworkable in that context but would be hopelessly complicated in a case brought under federal antidiscrimination statutes. [fn13] Page 250 After comparing this description of the plaintiff's proof to that offered by JUSTICE O'CONNOR's opinion concurring in the judgment, post, at 276-277, we do not understand why the concurrence suggests that they are meaningfully different from each other, see post, at 275, 277-279. Nor do we see how the inquiry that we have described is "hypothetical," see post, at 283, n. 1. It seeks to determine the content of the entire set of reasons for a decision, rather than shaving off one reason in an attempt to determine what the decision would have been in the absence of that consideration. The inquiry that we describe thus strikes us as a distinctly non-hypothetical one. [fn14] Page 252 JUSTICE WHITE's suggestion, post, at 261, that the employer's own testimony as to the probable decision in the absence of discrimination is due special credence where the court has, contrary to the employer's testimony, found that an illegitimate factor played a part in the decision, is baffling. [fn15] Page 256 We reject the claim, advanced by Price Waterhouse here and by the dissenting judge below, that the District Court clearly erred in finding that Beyer was "responsible for telling [Hopkins] what problems the Policy Board had identified with her candidacy." 618 F. Supp., at 1117. This conclusion was reasonable in light of the testimony at trial of a member of both the Policy Board and the Admissions Committee, who stated that he had "no doubt" that Beyer would discuss with Hopkins the reasons for placing her candidacy on hold and that Beyer "knew exactly where the problems were" regarding Hopkins. Tr. 316. [fn16] Page 256 We do not understand the dissenters' dissatisfaction with the District Judge's statements regarding the failure of Price Waterhouse to "sensitize" partners to the dangers of sexism. Post, at 294. Made in the context Page 257 of determining that Price Waterhouse had not disclaimed reliance on sex-based evaluations, and following the judge's description of the firm's history of condoning such evaluations, the judge's remarks seem to us justified. JUSTICE WHITE, concurring in the judgment. In my view, to determine the proper approach to causation in this case, we need look only to the Court's opinion in Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977). In Mt. Healthy, a public employee was not rehired, in part Page 259 because of his exercise of First Amendment rights and in part because of permissible considerations. The Court rejected a rule of causation that focused "solely on whether protected conduct played a part, `substantial' or otherwise, in a decision not to rehire," on the grounds that such a rule could make the employee better off by exercising his constitutional rights than by doing nothing at all. Id., at 285. Instead, the Court outlined the following approach: "Initially, in this case, the burden was properly placed upon respondent to show that his conduct was constitutionally protected, and that his conduct was a `substantial factor' Ã¢â‚¬â€ or, to put it in other words, that it was a `motivating factor' in the Board's decision not to rehire him. Respondent having carried that burden, however, the District Court should have gone on to determine whether the Board had shown by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision as to respondent's reemployment even in the absence of the protected conduct." Id., at 287 (footnote omitted). It is not necessary to get into semantic discussions on whether the Mt. Healthy approach is "but-for" causation in another guise or creates an affirmative defense on the part of the employer to see its clear application to the issues before us in this case. As in Mt. Healthy, the District Court found that the employer was motivated by both legitimate and illegitimate factors. And here, as in Mt. Healthy, and as the Court now holds, Hopkins was not required to prove that the illegitimate factor was the only, principal, or true reason for petitioner's action. Rather, as JUSTICE O'CONNOR states, her burden was to show that the unlawful motive was a substantial factor in the adverse employment action. The District Court, as its opinion was construed by the Court of Appeals, so found, 263 U.S.App.D.C. 321, 333, 334, 825 F.2d 458, 470, 471 (1987), and I agree that the finding was supported by the record. The burden of persuasion then Page 260 should have shifted to Price Waterhouse to prove "by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision . . . in the absence of" the unlawful motive. Mt. Healthy, supra, at 287. I agree with JUSTICE BRENNAN that applying this approach to causation in Title VII cases is not a departure from, and does not require modification of, the Court's holdings in Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981), and McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). The Court has made clear that "mixed-motives" cases, such as the present one, are different from pretext cases such as McDonnell Douglas and Burdine. In pretext cases, "the issue is whether either illegal or legal motives, but not both, were the `true' motives behind the decision." NLRB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U.S. 393, 400, n. 5 (1983). In mixed-motives cases, however, there is no one "true" motive behind the decision. Instead, the decision is a result of multiple factors, at least one of which is legitimate. It can hardly be said that our decision in this case is a departure from cases that are "inapposite." Ibid. I also disagree with the dissent's assertion that this approach to causation is inconsistent with our statement in Burdine that "[t]he ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff." 450 U.S., at 253. As we indicated in Transportation Management Corp., the showing required by Mt. Healthy does not improperly shift from the plaintiff the ultimate burden of persuasion on whether the defendant intentionally discriminated against him or her. See 462 U.S., at 400, n. 5. Because the Court of Appeals required Price Waterhouse to prove by clear and convincing evidence that it would have reached the same employment decision in the absence of the improper motive, rather than merely requiring proof by a preponderance of the evidence as in Mt. Healthy, I concur in the judgment reversing this case in part and remanding. Page 261 With respect to the employer's burden, however, the plurality seems to require, at least in most cases, that the employer submit objective evidence that the same result would have occurred absent the unlawful motivation. Ante, at 252. In my view, however, there is no special requirement that the employer carry its burden by objective evidence. In a mixed-motives case, where the legitimate motive found would have been ample grounds for the action taken, and the employer credibly testifies that the action would have been taken for the legitimate reasons alone, this should be ample proof. This would even more plainly be the case where the employer denies any illegitimate motive in the first place but the court finds that illegitimate, as well as legitimate, factors motivated the adverse action.[fn] [fn] Page 261 I agree with the plurality that if the employer carries this burden, there has been no violation of Title VII. JUSTICE O'CONNOR, concurring in the judgment. I agree with the plurality that, on the facts presented in this case, the burden of persuasion should shift to the employer to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have reached the same decision concerning Ann Hopkins' candidacy absent consideration of her gender. I further agree that this burden shift is properly part of the liability phase of the litigation. I thus concur in the judgment of the Court. My disagreement stems from the plurality's conclusions concerning the substantive requirement of causation under the statute and its broad statements regarding the applicability of the allocation of the burden of proof applied in this case. The evidentiary rule the Court adopts today should be viewed as a supplement to the careful framework established by our unanimous decisions in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), and Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981), for use in cases such as this one where the employer has created uncertainty as to causation by knowingly giving Page 262 substantial weight to an impermissible criterion. I write separately to explain why I believe such a departure from the McDonnell Douglas standard is justified in the circumstances presented by this and like cases, and to express my views as to when and how the strong medicine of requiring the employer to bear the burden of persuasion on the issue of causation should be administered. I Title VII provides in pertinent part: "It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer . . . to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 2000e-2(a) (emphasis added). The legislative history of Title VII bears out what its plain language suggests: a substantive violation of the statute only occurs when consideration of an illegitimate criterion is the "but-for" cause of an adverse employment action. The legislative history makes it clear that Congress was attempting to eradicate discriminatory actions in the employment setting, not mere discriminatory thoughts. Critics of the bill that became Title VII labeled it a "thought control bill," and argued that it created a "punishable crime that does not require an illegal external act as a basis for judgment." 100 Cong. Rec. 7254 (1964) (remarks of Sen. Ervin). Senator Case, whose views the plurality finds so persuasive elsewhere, responded: "The man must do or fail to do something in regard to employment. There must be some specific external act, more than a mental act. Only if he does the act because of the grounds stated in the bill would there be any legal consequences." Ibid. Thus, I disagree with the plurality's dictum that the words "because of" do not mean "but-for" causation; manifestly they Page 263 do. See Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U.S. 421, 499 (1986) (WHITE, J., dissenting) ("[T]he general policy under Title VII is to limit relief for racial discrimination in employment practices to actual victims of the discrimination"). We should not, and need not, deviate from that policy today. The question for decision in this case is what allocation of the burden of persuasion on the issue of causation best conforms with the intent of Congress and the purposes behind Title VII. The evidence of congressional intent as to which party should bear the burden of proof on the issue of causation is considerably less clear. No doubt, as a general matter, Congress assumed that the plaintiff in a Title VII action would bear the burden of proof on the elements critical to his or her case. As the dissent points out, post, at 287, n. 3, the interpretative memorandum submitted by sponsors of Title VII indicates that "the plaintiff, as in any civil case, would have the burden of proving that discrimination had occurred." 110 Cong. Rec. 7214 (1964) (emphasis added). But in the area of tort liability, from whence the dissent's "but-for" standard of causation is derived, see post, at 282, the law has long recognized that in certain "civil cases" leaving the burden of persuasion on the plaintiff to prove "but-for" causation would be both unfair and destructive of the deterrent purposes embodied in the concept of duty of care. Thus, in multiple causation cases, where a breach of duty has been established, the common law of torts has long shifted the burden of proof to multiple defendants to prove that their negligent actions were not the "but-for" cause of the plaintiff's injury. See e. g., Summers v. Tice, 33 Cal.2d 80, 84-87, 199 P.2d 1, 3-4 (1948). The same rule has been applied where the effect of a defendant's tortious conduct combines with a force of unknown or innocent origin to produce the harm to the plaintiff. See Kingston v. Chicago & N.W.R. Co., 191 Wis. 610, 616, 211 N.W. 913, 915 (1927) ("Granting that the union of that fire [caused by defendant's Page 264 negligence] with another of natural origin, or with another of much greater proportions, is available as a defense, the burden is on the defendant to show that . . . the fire set by him was not the proximate cause of the damage"). See also 2 J. Wigmore, Select Cases on the Law of Torts Ã‚Â§ 153, p. 865 (1912) ("When two or more persons by their acts are possibly the sole cause of a harm, or when two or more acts of the same person are possibly the sole cause, and the plaintiff has introduced evidence that one of the two persons, or one of the same person's two acts, is culpable, then the defendant has the burden of proving that the other person, or his other act, was the sole cause of the harm"). While requiring that the plaintiff in a tort suit or a Title VII action prove that the defendant's "breach of duty" was the "but-for" cause of an injury does not generally hamper effective enforcement of the policies behind those causes of action, "at other times the [but-for] test demands the impossible. It challenges the imagination of the trier to probe into a purely fanciful and unknowable state of affairs. He is invited to make an estimate concerning facts that concededly never existed. The very uncertainty as to what might have happened opens the door wide for conjecture. But when conjecture is demanded it can be given a direction that is consistent with the policy considerations that underlie the controversy." Malone, Ruminations on Cause-In-Fact, 9 Stan. L. Rev. 60, 67 (1956). Like the common law of torts, the statutory employment "tort" created by Title VII has two basic purposes. The first is to deter conduct which has been identified as contrary to public policy and harmful to society as a whole. As we have noted in the past, the award of backpay to a Title VII plaintiff provides "the spur or catalyst which causes employers and unions to self-examine and to self-evaluate their employment practices and to endeavor to eliminate, so far as Page 265 possible, the last vestiges" of discrimination in employment. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 417-418 (1975) (citation omitted). The second goal of Title VII is "to make persons whole for injuries suffered on account of unlawful employment discrimination." Id., at 418. Both these goals are reflected in the elements of a disparate treatment action. There is no doubt that Congress considered reliance on gender or race in making employment decisions an evil in itself. As Senator Clark put it, "[t]he bill simply eliminates consideration of color [or other forbidden criteria] from the decision to hire or promote." 110 Cong. Rec. 7218 (1964). See also id., at 13088 (remarks of Sen. Humphrey) ("What the bill does . . . is simply to make it an illegal practice to use race as a factor in denying employment"). Reliance on such factors is exactly what the threat of Title VII liability was meant to deter. While the main concern of the statute was with employment opportunity, Congress was certainly not blind to the stigmatic harm which comes from being evaluated by a process which treats one as an inferior by reason of one's race or sex. This Court's decisions under the Equal Protection Clause have long recognized that whatever the final outcome of a decisional process, the inclusion of race or sex as a consideration within it harms both society and the individual. See Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989). At the same time, Congress clearly conditioned legal liability on a determination that the consideration of an illegitimate factor caused a tangible employment injury of some kind. Where an individual disparate treatment plaintiff has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that an illegitimate criterion was a substantial factor in an adverse employment decision, the deterrent purpose of the statute has clearly been triggered. More importantly, as an evidentiary matter, a reasonable factfinder could conclude that absent further explanation, the employer's discriminatory motivation "caused" the employment decision. The employer has Page 266 not yet been shown to be a violator, but neither is it entitled to the same presumption of good faith concerning its employment decisions which is accorded employers facing only circumstantial evidence of discrimination. Both the policies behind the statute, and the evidentiary principles developed in the analogous area of causation in the law of torts, suggest that at this point the employer may be required to convince the factfinder that, despite the smoke, there is no fire. We have given recognition to these principles in our cases which have discussed the "remedial phase" of class action disparate treatment cases. Once the class has established that discrimination against a protected group was essentially the employer's "standard practice," there has been harm to the group and injunctive relief is appropriate. But as to the individual members of the class, the liability phase of the litigation is not complete. See Dillon v. Coles, 746 F.2d 998, 1004 (CA3 1984) ("It is misleading to speak of the additional proof required by an individual class member for relief as being a part of the damage phase, that evidence is actually an element of the liability portion of the case") (footnote omitted). Because the class has already demonstrated that, as a rule, illegitimate factors were considered in the employer's decisions, the burden shifts to the employer "to demonstrate that the individual applicant was denied an employment opportunity for legitimate reasons." Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 362 (1977). See also Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U.S. 747, 772 (1976). The individual members of a class action disparate treatment case stand in much the same position as Ann Hopkins here. There has been a strong showing that the employer has done exactly what Title VII forbids, but the connection between the employer's illegitimate motivation and any injury to the individual plaintiff is unclear. At this point calling upon the employer to show that despite consideration of illegitimate factors the individual plaintiff would not have been hired or promoted in any event hardly seems "unfair" or Page 267 contrary to the substantive command of the statute. In fact, an individual plaintiff who has shown that an illegitimate factor played a substantial role in the decision in his or her case has proved more than the class member in a Teamsters type action. The latter receives the benefit of a burden shift to the defendant based on the likelihood that an illegitimate criterion was a factor in the individual employment decision. There is a tension between the Franks and Teamsters line of decisions and the individual disparate treatment cases cited by the dissent. See post, at 286-289. Logically, under the dissent's view, each member of a disparate treatment class action would have to show "but-for" causation as to his or her individual employment decision, since it is not an element of the pattern or practice proof of the entire class and it is statutorily mandated that the plaintiff bear the burden of proof on this issue throughout the litigation. While the Court has properly drawn a distinction between the elements of a class action claim and an individual disparate treatment claim, see Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 467 U.S. 867, 873-878 (1984), and I do not suggest the wholesale transposition of rules from one setting to the other, our decisions in Teamsters and Franks do indicate a recognition that presumptions shifting the burden of persuasion based on evidentiary probabilities and the policies behind the statute are not alien to our Title VII jurisprudence. Moreover, placing the burden on the defendant in this case to prove that the same decision would have been justified by legitimate reasons is consistent with our interpretation of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. Like a disparate treatment plaintiff, one who asserts that governmental action violates the Equal Protection Clause must show that he or she is "the victim of intentional discrimination." Burdine, 450 U.S., at 256. Compare post, at 286, 289 (KENNEDY, J., dissenting), with Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 240 (1976). In Alexander v. Louisiana, 405 U.S. 625 (1972), we dealt with a criminal defendant's allegation that Page 268 members of his race had been invidiously excluded from the grand jury which indicted him in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. In addition to the statistical evidence presented by petitioner in that case, we noted that the State's "selection procedures themselves were not racially neutral." Id., at 630. Once the consideration of race in the decisional process had been established, we held that "the burden of proof shifts to the State to rebut the presumption of unconstitutional action by showing that permissible racially neutral selection criteria and procedures have produced the monochromatic result." Id., at 632. We adhered to similar principles in Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252 (1977), a case which, like this one, presented the problems of motivation and causation in the context of a multimember decisionmaking body authorized to consider a wide range of factors in arriving at its decisions. In Arlington Heights a group of minority plaintiffs claimed that a municipal governing body's refusal to rezone a plot of land to allow for the construction of low-income integrated housing was racially motivated. On the issue of causation, we indicated that the plaintiff was not required "to prove that the challenged action rested solely on racially discriminatory purposes. Rarely can it be said that a legislature or administrative body operating under a broad mandate made a decision motivated solely by a single concern, or even that a particular purpose was the `dominant' or `primary' one. In fact, it is because legislators and administrators are properly concerned with balancing numerous competing considerations that courts refrain from reviewing the merits of their decisions, absent a showing of arbitrariness or irrationality. But racial discrimination is not just another competing consideration. When there is a proof that a discriminatory purpose has been a motivating factor in the decision, Page 269 this judicial deference is no longer justified." Id., at 265-266 (citation omitted). If the strong presumption of regularity and rationality of legislative decisionmaking must give way in the face of evidence that race has played a significant part in a legislative decision, I simply cannot believe that Congress intended Title VII to accord more deference to a private employer in the face of evidence that its decisional process has been substantially infected by discrimination. Indeed, where a public employee brings a "disparate treatment" claim under 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 1983 and the Equal Protection Clause the employee is entitled to the favorable evidentiary framework of Arlington Heights. See, e. g., Hervey v. Little Rock, 787 F.2d 1223, 1233-1234 (CA8 1986) (applying Arlington Heights to public employee's claim of sex discrimination in promotion decision); Lee v. Russell County Bd. of Education, 684 F.2d 769, 773-774 (CA11 1982) (applying Arlington Heights to public employees' claims of race discrimination in discharge case). Under the dissent's reading of Title VII, Congress' extension of the coverage of the statute to public employers in 1972 has placed these employees under a less favorable evidentiary regime. In my view, nothing in the language, history, or purpose of Title VII prohibits adoption of an evidentiary rule which places the burden of persuasion on the defendant to demonstrate that legitimate concerns would have justified an adverse employment action where the plaintiff has convinced the factfinder that a forbidden factor played a substantial role in the employment decision. Even the dissenting judge below "[had] no quarrel with [the] principle" that "a party with one permissible motive and one unlawful one may prevail only by affirmatively proving that it would have acted as it did even if the forbidden motive were absent." 263 U.S.App.D.C. 321, 341, 825 F.2d 458, 478 (1987) (Williams, J. dissenting). Page 270 II The dissent's summary of our individual disparate treatment cases to date is fair and accurate, and amply demonstrates that the rule we adopt today is at least a change in direction from some of our prior precedents. See post, at 286-289. We have indeed emphasized in the past that in an individual disparate treatment action the plaintiff bears the burden of persuasion throughout the litigation. Nor have we confined the word "pretext" to the narrow definition which the plurality attempts to pin on it today. See ante, at 244-247. McDonnell Douglas and Burdine clearly contemplated that a disparate treatment plaintiff could show that the employer's proffered explanation for an event was not "the true reason" either because it never motivated the employer in its employment decisions or because it did not do so in a particular case. McDonnell Douglas and Burdine assumed that the plaintiff would bear the burden of persuasion as to both these attacks, and we clearly depart from that framework today. Such a departure requires justification, and its outlines should be carefully drawn. First, McDonnell Douglas itself dealt with a situation where the plaintiff presented no direct evidence that the employer had relied on a forbidden factor under Title VII in making an employment decision. The prima facie case established there was not difficult to prove, and was based only on the statistical probability that when a number of potential causes for an employment decision are eliminated an inference arises that an illegitimate factor was in fact the motivation behind the decision. See Teamsters, 431 U.S., at 358, n. 44 ("[T]he McDonnell Douglas formula does not require direct proof of discrimination"). In the face of this inferential proof, the employer's burden was deemed to be only one of production; the employer must articulate a legitimate reason for the adverse employment action. See Furnco Construction Corp. v. Waters, 438 U.S. 567, 577 (1978). The plaintiff must then be given an "opportunity to demonstrate Page 271 by competent evidence that the presumptively valid reasons for his rejection were in fact a coverup for a racially discriminatory decision." McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S., at 805. Our decision in Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981), also involved the "narrow question" whether, after a plaintiff had carried the "not onerous" burden of establishing the prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas, the burden of persuasion should be shifted to the employer to prove that a legitimate reason for the adverse employment action existed. 450 U.S., at 250. As the discussion of Teamsters and Arlington Heights indicates, I do not think that the employer is entitled to the same presumption of good faith where there is direct evidence that it has placed substantial reliance on factors whose consideration is forbidden by Title VII. The only individual disparate treatment case cited by the dissent which involved the kind of direct evidence of discriminatory animus with which we are confronted here is United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 713-714, n. 2 (1983). The question presented to the Court in that case involved only a challenge to the elements of the prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas and Burdine, see Pet. for Cert. in United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, O. T. 1981, No. 81-1044, and the question we confront today was neither briefed nor argued to the Court. As should be apparent, the entire purpose of the McDonnell Douglas prima facie case is to compensate for the fact that direct evidence of intentional discrimination is hard to come by. That the employer's burden in rebutting such an inferential case of discrimination is only one of production does not mean that the scales should be weighted in the same manner where there is direct evidence of intentional discrimination. Indeed, in one Age Discrimination in Employment Act case, the Court seemed to indicate that "the McDonnell Douglas test is inapplicable where the plaintiff presents direct evidence of discrimination." Trans World Page 272 Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U.S. 111, 121 (1985). See also East Texas Motor Freight System, Inc. v. Rodriguez, 431 U.S. 395, 403-404, n. 9 (1977). Second, the facts of this case, and a growing number like it decided by the Courts of Appeals, convince me that the evidentiary standard I propose is necessary to make real the promise of McDonnell Douglas that "[i]n the implementation of [employment] decisions, it is abundantly clear that Title VII tolerates no . . . discrimination, subtle or otherwise." 411 U.S., at 801. In this case, the District Court found that a number of the evaluations of Ann Hopkins submitted by partners in the firm overtly referred to her failure to conform to certain gender stereotypes as a factor militating against her election to the partnership. 618 F. Supp. 1109, 1116-1117 (DC 1985). The District Court further found that these evaluations were given "great weight" by the decisionmakers at Price Waterhouse. Id., at 1118. In addition, the District Court found that the partner responsible for informing Hopkins of the factors which caused her candidacy to be placed on hold, indicated that her "professional" problems would be solved if she would "walk more femininely, talk more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry." Id., at 1117 (footnote omitted). As the Court of Appeals characterized it, Ann Hopkins proved that Price Waterhouse "permitt[ed] stereotypical attitudes towards women to play a significant, though unquantifiable, role in its decision not to invite her to become a partner." 263 U.S. App. D.C., at 324, 825 F.2d, at 461. At this point Ann Hopkins had taken her proof as far as it could go. She had proved discriminatory input into the decisional process, and had proved that participants in the process considered her failure to conform to the stereotypes credited by a number of the decisionmakers had been a substantial factor in the decision. It is as if Ann Hopkins were sitting in the hall outside the room where partnership decisions were being made. As the partners filed in to consider Page 273 her candidacy, she heard several of them make sexist remarks in discussing her suitability for partnership. As the decisionmakers exited the room, she was told by one of those privy to the decisionmaking process that her gender was a major reason for the rejection of her partnership bid. If, as we noted in Teamsters, "[p]resumptions shifting the burden of proof are often created to reflect judicial evaluations of probabilities and to conform with a party's superior access to the proof," 431 U.S., at 359, n. 45, one would be hard pressed to think of a situation where it would be more appropriate to require the defendant to show that its decision would have been justified by wholly legitimate concerns. Moreover, there is mounting evidence in the decisions of the lower courts that respondent here is not alone in her inability to pinpoint discrimination as the precise cause of her injury, despite having shown that it played a significant role in the decisional process. Many of these courts, which deal with the evidentiary issues in Title VII cases on a regular basis, have concluded that placing the risk of nonpersuasion on the defendant in a situation where uncertainty as to causation has been created by its consideration of an illegitimate criterion makes sense as a rule of evidence and furthers the substantive command of Title VII. See, e. g., Bell v. Birmingham Linen Service, 715 F.2d 1552, 1556 (CA11 1983) (Tjoflat, J.) ("It would be illogical, indeed ironic, to hold a Title VII plaintiff presenting direct evidence of a defendant's intent to discriminate to a more stringent burden of proof, or to allow a defendant to meet that direct proof by merely articulating, but not proving, legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for its action"). Particularly in the context of the professional world, where decisions are often made by collegial bodies on the basis of largely subjective criteria, requiring the plaintiff to prove that any one factor was the definitive cause of the decisionmakers' action may be tantamount to declaring Title VII inapplicable to such decisions. See, e. g., Fields v. Clark University, 817 F.2d 931, 935-937 Page 274 (CA1 1987) (where plaintiff produced "strong evidence" that sexist attitudes infected faculty tenure decision, burden properly shifted to defendant to show that it would have reached the same decision absent discrimination); Thompkins v. Morris Brown College, 752 F.2d 558, 563 (CA11 1985) (direct evidence of discriminatory animus in decision to discharge college professor shifted burden of persuasion to defendant). Finally, I am convinced that a rule shifting the burden to the defendant where the plaintiff has shown that an illegitimate criterion was a "substantial factor" in the employment decision will not conflict with other congressional policies embodied in Title VII. Title VII expressly provides that an employer need not give preferential treatment to employees or applicants of any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in order to maintain a work force in balance with the general population. See 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 2000e-2(j). The interpretive memorandum, whose authoritative force is noted by the plurality, see ante, at 243, n. 8, specifically provides: "There is no requirement in title VII that an employer maintain a racial balance in his work force. On the contrary, any deliberate attempt to maintain a racial balance, whatever such a balance may be, would involve a violation of title VII because maintaining such a balance would require an employer to hire or refuse to hire on the basis of race." 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964). Last Term, in Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U.S. 977 (1988), the Court unanimously concluded that the disparate impact analysis first enunciated in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971), should be extended to subjective or discretionary selection processes. At the same time a plurality of the Court indicated concern that the focus on bare statistics in the disparate impact setting could force employers to adopt "inappropriate prophylactic measures" in violation of Ã‚Â§ 2000e-2(j). The plurality went on to emphasize that in a disparate impact case, the plaintiff may not simply Page 275 point to a statistical disparity in the employer's work force. Instead, the plaintiff must identify a particular employment practice and "must offer statistical evidence of a kind and degree sufficient to show that the practice in question has caused the exclusion of applicants for jobs or promotions because of their membership in a protected group." 487 U.S., at 994. The plurality indicated that "the ultimate burden of proving that discrimination against a protected group has been caused by a specific employment practice remains with the plaintiff at all times." Id., at 997. I believe there are significant differences between shifting the burden of persuasion to the employer in a case resting purely on statistical proof as in the disparate impact setting and shifting the burden of persuasion in a case like this one, where an employee has demonstrated by direct evidence that an illegitimate factor played a substantial role in a particular employment decision. First, the explicit consideration of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in making employment decisions "was the most obvious evil Congress had in mind when it enacted Title VII." Teamsters, 431 U.S., at 335, n. 15. While the prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas and the statistical showing of imbalance involved in a disparate impact case may both be indicators of discrimination or its "functional equivalent," they are not, in and of themselves, the evils Congress sought to eradicate from the employment setting. Second, shifting the burden of persuasion to the employer in a situation like this one creates no incentive to preferential treatment in violation of Ã‚Â§ 2000e-(2)(j). To avoid bearing the burden of justifying its decision, the employer need not seek racial or sexual balance in its work force; rather, all it need do is avoid substantial reliance on forbidden criteria in making its employment decisions. While the danger of forcing employers to engage in unwarranted preferential treatment is thus less dramatic in this setting than in the situation the Court faced in Watson, it is far from wholly illusory. Based on its misreading of Page 276 the words "because of" in the statute, see ante, at 240-242, the plurality appears to conclude that if a decisional process is "tainted" by awareness of sex or race in any way, the employer has violated the statute, and Title VII thus commands that the burden shift to the employer to justify its decision. Ante, at 250-252. The plurality thus effectively reads the causation requirement out of the statute, and then replaces it with an "affirmative defense." Ante, at 244-247. In my view, in order to justify shifting the burden on the issue of causation to the defendant, a disparate treatment plaintiff must show by direct evidence that an illegitimate criterion was a substantial factor in the decision. As the Court of Appeals noted below: "While most circuits have not confronted the question squarely, the consensus among those that have is that once a Title VII plaintiff has demonstrated by direct evidence that discriminatory animus played a significant or substantial role in the employment decision, the burden shifts to the employer to show that the decision would have been the same absent discrimination." 263 U.S.App.D.C., at 333-344, 825 F.2d, at 470-471. Requiring that the plaintiff demonstrate that an illegitimate factor played a substantial role in the employment decision identifies those employment situations where the deterrent purpose of Title VII is most clearly implicated. As an evidentiary matter, where a plaintiff has made this type of strong showing of illicit motivation, the factfinder is entitled to presume that the employer's discriminatory animus made a difference to the outcome, absent proof to the contrary from the employer. Where a disparate treatment plaintiff has made such a showing, the burden then rests with the employer to convince the trier of fact that it is more likely than not that the decision would have been the same absent consideration of the illegitimate factor. The employer need not isolate the sole cause for the decision; rather it must demonstrate that with the illegitimate factor removed from the calculus, sufficient business reasons would have induced it to take the same employment Page 277 action. This evidentiary scheme essentially requires the employer to place the employee in the same position he or she would have occupied absent discrimination. Cf. Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 286 (1977). If the employer fails to carry this burden, the factfinder is justified in concluding that the decision was made "because of" consideration of the illegitimate factor and the substantive standard for liability under the statute is satisfied. Thus, stray remarks in the workplace, while perhaps probative of sexual harassment, see Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57, 63-69 (1986), cannot justify requiring the employer to prove that its hiring or promotion decisions were based on legitimate criteria. Nor can statements by nondecisionmakers, or statements by decisionmakers unrelated to the decisional process itself, suffice to satisfy the plaintiff's burden in this regard. In addition, in my view testimony such as Dr. Fiske's in this case, standing alone, would not justify shifting the burden of persuasion to the employer. Race and gender always "play a role" in an employment decision in the benign sense that these are human characteristics of which decisionmakers are aware and about which they may comment in a perfectly neutral and nondiscriminatory fashion. For example, in the context of this case, a mere reference to "a lady candidate" might show that gender "played a role" in the decision, but by no means could support a rational factfinder's inference that the decision was made "because of" sex. What is required is what Ann Hopkins showed here: direct evidence that decisionmakers placed substantial negative reliance on an illegitimate criterion in reaching their decision. It should be obvious that the threshold standard I would adopt for shifting the burden of persuasion to the defendant differs substantially from that proposed by the plurality, the plurality's suggestion to the contrary notwithstanding. See ante, at 250, n. 13. The plurality proceeds from the premise that the words "because of" in the statute do not embody any Page 278 causal requirement at all. Under my approach, the plaintiff must produce evidence sufficient to show that an illegitimate criterion was a substantial factor in the particular employment decision such that a reasonable factfinder could draw an inference that the decision was made "because of" the plaintiff's protected status. Only then would the burden of proof shift to the defendant to prove that the decision would have been justified by other, wholly legitimate considerations. See also ante, at 259-260 (WHITE, J., concurring in judgment). In sum, because of the concerns outlined above, and because I believe that the deterrent purpose of Title VII is disserved by a rule which places the burden of proof on plaintiffs on the issue of causation in all circumstances, I would retain but supplement the framework we established in McDonnell Douglas and subsequent cases. The structure of the presentation of evidence in an individual disparate treatment case should conform to the general outlines we established in McDonnell Douglas and Burdine. First, the plaintiff must establish the McDonnell Douglas prima facie case by showing membership in a protected group, qualification for the job, rejection for the position, and that after rejection the employer continued to seek applicants of complainant's general qualifications. McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S., at 802. The plaintiff should also present any direct evidence of discriminatory animus in the decisional process. The defendant should then present its case, including its evidence as to legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for the employment decision. As the dissent notes, under this framework, the employer "has every incentive to convince the trier of fact that the decision was lawful." Post, at 292, citing Burdine, 450 U.S., at 258. Once all the evidence has been received, the court should determine whether the McDonnell Douglas or Price Waterhouse framework properly applies to the evidence before it. If the plaintiff has failed to satisfy the Price Waterhouse threshold, the case should be decided under the principles enunciated in McDonnell Douglas and Burdine, Page 279 with the plaintiff bearing the burden of persuasion on the ultimate issue whether the employment action was taken because of discrimination. In my view, such a system is both fair and workable, and it calibrates the evidentiary requirements demanded of the parties to the goals behind the statute itself. I agree with the dissent, see post, at 293, n. 4, that the evidentiary framework I propose should be available to all disparate treatment plaintiffs where an illegitimate consideration played a substantial role in an adverse employment decision. The Court's allocation of the burden of proof in Johnson v. Transportation Agency, Santa Clara County, 480 U.S. 616, 626-627 (1987), rested squarely on "the analytical framework set forth in McDonnell Douglas," id., at 626, which we alter today. It would be odd to say the least if the evidentiary rules applicable to Title VII actions were themselves dependent on the gender or the skin color of the litigants. But see ante, at 239, n. 3. In this case, I agree with the plurality that petitioner should be called upon to show that the outcome would have been the same if respondent's professional merit had been its only concern. On remand, the District Court should determine whether Price Waterhouse has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that if gender had not been part of the process, its employment decision concerning Ann Hopkins would nonetheless have been the same. JUSTICE KENNEDY, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and JUSTICE SCALIA join, dissenting. Today the Court manipulates existing and complex rules for employment discrimination cases in a way certain to result in confusion. Continued adherence to the evidentiary scheme established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), and Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981), is a wiser course than creation of more disarray in an area of the law already difficult for the bench and bar, and so I must dissent. Page 280 Before turning to my reasons for disagreement with the Court's disposition of the case, it is important to review the actual holding of today's decision. I read the opinions as establishing that in a limited number of cases Title VII plaintiffs, by presenting direct and substantial evidence of discriminatory animus, may shift the burden of persuasion to the defendant to show that an adverse employment decision would have been supported by legitimate reasons. The shift in the burden of persuasion occurs only where a plaintiff proves by direct evidence that an unlawful motive was a substantial factor actually relied upon in making the decision. Ante, at 276-277 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J.); ante, at 259-260 (opinion of WHITE, J.). As the opinions make plain, the evidentiary scheme created today is not for every case in which a plaintiff produces evidence of stray remarks in the workplace. Ante, at 251 (opinion of BRENNAN, J.); ante, at 277 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J.). Where the plaintiff makes the requisite showing, the burden that shifts to the employer is to show that legitimate employment considerations would have justified the decision without reference to any impermissible motive. Ante, at 260-261 (opinion of WHITE, J.); ante, at 278 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J.). The employer's proof on the point is to be presented and reviewed just as with any other evidentiary question: the Court does not accept the plurality's suggestion that an employer's evidence need be "objective" or otherwise out of the ordinary. Ante, at 261 (opinion of WHITE, J.). In sum, the Court alters the evidentiary framework of McDonnell Douglas and Burdine for a closely defined set of cases. Although JUSTICE O'CONNOR advances some thoughtful arguments for this change, I remain convinced that it is unnecessary and unwise. More troubling is the plurality's rationale for today's decision, which includes a number of unfortunate pronouncements on both causation and methods of proof in employment discrimination cases. To demonstrate the defects in the plurality's reasoning, it is necessary Page 281 to discuss, first, the standard of causation in Title VII cases, and, second, the burden of proof. I The plurality describes this as a case about the standard of causation under Title VII, ante, at 237, but I respectfully suggest that the description is misleading. Much of the plurality's rhetoric is spent denouncing a "but-for" standard of causation. The theory of Title VII liability the plurality adopts, however, essentially incorporates the but-for standard. The importance of today's decision is not the standard of causation it employs, but its shift to the defendant of the burden of proof. The plurality's causation analysis is misdirected, for it is clear that, whoever bears the burden of proof on the issue, Title VII liability requires a finding of but-for causation. See also ante, at 261, and n. (opinion of WHITE, J.); ante, at 262-263 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J.). The words of Title VII are not obscure. The part of the statute relevant to this case provides: "It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer Ã¢â‚¬â€ "(1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 2000e-2(a)(1) (emphasis added). By any normal understanding, the phrase "because of" conveys the idea that the motive in question made a difference to the outcome. We use the words this way in everyday speech. And assuming, as the plurality does, that we ought to consider the interpretive memorandum prepared by the statute's drafters, we find that this is what the words meant to them as well. "To discriminate is to make a distinction, to make a difference in treatment or favor." 110 Cong. Rec. 7213 (1964). Congress could not have chosen a clearer way Page 282 to indicate that proof of liability under Title VII requires a showing that race, color, religion, sex, or national origin caused the decision at issue. Our decisions confirm that Title VII is not concerned with the mere presence of impermissible motives; it is directed to employment decisions that result from those motives. The verbal formulae we have used in our precedents are synonymous with but-for causation. Thus we have said that providing different insurance coverage to male and female employees violates the statute by treating the employee "`in a manner which but-for that person's sex would be different.'" Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC, 462 U.S. 669, 683 (1983), quoting Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702, 711 (1978). We have described the relevant question as whether the employment decision was "based on" a discriminatory criterion, Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 358 (1977), or whether the particular employment decision at issue was "made on the basis of" an impermissible factor, Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 467 U.S. 867, 875 (1984). What we term "but-for" cause is the least rigorous standard that is consistent with the approach to causation our precedents describe. If a motive is not a but-for cause of an event, then by definition it did not make a difference to the outcome. The event would have occurred just the same without it. Common-law approaches to causation often require proof of but-for cause as a starting point toward proof of legal cause. The law may require more than but-for cause, for instance proximate cause, before imposing liability. Any standard less than but-for, however, simply represents a decision to impose liability without causation. As Dean Prosser puts it, "[a]n act or omission is not regarded as a cause of an event if the particular event would have occurred without it." W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts 265 (5th ed. 1984). Page 283 One of the principal reasons the plurality decision may sow confusion is that it claims Title VII liability is unrelated to but-for causation, yet it adopts a but-for standard once it has placed the burden of proof as to causation upon the employer. This approach conflates the question whether causation must be shown with the question of how it is to be shown. Because the plurality's theory of Title VII causation is ultimately consistent with a but-for standard, it might be said that my disagreement with the plurality's comments on but-for cause is simply academic. See ante, at 259 (opinion of WHITE, J.). But since those comments seem to influence the decision, I turn now to that part of the plurality's analysis. The plurality begins by noting the quite unremarkable fact that Title VII is written in the present tense. Ante, at 240-241. It is unlawful "to fail" or "to refuse" to provide employment benefits on the basis of sex, not "to have failed" or "to have refused" to have done so. The plurality claims that the present tense excludes a but-for inquiry as the relevant standard because but-for causation is necessarily concerned with a hypothetical inquiry into how a past event would have occurred absent the contested motivation. This observation, however, tells us nothing of particular relevance to Title VII or the cause of action it creates. I am unaware of any federal prohibitory statute that is written in the past tense. Every liability determination, including the novel one constructed by the plurality, necessarily is concerned with the examination of a past event.[fn1] The plurality's analysis of verb tense serves only to divert attention from the causation requirement that is made part of the statute by the "because Page 284 of" phrase. That phrase, I respectfully submit, embodies a rather simple concept that the plurality labors to ignore.[fn2] We are told next that but-for cause is not required, since the words "because of" do not mean "solely because of." Ante, at 241. No one contends, however, that sex must be the sole cause of a decision before there is a Title VII violation. This is a separate question from whether consideration of sex must be a cause of the decision. Under the accepted approach to causation that I have discussed, sex is a cause for the employment decision whenever, either by itself or in combination with other factors, it made a difference to the decision. Discrimination need not be the sole cause in order for liability to arise, but merely a necessary element of the set of factors that caused the decision, i. e., a but-for cause. See McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273, 282, n. 10 (1976). The plurality seems to say that since we know the words "because of" do not mean "solely because of," they must not mean "because of" at all. This does not follow, as a matter of either semantics or logic. The plurality's reliance on the "bona fide occupational qualification" (BFOQ) provisions of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 2000e-2(e), is particularly inapt. The BFOQ provisions allow an employer, in certain cases, to make an employment decision of which it is conceded that sex is the cause. That sex may be the legitimate cause of an employment decision where gender is a BFOQ is consistent with the opposite command Page 285 that a decision caused by sex in any other case justifies the imposition of Title VII liability. This principle does not support, however, the novel assertion that a violation has occurred where sex made no difference to the outcome. The most confusing aspect of the plurality's analysis of causation and liability is its internal inconsistency. The plurality begins by saying: "When . . . an employer considers both gender and legitimate factors at the time of making a decision, that decision was `because of' sex and the other, legitimate considerations Ã¢â‚¬â€ even if we may say later, in the context of litigation, that the decision would have been the same if gender had not been taken into account." Ante, at 241. Yet it goes on to state that "an employer shall not be liable if it can prove that, even if it had not taken gender into account, it would have come to the same decision." Ante, at 242. Given the language of the statute, these statements cannot both be true. Title VII unambiguously states that an employer who makes decisions "because of" sex has violated the statute. The plurality's first statement therefore appears to indicate that an employer who considers illegitimate reasons when making a decision is a violator. But the opinion then tells us that the employer who shows that the same decision would have been made absent consideration of sex is not a violator. If the second statement is to be reconciled with the language of Title VII, it must be that a decision that would have been the same absent consideration of sex was not made "because of" sex. In other words, there is no violation of the statute absent but-for causation. The plurality's description of the "same decision" test it adopts supports this view. The opinion states that "[a] court that finds for a plaintiff under this standard has effectively concluded that an illegitimate motive was a `but-for' cause of the employment decision," ante, at 249, and that this "is not an imposition of liability `where sex made no difference to the outcome,'" ante, at 246, n. 11. Page 286 The plurality attempts to reconcile its internal inconsistency on the causation issue by describing the employer's showing as an "affirmative defense." This is nothing more than a label, and one not found in the language or legislative history of Title VII. Section 703(a)(1) is the statutory basis of the cause of action, and the Court is obligated to explain how its disparate-treatment decisions are consistent with the terms of Ã‚Â§ 703(a)(1), not with general themes of legislative history or with other parts of the statute that are plainly inapposite. While the test ultimately adopted by the plurality may not be inconsistent with the terms of Ã‚Â§ 703(a)(1), see infra, at 292, the same cannot be said of the plurality's reasoning with respect to causation. As JUSTICE O'CONNOR describes it, the plurality "reads the causation requirement out of the statute, and then replaces it with an `affirmative defense.'" Ante, at 276. Labels aside, the import of today's decision is not that Title VII liability can arise without but-for causation, but that in certain cases it is not the plaintiff who must prove the presence of causation, but the defendant who must prove its absence. II We established the order of proof for individual Title VII disparate-treatment cases in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), and reaffirmed this allocation in Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981). Under Burdine, once the plaintiff presents a prima facie case, an inference of discrimination arises. The employer must rebut the inference by articulating a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its action. The final burden of persuasion, however, belongs to the plaintiff. Burdine makes clear that the "ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff." Id., at 253. See also Board of Trustees of Keene State College v. Page 287 Sweeney, 439 U.S. 24, 29 (1978) (STEVENS, J., dissenting).[fn3] I would adhere to this established evidentiary framework, which provides the appropriate standard for this and other individual disparate-treatment cases. Today's creation of a new set of rules for "mixed-motives" cases is not mandated by the statute itself. The Court's attempt at refinement provides limited practical benefits at the cost of confusion and complexity, with the attendant risk that the trier of fact will misapprehend the controlling legal principles and reach an incorrect decision. In view of the plurality's treatment of Burdine and our other disparate-treatment cases, it is important first to state why those cases are dispositive here. The plurality tries to reconcile its approach with Burdine by announcing that it applies only to a "pretext" case, which it defines as a case in which the plaintiff attempts to prove that the employer's proffered explanation is itself false. Ante, at 245-247, and n. 11. This ignores the language of Burdine, which states that a plaintiff may succeed in meeting her ultimate burden of persuasion "either directly by persuading the court that a discriminatory reason more likely motivated the employer or indirectly by showing that the employer's proffered explanation is unworthy of credence." 450 U.S., at 256 (emphasis added). Under the first of these two alternative methods, a plaintiff meets her burden if she can "persuade the court that the employment decision more likely than not was motivated by a discriminatory reason." United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U.S. 711, 717-718 (1983) Page 288 (BLACKMUN, J., concurring). The plurality makes no attempt to address this aspect of our cases. Our opinions make plain that Burdine applies to all individual disparate-treatment cases, whether the plaintiff offers direct proof that discrimination motivated the employer's actions or chooses the indirect method of showing that the employer's proffered justification is false, that is to say, a pretext. See Aikens, supra, at 714, n. 3 ("As in any lawsuit, the plaintiff may prove his case by direct or circumstantial evidence"). The plurality is mistaken in suggesting that the plaintiff in a so-called "mixed-motives" case will be disadvantaged by having to "squeeze her proof into Burdine's framework." Ante, at 247. As we acknowledged in McDonnell Douglas, "[t]he facts necessarily will vary in Title VII cases," and the specification of the prima facie case set forth there "is not necessarily applicable in every respect to differing factual situations." 411 U.S., at 802, n. 13. The framework was "never intended to be rigid, mechanized, or ritualistic." Aikens, supra, at 715. Burdine compels the employer to come forward with its explanation of the decision and permits the plaintiff to offer evidence under either of the logical methods for proof of discrimination. This is hardly a framework that confines the plaintiff; still less is it a justification for saying that the ultimate burden of proof must be on the employer in a mixed-motives case. Burdine provides an orderly and adequate way to place both inferential and direct proof before the factfinder for a determination whether intentional discrimination has caused the employment decision. Regardless of the character of the evidence presented, we have consistently held that the ultimate burden "remains at all times with the plaintiff." Burdine, supra, at 253. Aikens illustrates the point. There, the evidence showed that the plaintiff, a black man, was far more qualified than any of the white applicants promoted ahead of him. More important, the testimony showed that "the person responsible for the promotion decisions at issue had made numerous Page 289 derogatory comments about blacks in general and Aikens in particular." 460 U.S., at 713-714, n. 2. Yet the Court in Aikens reiterated that the case was to be tried under the proof scheme of Burdine. JUSTICE BRENNAN and JUSTICE BLACKMUN concurred to stress that the plaintiff could prevail under the Burdine scheme in either of two ways, one of which was directly to persuade the court that the employment decision was motivated by discrimination. 460 U.S., at 718. Aikens leaves no doubt that the so-called "pretext" framework of Burdine has been considered to provide a flexible means of addressing all individual disparate-treatment claims. Downplaying the novelty of its opinion, the plurality claims to have followed a "well-worn path" from our prior cases. The path may be well worn, but it is in the wrong forest. The plurality again relies on Title VII's BFOQ provisions, under which an employer bears the burden of justifying the use of a sex-based employment qualification. See Dothard v. Rawlinson, 433 U.S. 321, 332-337 (1977). In the BFOQ context this is a sensible, indeed necessary, allocation of the burden, for there by definition sex is the but-for cause of the employment decision and the only question remaining is how the employer can justify it. The same is true of the plurality's citations to Pregnancy Discrimination Act cases, ante, at 248. In such cases there is no question that pregnancy was the cause of the disputed action. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act and BFOQ cases tell us nothing about the case where the employer claims not that a sex-based decision was justified, but that the decision was not sex-based at all. Closer analogies to the plurality's new approach are found in Mt. Healthy City Bd. of Ed. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274 (1977), and NRLB v. Transportation Management Corp., 462 U.S. 393 (1983), but these cases were decided in different contexts. Mt. Healthy was a First Amendment case involving the firing of a teacher, and Transportation Management involved review of the NLRB's interpretation of the National Labor Relations Page 290 Act. The Transportation Management decision was based on the deference that the Court traditionally accords NLRB interpretations of the statutes it administers. See 462 U.S., at 402-403. Neither case therefore tells us why the established Burdine framework should not continue to govern the order of proof under Title VII. In contrast to the plurality, JUSTICE O'CONNOR acknowledges that the approach adopted today is a "departure from the McDonnell Douglas standard." Ante, at 262. Although her reasons for supporting this departure are not without force, they are not dispositive. As JUSTICE O'CONNOR states, the most that can be said with respect to the Title VII itself is that "nothing in the language, history, or purpose of Title VII prohibits adoption" of the new approach. Ante, at 269 (emphasis added). JUSTICE O'CONNOR also relies on analogies from the common law of torts, other types of Title VII litigation, and our equal protection cases. These analogies demonstrate that shifts in the burden of proof are not unprecedented in the law of torts or employment discrimination. Nonetheless, I believe continued adherence to the Burdine framework is more consistent with the statutory mandate. Congress' manifest concern with preventing imposition of liability in cases where discriminatory animus did not actually cause an adverse action, see ante, at 262 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J.), suggests to me that an affirmative showing of causation should be required. And the most relevant portion of the legislative history supports just this view. See n. 3, supra. The limited benefits that are likely to be produced by today's innovation come at the sacrifice of clarity and practical application. The potential benefits of the new approach, in my view, are overstated. First, the Court makes clear that the Price Waterhouse scheme is applicable only in those cases where the plaintiff has produced direct and substantial proof that an impermissible motive was relied upon in making the decision at issue. The burden shift properly will be found to apply in Page 291 only a limited number of employment discrimination cases. The application of the new scheme, furthermore, will make a difference only in a smaller subset of cases. The practical importance of the burden of proof is the "risk of nonpersuasion," and the new system will make a difference only where the evidence is so evenly balanced that the factfinder cannot say that either side's explanation of the case is "more likely" true. This category will not include cases in which the allocation of the burden of proof will be dispositive because of a complete lack of evidence on the causation issue. Cf. Summers v. Tice, 33 Cal.2d 80, 199 P.2d 1 (1948) (allocation of burden dispositive because no evidence of which of two negligently fired shots hit plaintiff). Rather, Price Waterhouse will apply only to cases in which there is substantial evidence of reliance on an impermissible motive, as well as evidence from the employer that legitimate reasons supported its action. Although the Price Waterhouse system is not for every case, almost every plaintiff is certain to ask for a Price Waterhouse instruction, perhaps on the basis of "stray remarks" or other evidence of discriminatory animus. Trial and appellate courts will therefore be saddled with the task of developing standards for determining when to apply the burden shift. One of their new tasks will be the generation of a jurisprudence of the meaning of "substantial factor." Courts will also be required to make the often subtle and difficult distinction between "direct" and "indirect" or "circumstantial" evidence. Lower courts long have had difficulty applying McDonnell Douglas and Burdine. Addition of a second burden-shifting mechanism, the application of which itself depends on assessment of credibility and a determination whether evidence is sufficiently direct and substantial, is not likely to lend clarity to the process. The presence of an existing burden-shifting mechanism distinguishes the individual disparate-treatment case from the tort, class-action discrimination, and equal protection cases on which Page 292 JUSTICE O'CONNOR relies. The distinction makes JUSTICE WHITE'S assertions that one "need look only to" Mt. Healthy and Transportation Management to resolve this case, and that our Title VII cases in this area are "inapposite," ante, at 258-260, at best hard to understand. Confusion in the application of dual burden-shifting mechanisms will be most acute in cases brought under 42 U.S.C. Ã‚Â§ 1981 or the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), where courts borrow the Title VII order of proof for the conduct of jury trials. See, e. g., Note, The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 and Trial by Jury: Proposals for Change, 73 Va. L. Rev. 601 (1987) (noting high reversal rate caused by use of Title VII burden shifting in a jury setting). Perhaps such cases in the future will require a bifurcated trial, with the jury retiring first to make the credibility findings necessary to determine whether the plaintiff has proved that an impermissible factor played a substantial part in the decision, and later hearing evidence on the "same decision" or "pretext" issues. Alternatively, perhaps the trial judge will have the unenviable task of formulating a single instruction for the jury on all of the various burdens potentially involved in the case. I do not believe the minor refinement in Title VII procedures accomplished by today's holding can justify the difficulties that will accompany it. Rather, I "remain confident that the McDonnell Douglas framework permits the plaintiff meriting relief to demonstrate intentional discrimination." Burdine, 450 U.S., at 258. Although the employer does not bear the burden of persuasion under Burdine, it must offer clear and reasonably specific reasons for the contested decision, and has every incentive to persuade the trier of fact that the decision was lawful. Ibid. Further, the suggestion that the employer should bear the burden of persuasion due to superior access to evidence has little force in the Title VII context, where the liberal discovery rules available to all litigants are supplemented by EEOC investigatory files. Ibid. Page 293 In sum, the Burdine framework provides a "sensible, orderly way to evaluate the evidence in light of common experience as it bears on the critical question of discrimination," Aikens, 460 U.S., at 715, and it should continue to govern the order of proof in Title VII disparate-treatment cases.[fn4] III The ultimate question in every individual disparate-treatment case is whether discrimination caused the particular decision at issue. Some of the plurality's comments with respect to the District Court's findings in this case, however, are potentially misleading. As the plurality notes, the District Court based its liability determination on expert evidence that some evaluations of respondent Hopkins were based on unconscious sex stereotypes,[fn5] and on the fact that Page 294 Price Waterhouse failed to disclaim reliance on these comments when it conducted the partnership review. The District Court also based liability on Price Waterhouse's failure to "make partners sensitive to the dangers [of stereotyping], to discourage comments tainted by sexism, or to investigate comments to determine whether they were influenced by stereotypes." 618 F. Supp. 1109, 1119 (DC 1985). Although the District Court's version of Title VII liability is improper under any of today's opinions, I think it important to stress that Title VII creates no independent cause of action for sex stereotyping. Evidence of use by decisionmakers of sex stereotypes is, of course, quite relevant to the question of discriminatory intent. The ultimate question, however, is whether discrimination caused the plaintiff's harm. Our cases do not support the suggestion that failure to "disclaim reliance" on stereotypical comments itself violates Title VII. Neither do they support creation of a "duty to sensitize." As the dissenting judge in the Court of Appeals observed, acceptance of such theories would turn Title VII "from a prohibition of discriminatory conduct into an engine for rooting out sexist thoughts." 263 U.S.App.D.C. 321, 340, 825 F.2d 458, 477 (1987) (Williams, J., dissenting). Employment discrimination claims require factfinders to make difficult and sensitive decisions. Sometimes this may mean that no finding of discrimination is justified even though a qualified employee is passed over by a less than admirable employer. In other cases, Title VII's protections properly extend to plaintiffs who are by no means model employees. As JUSTICE BRENNAN notes, ante, at 258, courts do not sit to determine whether litigants are nice. In this Page 295 case, Hopkins plainly presented a strong case both of her own professional qualifications and of the presence of discrimination in Price Waterhouse's partnership process. Had the District Court found on this record that sex discrimination caused the adverse decision, I doubt it would have been reversible error. Cf. Aikens, supra, at 714, n. 2. That decision was for the finder of fact, however, and the District Court made plain that sex discrimination was not a but-for cause of the decision to place Hopkins' partnership candidacy on hold. Attempts to evade tough decisions by erecting novel theories of liability or multitiered systems of shifting burdens are misguided. IV The language of Title VII and our well-considered precedents require this plaintiff to establish that the decision to place her candidacy on hold was made "because of" sex. Here the District Court found that the "comments of the individual partners and the expert evidence of Dr. Fiske do not prove an intentional discriminatory motive or purpose," 618 F. Supp., at 1118, and that "[b]ecause plaintiff has considerable problems dealing with staff and peers, the Court cannot say that she would have been elected to partnership if the Policy Board's decision had not been tainted by sexually based evaluations," id., at 1120. Hopkins thus failed to meet the requisite standard of proof after a full trial. I would remand the case for entry of judgment in favor of Price Waterhouse. [fn1] Page 283 The plurality's description of its own standard is both hypothetical and retrospective. The inquiry seeks to determine whether "if we asked the employer at the moment of decision what its reasons were and if we received a truthful response, one of those reasons would be that the applicant or employee was a woman." Ante, at 250. [fn2] Page 284 The plurality's discussion of overdetermined causes only highlights the error of its insistence that but-for is not the substantive standard of causation under Title VII. The opinion discusses the situation where two physical forces move an object, and either force acting alone would have moved the object. Ante, at 241. Translated to the context of Title VII, this situation would arise where an employer took an adverse action in reliance both on sex and on legitimate reasons, and either the illegitimate or the legitimate reason standing alone would have produced the action. If this state of affairs is proved to the factfinder, there will be no liability under the plurality's own test, for the same decision would have been made had the illegitimate reason never been considered. [fn3] Page 287 The interpretive memorandum on which the plurality relies makes plain that "the plaintiff, as in any civil case, would have the burden of proving that discrimination had occurred." 110 Cong. Rec. 7214 (1964). Coupled with its earlier definition of discrimination, the memorandum tells us that the plaintiff bears the burden of showing that an impermissible motive "made a difference" in the treatment of the plaintiff. This is none other than the traditional requirement that the plaintiff show but-for cause. [fn4] Page 293 The plurality states that it disregards the special context of affirmative action. Ante, at 239, n. 3. It is not clear that this is possible. Some courts have held that in a suit challenging an affirmative-action plan, the question of the plan's validity need not be reached unless the plaintiff shows that the plan was a but-for cause of the adverse decision. See McQuillen v. Wisconsin Education Association Council, 830 F.2d 659, 665 (CA7 1987), cert. denied, 485 U.S. 914 (1988). Presumably it will be easier for a plaintiff to show that consideration of race or sex pursuant to an affirmative-action plan was a substantial factor in a decision, and the court will need to move on to the question of a plan's validity. Moreover, if the structure of the burdens of proof in Title VII suits is to be consistent, as might be expected given the identical statutory language involved, today's decision suggests that plaintiffs should no longer bear the burden of showing that affirmative-action plans are illegal. See Johnson v. Transportation Agency, Santa Clara County, 480 U.S. 616, 626-627 (1987). [fn5] Page 293 The plaintiff who engages the services of Dr. Susan Fiske should have no trouble showing that sex discrimination played a part in any decision. Price Waterhouse chose not to object to Fiske's testimony, and at this late stage we are constrained to accept it, but I think the plurality's enthusiasm for Fiske's conclusions unwarranted. Fiske purported to discern stereotyping in comments that were gender neutral Ã¢â‚¬â€ e. g., "overbearing and abrasive" Ã¢â‚¬â€ without any knowledge of the comments' basis in reality and without having met the speaker or subject. "To an expert of Dr. Fiske's qualifications, it seems plain that no woman could be overbearing, arrogant, or abrasive: any observations to that effect would necessarily Page 294 be discounted as the product of stereotyping. If analysis like this is to prevail in federal courts, no employer can base any adverse action as to a woman on such attributes." 263 U.S.App.D.C. 321, 340, 825 F.2d 458, 477 (1987) (Williams, J., dissenting). Today's opinions cannot be read as requiring factfinders to credit testimony based on this type of analysis. See also ante, at 277 (opinion of O'CONNOR, J.). Page 296 Harassment - Gender, Sex & Pregnancy Discrimination Case Law Age Discrimination Case Law (9) Harassment - Gender, Sex & Pregnancy (11) Employment Discrimination (9) Federal Employment Laws (16) Race & National Origin Discrimination Case Law (8) overtime compensation (12) Harassment - Gender, Sex & Pregnancy Discrimination Case Law (9) Disability Discrimination Case Law (10) employment discrimination (28) Race & National Origin (8)	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1782
__label__wiki	0.867765	0.867765	Will The Supreme Court Fast-Track Cases Involving Trump? Jan. 2, 2019 , at 5:59 AM One case is already on the docket. By Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux Filed under Trump Docket Get the data on GitHub GitHub data at data/trump-lawsuits This is the Trump Docket, where we track some of the most important legal cases of the Trump presidency and how their results could shape presidential power. Questions, comments, or thoughts about cases to cover? Email us here. If the Supreme Court justices have been trying to signal that they want a quiet term — perhaps some time to recover after Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s hyper-partisan confirmation hearings last fall, which may have shaken public faith in the court as an impartial institution — the Trump administration hasn’t gotten the hint. Over the past few months, the solicitor general’s office has blanketed the court with requests to bypass the normal legal process and rule swiftly in high-profile cases. Even after the court rebuffed attempts to halt the first Census trial and a climate-change lawsuit, the Trump administration kept trying, asking the justices to cancel an injunction against Trump’s asylum ban. In an even more unusual move, the White House also asked the court to leapfrog lower courts and intervene in cases involving Trump’s decision to revoke the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and the administration’s policy against transgender military servicemembers. The justices rejected the Trump administration’s request to block the injunction against the asylum ban in December, but only by a narrow 5-4 margin and several other requests are still pending. How the court responds will tell us a lot about what Trump might be able to expect from the court’s newly minted conservative majority. The high court does have the power to short-circuit the appeals process, but requests to do so are rare — and it typically happens only in extreme situations, such as when President Richard Nixon refused to turn over tapes of conversations recorded in the White House during the Watergate investigation. But the Trump administration appears to be betting that, given enough pressure, the court’s conservative majority will step in to save signature parts of the president’s agenda. At the same time, these tactics could put justices like John Roberts — who is known for his concern about the court’s reputation — in a pickle, if they want to avoid the perception that the court is simply bending to Trump’s will. “Taking these cases would suggest that the court is willing to treat the Trump administration as if the normal rules don’t apply to it,” Joshua Matz, a constitutional lawyer and publisher of the Take Care blog, which covers Trump-related legal issues, said. “And it would also have the effect of essentially putting the legality of the Trump administration’s entire domestic agenda on the Supreme Court’s docket this year.” At least one case involving the administration is already on the court’s schedule. In November, the justices agreed to rule on whether Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and other high-ranking officials could be required to testify about their reasons for adding a question about citizenship to the 2020 Census. Those oral arguments are slated for February. Why the court agreed to hear this part of the case is still a bit of a mystery, since Ross never testified and the justices didn’t halt the trial, which means the lower court judge might, in the meantime, issue a ruling that has nothing to do with the administration’s rationale for adding the question — potentially making the dispute over whether they can be compelled to testify irrelevant. (Meanwhile, the trial in a separate lawsuit over the citizenship question is scheduled to begin on January 7, despite the Trump administration’s attempts to slow it down, and another set of cases related to the question seem likely to go to trial later this month.) But the court’s decision to take the case shows, at the very least, that the justices aren’t unwilling to entertain out-of-the-ordinary requests from Trump. And that might explain why Trump administration lawyers are deluging the court with petitions, hoping that at least a few more will rise to the top. In some of those cases, though, the Trump administration has a tall order — they have to convince the justices not just that the issues in the case are important, but that there’s a genuine need to rule on them early, before other courts have had their say. This was less of an issue for the Census case; since forms for the 2020 Census are due to be printed in June, the court had to act quickly. But the Trump administration is arguing that several other cases are pressing enough to make the cut for this year’s docket too, rather than waiting until the next term, which doesn’t start until October. That’s in part because — according to the administration — lower court judges have been too aggressive in blocking Trump’s policies from going into effect while they’re being challenged. If the administration succeeds in convincing the court, the ongoing litigation over DACA could end up on the justices’ agenda. They’re helped by the fact that one appeals court has already ruled that Trump couldn’t immediately revoke deportation protections. But the lower courts still haven’t ruled on the substance of Trump’s DACA decision — they have simply said the people challenging it have enough of a chance at success that the program shouldn’t be revoked in the meantime. Stephen Yale-Loehr, a professor at Cornell Law School and immigration law expert, said it would be somewhat unusual for the high court to intervene at this stage. He added that the DACA case lacks the “immediacy” of the travel ban case, where thousands of people were being prevented from entering the country, so there’s not the same sense of urgency for the Supreme Court to act. But Matz and other legal experts told me that the 9th Circuit’s ruling could still provide enough of a reason for the Supreme Court to take up the issue this term. The Trump administration’s recent plea for the Supreme Court to hear the transgender military ban cases — or, barring that, to at least allow the ban to go into effect — seems likelier to prompt a response of “What’s the hurry?” Several district court judges have blocked the administration from implementing the latest version of the policy, but an appeals court has yet to rule on whether those injunctions are valid. The plaintiffs are arguing that it’s not as urgent as the government’s lawyers claim, since they have already missed several opportunities to expedite it. “We’re still very early in the process,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law. “And there just isn’t much evidence that this is a dire emergency.” The Trump administration’s disregard for protocol could also backfire, if the justices decide that they simply don’t want to be rushed. The justices’ decision to reject Trump’s request to lift the injunction against the asylum ban could be a sign that they’re growing impatient with the administration’s tactics. Whatever happens, their responses to the Trump administration this month will be an important indicator of how the court’s conservative wing — and in particular, Chief Justice Roberts — sees their relationship with the president. Pre-presidency Trump Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and “fixer,” was sentenced to three years in prison for financial crimes, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. He was also told to pay nearly $2 million in financial penalties. The judge lowered his sentence from a maximum of more than five years because of his cooperation with special counsel Robert Mueller. Sentencing for former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last year, was postponed until Flynn has completed his own cooperation agreement with Mueller. Actress Stormy Daniels was ordered to pay nearly $300,000 in attorneys’ fees to Trump, after a judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit she and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, filed against Trump last year. Avenatti has indicated that he’ll appeal the ruling. The Trump Foundation agreed to dissolve under court supervision, amid a broader legal dispute about whether the foundation was used to make illegal payments to the Trump campaign. The rest of the lawsuit, which was filed by the New York attorney general last summer, will continue to move forward. A judge ruled that a group of plaintiffs who are suing the Trump family for allegedly using their brand to lure vulnerable investors into making sham investments can remain anonymous. Allowing plaintiffs to use pseudonyms is unusual, but the judge wrote that their fear of retaliation from the president or his followers is “real” and “significant.” The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to hear a case involving Trump’s alleged violation of the Constitution’s foreign and domestic emoluments clause, which prohibits federal officials from receiving gifts from foreign governments. A lower court judge had recently issued a set of rulings allowing the plaintiffs in the case, the District of Columbia and Maryland, to subpoena Trump businesses. But Trump’s lawyers are arguing that producing these documents would be a “distraction to the President’s performance of his constitutional duties.” This means that the lower court proceedings are frozen until the appeals court rules. The appeal has also been temporarily halted by the court, however, after Trump’s attorneys told the court that the government shutdown was preventing them from being able to do their work. A federal judge rejected a motion to dismiss a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s revocation of temporary protected status for Haitian immigrants. The Trump administration responded with a legal filing saying that issuing a subpoena for Elaine Duke, the former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security who was responsible for terminating the policy, to testify in the case would constitute a separation of powers violation. The Trump administration’s revised standards for asylum were rejected by a federal judge in Washington, DC, saying the administration had overreached when it categorically barred asylum seekers from submitting applications based on domestic or gang violence. The Trump Administration (764 posts) Supreme Court (213) DACA (21) Trump Docket (10)	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1785
__label__cc	0.53852	0.46148	Soccer Sponsorship Update Posted on October 11, 2011 by Ben Berger Big news on the sponsorship front from longtime partner Panasonic. The electronics company announced that they have extended their deal with Major League Soccer through 2014 to serve as the league’s “Official Consumer Electronics Partner”. In addition, the company announced that they have reached an agreement with US soccer to serve as a similar sponsor/partner for the Men’s and Women’s National Teams. For the national sides, the deal concludes with the 2014 World Cup while the MLS deal goes until the end of the 2014 season. Panasonic has had a relationship with MLS for almost ten years and has been a constant presence in various forms of television advertising, sign boards and league promotions. It is encouraging that a corporate partner sees enough value in its MLS relationship to continue to renew the agreement. It is also important that the company is expanding its soccer footprint by spending on the national teams and increasing its commitment to the sport. According to the press release, “the sponsorship will give Panasonic category exclusivity across the U.S. Soccer and MLS properties for a wide range of consumer, professional, and B2B products including HDTV (VIERA), Blu-ray Disc, cameras and camcorders (LUMIX), LED signage, TV broadcast equipment, and point of sale systems (excluding payment services systems), solar and eco systems (MLS only), mobile & tablet computers, and select personal care products.” Panasonic last re-upped its relationship with MLS in 2009. At the time, the Sports Business Journal estimated the deal at $3 million per year. Also from the press statement; “Panasonic is proud to extend our sponsorship of Major League Soccer and to expand our horizons to support the U.S. Soccer Federation and the Men’s and Women’s National Teams,” said Joe Taylor, Panasonic Corporation of North America’s Chairman & CEO. “Soccer is a brand on the rise in the U.S. with a broad, global appeal and a target audience aligned with our own brand goals. « The Monday After Soccer Business Bits: Fox Soccer Renews, College Attendance » mase, on October 11, 2011 at 5:20 am said: They should sponser some MLS teams…Dallas,Chicago SC,….SKC web design, on October 25, 2011 at 6:01 am said: This seems to be a nice read. Cafe POS Systems \| Restaurant POS Systems, on November 10, 2011 at 5:00 am said: Cafe POS Systems \| Restaurant POS Systems… […]Soccer Sponsorship Update « Footiebusiness[…]…	cc/2021-04/en_head_0025.json.gz/line1786

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