pred_label
stringclasses 2
values | pred_label_prob
float64 0.5
1
| wiki_prob
float64 0.25
1
| text
stringlengths 160
1M
| source
stringlengths 37
43
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
__label__wiki
| 0.533329
| 0.533329
|
A 14-year-old singer/songwriter with a voice to be reckoned with and a style which transcends multiple genres………
Meet Linnea Sköld
Linnea’s music journey began with piano lessons before she started school. Within three years, under the direction of Kristin Yost (centreformusicalminds.org), Linnea became the 2011 National Finalist at the Roland Piano Festival in Los Angeles. She developed her vocal skills with the Collin County Chorus, NTPA’s musical theatre productions, and vocal coaching by her mother.
Linnea’s versatility as a singer has been influenced by eighties tunes she has heard growing up as well as some old classics along the way. She incorporates elements of pop, rock, jazz, R&B, and country music into her original work, as well as her own arrangements of cover tunes.
Linnea has performed at pop showcases at SMU, Salubrious, The Gallery 8680, and Relay for Life. She was the first place winner at the 2017 Frisco’s Got Talent competition and the 2017 Legacy Road Music Festival in Prosper. This spring, Linnea won first runner up at DFW Icon. Most recently, she performed in a live music showcase hosted by Frisco Arts & Melody of Hope, securing her a spot as a Melody of Hope Musician at non-profit events in the DFW Metroplex. She looks forward to sharing her love for music.
Linnea is currently recording her first EP with Nigel Rivers as her producer ("Nigel is the go-to bassist for artists around the world" - Dallas Observer article).
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line862
|
__label__cc
| 0.577704
| 0.422296
|
Q&A: Fremont Street Experience's Paul McGuire
By Brock Radke
In his role as chief marketing officer for the Fremont Street Experience, Paul McGuire is finding new ways to bring the “Only in Vegas” character to life and have it communicate with so many different visitors. Las Vegas Magazine’s Brock Radke caught up with McGuire to talk about FSE’s momentum heading into a new year as the centerpiece of downtown Las Vegas excitement.
What attracts visitors to the Fremont Street Experience?
There’s heritage—this is the original Las Vegas Strip, all the iconic casinos from back in the day. The Golden Gate started it all as the first-ever hotel in Las Vegas. Its phone number was 1. In addition, you have those great marquees that you just don’t see anymore, the gorgeous iconic neon that illuminates downtown at night. You have the largest single digital display in the world with the Viva Vision canopy. You have SlotZilla, the ultimate zipline. When you add it all up, it’s a bucket-list experience you can’t replicate, and on top of that, the majority of what we provide is free.
In 2017 you added the Downtown Rocks summer concert series. Will that program continue to grow?
Yes. The tagline for Downtown Rocks is “One Louder,” inspired by This is Spinal Tap. Like in that movie, we go to 11, but it has less to do with volume and more about the experience of always giving you something extra, a surprise. The summer concert series was an all-time record for us; When we had Rick Springfield perform, there were more than 18,000 people within a very packed area having the time of their lives. We look forward to expanding on that with more free concerts because that’s what our customers are saying they want.
What about new events coming in 2018?
For the first time ever we’re bringing an event that’s a halfway-to-St.-Patrick’s-Day theme called Downtown Shenanigans. I think we have a little license to be playful and even naughty at times, but always in a fun, clean way, so you’re going to see new events like this one that are going through that lens. It has to be something special and it has to be something social that you’re going to want to take a picture of and share it. I call it the next-day effect—hopefully you’ll wake up the next morning thinking, “What just happened?” and plug it on your calendar for next year.
The Fear the Walking Dead Survival Attraction was another new element and big hit this past year.
We’re always looking for any type of partnership or strategic alignment that will bring something engaging that touches multiple senses and includes a quality brand. We partnered with AMC and Triotech for that one, and obviously the brand has very passionate, loyal fans. Zombies are timeless. It’s not a fad. And we’re looking to do some additional integrations that are zombie-themed.
This year will see the opening stages of construction of a new downtown casino resort where the Las Vegas Club has been demolished. How big of an impact does that have on the Fremont Street Experience?
It’s really, really exciting on so many different levels. The owner Derek Stevens is very creative and progressive-minded with how he invests, and he goes all-in on everything he does. We’re all very anxious to find out what the theme is and what the product will be as it’s been quite hush-hush. What I do know is whatever it will be, it will be quality, and a new reason to come downtown. It anchors one end of the Fremont Street Experience quite nicely.
What else will we see happen to the FSE in 2018?
One of the most exciting things is still in the early part of the process, but it’s been 2004 since the last upgrade of the canopy and it’s just time. We’re looking to fully upgrade the technology of (Viva Vision) as right now it’s only illuminated at night. We need darkness to have those visuals come to life. This will be a state-of-the-art, day-and-night experience, and once we create it, we need to feed it, so there will be an entirely new and dynamic content plan with interactive components. It’s a true game-changer and we believe it will be the true jewel of downtown Las Vegas once complete.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line864
|
__label__cc
| 0.557863
| 0.442137
|
Universal Investment Strategy
Description of Universal Investment Strategy
The Universal Investment Strategy (UIS) is one of our core investment strategies. It is an evolved, intelligent version of the classic 60/40 equity/bond portfolio. Much like the classic portfolio, UIS holds both the S&P 500 index and bonds. However, UIS can intelligently adapt to current conditions by shifting weight away from stocks in difficult markets and adding weight in bullish markets.
Instead of using simple bond ETF, UIS uses a sub-strategy, called HEDGE, which can choose between different types of safe-heaven ETFs.
The equity/bond (or in our case equity/HEDGE) pair is interesting because most of the time these two asset classes profit from an inverse correlation. If there is a real stock market correction, usually ETFs included in the HEDGE strategy (Treasuries, Gold, etc) are the 'safe' assets where money flows to, providing crash protection.
Statistics of Universal Investment Strategy (YTD)
'Total return is the amount of value an investor earns from a security over a specific period, typically one year, when all distributions are reinvested. Total return is expressed as a percentage of the amount invested. For example, a total return of 20% means the security increased by 20% of its original value due to a price increase, distribution of dividends (if a stock), coupons (if a bond) or capital gains (if a fund). Total return is a strong measure of an investment’s overall performance.'
Compared with the benchmark SPY (67.8%) in the period of the last 5 years, the total return of 65.5% of Universal Investment Strategy is lower, thus worse.
Looking at total return, or performance in of 27.6% in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively lower, thus worse in comparison to SPY (47.2%).
Compared with the benchmark SPY (10.9%) in the period of the last 5 years, the annual performance (CAGR) of 10.6% of Universal Investment Strategy is smaller, thus worse.
During the last 3 years, the annual performance (CAGR) is 8.5%, which is lower, thus worse than the value of 13.8% from the benchmark.
'In finance, volatility (symbol σ) is the degree of variation of a trading price series over time as measured by the standard deviation of logarithmic returns. Historic volatility measures a time series of past market prices. Implied volatility looks forward in time, being derived from the market price of a market-traded derivative (in particular, an option). Commonly, the higher the volatility, the riskier the security.'
Looking at the historical 30 days volatility of 6.7% in the last 5 years of Universal Investment Strategy, we see it is relatively smaller, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (13.4%)
During the last 3 years, the 30 days standard deviation is 6.1%, which is smaller, thus better than the value of 12.3% from the benchmark.
Looking at the downside risk of 7.3% in the last 5 years of Universal Investment Strategy, we see it is relatively lower, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (14.7%)
During the last 3 years, the downside risk is 6.9%, which is lower, thus better than the value of 13.9% from the benchmark.
Looking at the ratio of return and volatility (Sharpe) of 1.21 in the last 5 years of Universal Investment Strategy, we see it is relatively larger, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (0.63)
Compared with SPY (0.92) in the period of the last 3 years, the Sharpe Ratio of 0.97 is larger, thus better.
'The Sortino ratio improves upon the Sharpe ratio by isolating downside volatility from total volatility by dividing excess return by the downside deviation. The Sortino ratio is a variation of the Sharpe ratio that differentiates harmful volatility from total overall volatility by using the asset's standard deviation of negative asset returns, called downside deviation. The Sortino ratio takes the asset's return and subtracts the risk-free rate, and then divides that amount by the asset's downside deviation. The ratio was named after Frank A. Sortino.'
Looking at the downside risk / excess return profile of 1.11 in the last 5 years of Universal Investment Strategy, we see it is relatively higher, thus better in comparison to the benchmark SPY (0.57)
During the last 3 years, the excess return divided by the downside deviation is 0.87, which is higher, thus better than the value of 0.81 from the benchmark.
'The ulcer index is a stock market risk measure or technical analysis indicator devised by Peter Martin in 1987, and published by him and Byron McCann in their 1989 book The Investors Guide to Fidelity Funds. It's designed as a measure of volatility, but only volatility in the downward direction, i.e. the amount of drawdown or retracement occurring over a period. Other volatility measures like standard deviation treat up and down movement equally, but a trader doesn't mind upward movement, it's the downside that causes stress and stomach ulcers that the index's name suggests.'
Compared with the benchmark SPY (3.99 ) in the period of the last 5 years, the Ulcer Index of 1.74 of Universal Investment Strategy is lower, thus better.
Compared with SPY (4.04 ) in the period of the last 3 years, the Downside risk index of 1.83 is lower, thus better.
'A maximum drawdown is the maximum loss from a peak to a trough of a portfolio, before a new peak is attained. Maximum Drawdown is an indicator of downside risk over a specified time period. It can be used both as a stand-alone measure or as an input into other metrics such as 'Return over Maximum Drawdown' and the Calmar Ratio. Maximum Drawdown is expressed in percentage terms.'
The maximum drop from peak to valley over 5 years of Universal Investment Strategy is -5.7 days, which is higher, thus better compared to the benchmark SPY (-19.3 days) in the same period.
Looking at maximum drop from peak to valley in of -5.2 days in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively greater, thus better in comparison to SPY (-19.3 days).
Compared with the benchmark SPY (187 days) in the period of the last 5 years, the maximum time in days below previous high water mark of 141 days of Universal Investment Strategy is smaller, thus better.
During the last 3 years, the maximum days under water is 141 days, which is greater, thus worse than the value of 139 days from the benchmark.
Compared with the benchmark SPY (41 days) in the period of the last 5 years, the average time in days below previous high water mark of 33 days of Universal Investment Strategy is smaller, thus better.
Looking at average time in days below previous high water mark in of 37 days in the period of the last 3 years, we see it is relatively greater, thus worse in comparison to SPY (36 days).
Performance of Universal Investment Strategy (YTD)
Universal Investment Strategy is a Premium Strategy
Allocations and holdings shown below are delayed by one month. To see current trading allocations of Universal Investment Strategy, register now.
Allocations of Universal Investment Strategy
Returns of Universal Investment Strategy (%)
Performance results of Universal Investment Strategy are hypothetical, do not account for slippage, fees or taxes, and are based on backtesting, which has many inherent limitations, some of which are described in our Terms of Use.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line865
|
__label__wiki
| 0.936575
| 0.936575
|
@RealDonaldTrump doesn’t think #SleepyJoe #Biden2020 will be able to ‘do the job’ #MagaFirstNews W/@PeterBoykin
Written by Peter Boykin on April 26, 2019
@RealDonaldTrump doesn’t think #SleepyJoe #Biden2020 will be able to ‘do the job’ #MagaFirstNews W/@PeterBoykin President Trump, in a wide-ranging, exclusive phone interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, dismissed the launch of former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, nicknaming him “Sleepy Joe” and saying he’s “not the brightest bulb.” Biden, the president said, has name recognition but he won’t “be able to do the job.” … See More When asked about Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Trump criticized his record, saying Sanders had “misguided energy” and asserted that Sanders “talks a lot” but hasn’t accomplished anything. The president referred to former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas as “a fluke” who had lost much momentum and outright dismissed Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg — although he said he was “rooting” for Buttigieg. (Trump could address Biden and the other Democratic presidential candidates when he speaks today before the National Rifle Association.) Clinton-Ukraine collusion allegations ‘big’ and ‘incredible,’ will be reviewed, Trump says The Democratic Party’s youth movement: Biden’s biggest challenge? Former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair Howard Dean warned Joe Biden about the troubles he may face in his presidential campaign, especially from the “35-year-olds” who Dean says have been running the party — a clear nod to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and fellow freshmen Democrats. “This is a very different party than even the party Joe Biden ran in in 2012. Very different,” Dean continued. “A lot of people could win this race. There’s 20 people in there. I think it’s going to take $20 million to get to the starting line. If you can’t raise $20 million, you’re gone, and I think that’s going to take care of about six or eight of these folks. … But it is not the same party that it was five years ago.” A progressive political group that boosted Ocasio-Cortez’s bid for Congress last year vowed to oppose Biden and blasted him as part of the “old guard.” More tales from the FBI texts Text messages between former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page indicate they discussed using briefings to the Trump team after the 2016 election to identify people they could “develop for potential relationships,” track lines of questioning and “assess” changes in “demeanor” – language one GOP lawmaker called “more evidence” of irregular conduct in the original Russia probe. Fox News has learned the texts, initially released in 2018 by a Senate committee, are under renewed scrutiny, with GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley and Homeland Security Committee chair Ron Johnson sending a letter Thursday night to Attorney General Bill Barr pushing for more information on the matter. President Trump, speaking on Fox News’ “Hannity” Thursday night, responded to this report by accusing Strzok and Page of an attempted “coup.” “They were trying to infiltrate the administration,” he said. Kim accuses US of acting in ‘bad faith’ North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, fresh off his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said the U.S. has been acting in “bad faith” since his Hanoi meeting with President Trump over the stalemated issue of North Korean denuclearization. The North Korean leader told the Korean Central News Agency that, “the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point,” the Straits Times of Singapore reported. Kim warned that the situation “may return to its original state as the U.S. took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-US summit talks,” the Korean Central News Agency added. North Korea gave US $2M hospital bill over care of American Otto Warmbier, sources say NFL Draft 2019: It’s all about defense The first round of the 2019 NFL Draft saw a run on defensive players, with eight of the top 12 picks in Nashville coming from that side of the ball. After Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray was taken first overall by the Arizona Cardinals, the San Francisco 49ers started a run of four straight front-seven players by taking Ohio State defensive end Nick Bosa with the second overall pick — the highest draft slot for any Buckeye since left tackle Orlando Pace went No. 1 overall to the St. Louis Rams in 1997.
Tagged as Maga First News magafirstnews Peter Boykin
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line870
|
__label__wiki
| 0.873271
| 0.873271
|
St. Louis Police Fire on Armed Suspect During Home Search
by Law Officer | Aug 19, 2015 | General, News
ST. LOUIS (AP) — An armed man fleeing from officers serving a search warrant at a home in a crime-troubled section of St. Louis was shot and killed Wednesday by police after he pointed a gun at them, the city's police chief said. The shooting that left a...
Batman Impersonator Dies on Interstate
HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — A Maryland man who delighted thousands of children by impersonating Batman at hospitals and charity events died when he was hit by a car while standing in the fast lane of Interstate 70, checking the engine of his custom-made Batmobile,...
California Manhunt Subject Killed in Confrontation with Deputies
RIDGECREST, Calif. (AP) — An 18-day manhunt in the mountainous high desert of central California ended when two deputies opened fire on a man who pulled out a handgun during a confrontation on a rural road, authorities said Sunday. Benjamin Peter Ashley, 34, was...
Toledo K9 Killed During Search
by Law Officer | Aug 17, 2015 | General, K9, News, Officer Down, Special Assignment & Teams
K9 Falko was shot and killed while conducting a track of a subject wanted for murder who fled during a traffic stop of a stolen vehicle in the area of Varland Avenue and Woodville Road. The subject and his passenger both fled from the vehicle and ran into a vacant...
Nevada Deputy Shot, Killed
by Law Officer | Aug 17, 2015 | General, News, Officer Down
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Hundreds of people crowded a plaza at the Nevada Capitol grounds for a candlelight vigil honoring a Carson City sheriff's deputy who died earlier that day after a domestic violence call ended in a shootout. The Reno Police...
North Carolina Officer Testifies in Fatal Shooting Trial
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — As a white Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer returned to the witness stand Friday, prosecutors challenged his statements to investigators on the night he shot and killed an unarmed black man nearly two years ago. Prosecutor Teresa...
Los Angeles Mayor Undermines Trump Administration Prior to ICE Roundup
LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti released a Twitter video Saturday explaining why he and the city's government won't be cooperating with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents as they intend to find people violating federal law by...
Off-duty police officer critical after shooting
PITTSBURGH – An off-duty police officer was reportedly shot multiple times early Sunday morning in Pittsburgh and was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. The officer's name has not been released and police say he was fired upon around 1:30 a.m. in the 7300...
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line872
|
__label__wiki
| 0.529659
| 0.529659
|
Lost Boundaries: Race Problems Films in 1949 and their Significance in 2009
Posted in Uncategorized by Margari Aziza Hill
I wanted to share a few quotes from a work that is somewhat of a blast from my Academic past. I began working on this draft in 2002 and finished it by 2003 for a “Historical methods” course in undergrad. I was limited to a subject dealing with American history and had to locate a topic that would wield sources easily accessible to an undergrad with no archival experience. I wanted to choose a topic that related to my experience. At first, I wanted to write a paper about political leanings of the Black American Muslim community through the WD Muhammad community and compare that to the political leanings of immigrant led organizations such as ISNA. My Muslim peers were against that idea. So, I decided to work on a paper that didn’t explore the fractures and fragmentation of the American Muslim community. Instead, I chose a topic that dealt with race in America. Like most Black families, we have our family histories peppered with stories of interracial marriages between Black and Native American, accounts of children born from sexual unions between White men and Black women, and tales of this branch of the family or other passing for white. I grew up in a household full of racially ambiguous Black women, which contrasted with my experience as a phenotypically Black woman. In a way of connecting to my sister and niece, I began exploring issues of Black identities, multi-racial identity, white privilege, colorism, and class. For my research project I was initially interested in the history of Free Black communities in New Orleans. But after consultation I decided to explore similar themes through media representations of mixed race Black Americans. I looked at all the films dealing with Black American life and found a disproportionate amount of films dealing with racial passing and very few of the stories were written by Black Americans who appeared to be phenotypically white. I explored this theme in Black films and literature and soon learned that the race passing trope had little to do with the experience of mixed race individuals, but more to do with the discourse on racial place in America. Two films stood out to me because they represented a pivotal time in American race relations following World War II as America tried to normalize and reset race relations.
In light of the discourse on post racial America, Barack Obama, and the Tiger Woods situation, I think it is appropriate to revisit these issues. In 2010, there is less of a need to pass by hiding one’s African heritage. Rather, people are politely passing by checking out of Blackness. James Weldon Johnson’s main character in The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man takes this position when he declares that he “would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race.” Many multi-racial people resent the Black community’s opinion of those who check “other” and do not identify as Black. I understand their sentiment, but I think that the ways in which both mainstream America and multi-racial individuals talk about Black America’s ambivalence towards this phenomena tends to be over-simplified. While I am not an expert on racial formations in America, I do think advocates of both the post-racial society and the the multiracial movement both depict Black identities in a ahistorical way. There is still more dialog that needs to occur, as Black identity in the 21st identity is shifting where individuals can have the choice to opt in or out. Now, one can have one drop and still live a relatively white life. There are countless individuals who do it. But back in 1949, that Black drop could be devastating as evidenced by this 1949 film which was based on a true story.
This short film clip is packed with problematic scenes. The one I found most disturbing was the nightmare sequence where Black faces are transposed onto white faces.
Here’s a snippet of the paper:
LOST BOUNDARIES:
The Social Significance of Racial Ambiguity in two 1949 Negro Problem films, Pinky and Lost Boundaries
Margari Hill
“Most anthropologists agree there will be no Negro problem in another two hundred years; by then there will not be enough recognizable Negroes left in this country to constitute a problem.”
Ralph Linton, Anthropologist, 1947
A 1950s scientific study titled “Complete White-Negro Mixing in 1,000 Years,” determined that that 3.6% of genes in the African American gene pool, “are freshly introduced from the North American white population per generation.” Ralph Linton saw this trend as the resolution to racial tensions in America. Once African Americans were physically and culturally indistinguishable from whites, Linton concluded, it would be impossible to discriminate against them. The Mississippi Democratic Senator, Theodore Bilbo, wrote back to Linton saying he’d rather a hydrogen bomb drop on America than see the mongrelization of the races. Linton, assured Bilbo and his readers that race mixing goes only one way—to lighten Negroes.
Regardless of their outward appearance, social institutions and many laws restricted individuals classified as Negro in a system that privileged Whites over Blacks. Race passing was a way that few Negroes escaped discriminating laws. In a society preoccupied with racial identity and classification, racially ambiguous individuals were a special problem.
Race passing challenged accepted norms and was so shocking and controversial that its sensationalism drew movie audiences. In Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks, the leading authority on African Americans in motion pictures, Donald Bogle, lists the pantheon of iconic figures. Bogle writes that the, “moviemaker’s darling is the tragic mulatto.” The following films have explored this theme: God’s Step Children (1937) Imitation of Life (1934) and (1958), Showboat (1936) and (1951), Lost Boundaries (1949), Pinky (1949), Band of Angels (1957), Night of the Quartermoon (1959), Shadows (1960), I Passed for White (1960), King’s Go Forth (1958), Queen (1993), Devil and a Blue Dress (1995), and Feast of All Saints (2001). As evidenced through the changes in the depiction of race passing, these stories reflect America’s changing race relations.
In 1949, the release of three racial problem films broke new ground in the depiction of African Americans. Two of the films exploited the racial passing plotline and were starred in, written, and produced by Whites. Because of various compromises to the storylines, these films were less about the African American experience than White privilege. An examination of the mainstream press’s treatment of Pinky and Lost Boundaries in comparison with African American press reveals that these movies were more of a discourse on White privilege than racial injustice.
If you’d like a copy of the paper, you can email me.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line878
|
__label__wiki
| 0.501784
| 0.501784
|
By Mark Pearson On 19 June 2019 In News, Speeches, Uncategorized, Videos Tags Animal Welfare, Food Animals
Comments Off on How we treat the many other species with whom we share this planet
How we treat the many other species with whom we share this planet
FOOD ANIMAL WELFARE
The Hon. MARK PEARSON (18:40):I congratulate Ms Cate Faehrmann on her notice of motion last month acknowledging No Meat May, the campaign founded in 2013 to encourage people to avoid meat for a month. The motion rightly discussed the serious environmental impacts of global meat consumption and how reducing our consumption of meat is the biggest way to reduce our carbon footprint.But why stop at the consumption of meat when there is so much more we can do? Humans are the only species that continues to breastfeed into adulthood by consuming the milk of another species, so what about our consumption of dairy milk? The impact of the dairy industry on the environment is astounding. For instance, it takes approximately 4,000 glasses of water to create one glass of milk. What about the animals? The Australian dairy herd consists of approximately 1.5 million cows. Just one of those cows produces around 57 litres of manure a day—that is 20 tonnes of manure per cow, per year. Where once cows grazed in paddocks all day, Australian dairies are becoming more intensified. This means storing all that manure in large methane-emitting lagoons and having to truck in manufactured feed exacerbates the environmental impact of the industry.
Research shows that, without meat and dairy consumption, the global use of land for agricultural purposes could be reduced by 75 per cent. We could feed the world with plant-based protein and at the same time give land back to our struggling and fast-disappearing wildlife. But along with the environmental impacts of the meat and dairy industries is another issue that we as a society should consider; an issue that for a long time now has been a stain on our collective soul. That is how we treat the many other species with whom we share this planet—and, specifically, the many species whom we have declared to be nothing more than “food” animals. The scope and scale of the misery we inflict on these sentient creatures is impossible to fathom.
For instance, in Australia alone each year we breed, confine and slaughter over five million pigs, five million turkeys and 650 million chickens—all for no reason other than we like the taste of their flesh. Along with the seven million cattle we slaughter for food each year, 750,000 young male calves are classified as “waste” products of the dairy industry and are also sent to slaughter. Nine million hens are imprisoned in cages for their short, unnatural lives to produce eggs. Another seven million hens are in barn and free-range systems and meet the same grizzly end as battery hens once they are no longer considered profitable. For every hen born into the egg industry, a male day-old chick will be put through an industrial shredder whilst still fully conscious or piled into bins and gassed to death—once again, simply because it is “waste”.
The various levels of government and industry representatives continually tell the unsuspecting consumer that “Australia has the best animal welfare standards in the world”. But the reality is far from this. Food animals are routinely exempted from protections in animal welfare legislation, such as the requirement for exercise, and are instead covered by codes of practice or standards and guidelines—otherwise known as codes of cruelty. This means the bar is set so low that it is near impossible for users to fail to meet the so-called “standards”. That is why industries get away with performing painful operations such as castration, teeth clipping, de-horning and tail docking, all without any pain relief. So, yes, by all means let us encourage people to join in on initiatives such as No Meat May, but there is so much more we can do. As Pam Ahern from Edgar’s Mission, a farmed animal sanctuary, says, “If we could live happy and healthy lives without harming others, why wouldn’t we?” I would add: Why wouldn’t we for 12 months of the year, not just one?
By Mark Pearson On 7 June 2019 In News Archives, Speeches, Uncategorized, Videos Tags Animal Cruelty, kangaroo, Wildlife
Comments Off on KANGAROO GENOCIDE IN NSW
KANGAROO GENOCIDE IN NSW
ONGOING KANGAROO KILLING
The Hon. MARK PEARSON (15:18):In August last year the New South Wales Government changed the rules to make it easier to shoot kangaroos for non-commercial purposes. As a result of the changes, those carrying out the shooting no longer need a licence to kill. The few checks and balances that were in place to ensure a minimum level of accountability by shooters and the welfare of the animals have now gone. The changes brought in by the Government have created a culture of anything goes when it comes to killing these gentle, native wild animals. My office has been inundated with accounts from distraught members of the public who have witnessed the horrific treatment of these animals and their young since the changes came into effect. We have heard how killing sprees happen everywhere and all the time. The latest report came in this week. A New South Wales citizen told of the people living opposite who are:
… intent on wiping out every kangaroo on the place. Shooting almost every night … Yesterday I witnessed them run down a kangaroo with their tractor, pin the animal against the fence and kill the animal before picking up the carcass in the front bucket of the tractor and dumping it in a ditch. It’s tragic—there was a lovely big mob of kangaroos down there. I have been onto the police and basically received a “Oh, well, it’s his property and he can kill kangaroos if he likes”‘ response.
Another report told of a kangaroo found with:
… multiple festering and stinking injuries resembling gunshot wounds to both shoulders, left bicep and forearm, left side ribs, chest and left rump. Wounds were maggoty; he was also being eaten alive by European wasps (on the wounds). Prognosis by the vet—”poor”.
We have received gruesome images also from wildlife carers who are called out to rescue injured young joeys with bullet entry points in the neck and chest or in the abdomen via thighs; kangaroos shot in the base of the tail and then run over; kangaroos with jaws shot out; kangaroos shot with arrows; and joeys left to die in the pouch of their shot mother. These are the images we can find words to describe. Other scenes are so horrific they are beyond description, except to say that they would have caused immense suffering from slow and painful deaths. It is difficult to avoid the view that the Government’s changes to the rules for the non-commercial killing of kangaroos have encouraged a complete disregard for the welfare of one of our most cherished native animals and is vindicating what is becoming a virtual genocide of this species. I call upon the Government to review the current administrative regime allowing the indiscriminate wounding and killing of kangaroos on private property. The suffering caused to individual animals is unacceptable.
By Mark Pearson On 20 November 2018 In Committees, News, News Archives, Speeches, Videos Tags Ag-Gag, Landholder Surveillance Act
Comments Off on SELECT COMMITTEE ON LANDOWNER PROTECTION FROM UNAUTHORISED FILMING OR SURVEILLANCE
SELECT COMMITTEE ON LANDOWNER PROTECTION FROM UNAUTHORISED FILMING OR SURVEILLANCE
The Hon. MARK PEARSON (00:20): As a member of the Legislative Council Select Committee on Landowner Protection from Unauthorised Filming or Surveillance, I thank the secretariat staff for their excellent work in identifying the pertinent evidence that assisted the committee to develop the recommendations set out its report. I also thank my colleagues on the committee for their open-minded approach to a very complex issue concerning the balancing of landholders’ rights and the public interest in preventing animal cruelty. When I was voted on to the committee The Greens were at pains to suggest that it was not in the best interests of animals for me to participate and that I would end up being a patsy for intensive farming industries intent on increasing penalties for animal activists engaged in covert surveillance. It was suggested that to participate would be to give legitimacy to the cruel but routine practices involved in intensive agriculture industries and at the same time risk demonising animal activists as domestic terrorists.
The Greens said they would “cut me down”. That certainly did not happen. I was confident that the evidence would demonstrate that our existing animal welfare protections are so poorly enforced that animal activists feel compelled to break the law by trespassing and engaging in covert surveillance to expose cruel and illegal practices. I have been vindicated in my belief by the published recommendations of the report. The Greens criticism of my membership of the committee conveniently ignored the fact that the inquiry was going to proceed with or without input from the Animal Justice Party. I had the overwhelming support of members from the Government, Labor, the Christian Democratic Party and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers Party to be appointed to the committee. The truth is that The Greens would have happily taken the opportunity to be on the committee but it did not have the support of the other parties to do so. To save face with its supporters, it became necessary to denigrate my participation on this committee.
As the only member in the Chamber with more than 25 years experience in animal activism, it seems obvious to me and no doubt to those members who voted for me that I would have a unique and important insight into the terms of reference and, in particular, to the motivations of animal activists who seek to obtain covert evidence of animal cruelty. Indeed, my presence on the committee ensured that relevant animal activist representatives were called to give evidence. Further, my questions helped to draw out information that led to the committee’s first three recommendations, which, if adopted by the Government, will significantly improve animal welfare outcomes. In particular, recommendation one, which states:
That the NSW Government review the resources and powers of the RSPCA in regard to the monitoring and enforcement of animal welfare measures, and consider means by which the RSPCA and the NSW Police can work together more effectively to protect animals from mistreatment.
Animal activists and advocates have long identified the need to improve the way in which animal protection is monitored and, in particular, improving the resources available for investigative and enforcement agencies. I have spent the past four years detailing the ongoing and systemic failures of our animal protection systems.
Recommendation 2, that the New South Wales Government encourage animal industries to be proactive in engaging with the community and collaborate with animal industries to investigate schemes to increase transparency about food production and animal husbandry practices. I referred to the previous speeches in Hansard where I questioned whether animal industries have a licence to operate at all. Greater transparency of their operations will certainly give the public the opportunity to decide whether the industry’s treatment of farmed animals is deserving of a social licence. But most importantly, recommendation 3, that the New South Wales Government review the Surveillance Devices Act 2007 to consider whether to insert a public interest exemption for unauthorised filming or surveillance. Finally, I thank members for voting me on to the committee and by doing so acknowledging the valuable input the Animal Justice Party would bring to this vexed and contentious area of public policy.
By Mark Pearson On 18 October 2018 In Community, News, News Archives, Parliament, Speeches, Videos Tags Animal Welfare, Companion Animals
Comments Off on COMPANION ANIMALS DESERVE CONSIDERATION IN RESIDENTIAL RENTAL AGREEMENTS
COMPANION ANIMALS DESERVE CONSIDERATION IN RESIDENTIAL RENTAL AGREEMENTS
RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES AMENDMENT (REVIEW) BILL 2018
Mark Pearson moved an amendment to the Residential Tenancies Amendment (Review) Bill 2018. The amendment would ensure that companion animals would be given consideration in residential tenancies for renters. The amendment was supported by the Greens but not by the Government or Opposition.
The CHAIR (The Hon. Trevor Khan): There being no objection, the bill will be taken as a whole. I have three sets of amendments: the Animal Justice Party amendment on sheet C2018-119A, the Opposition set of amendments on sheet C2018-123 and The Greens amendments on sheet C2018-122.
The Hon. MARK PEARSON (11:50): I move the Animal Justice Party amendment No. 1 on sheet 2018-119A:
No. 1Companion animals
Page 3, Schedule 1. Insert after line 24:
[2]Section 19 Prohibited terms
Insert after section 19 (2) (e):
(f)that a companion animal of a person who is lawfully residing on the residential premises is not permitted to be kept on the premises. This amendment is a double negative and relates to companion animals:
(f)that a companion animal of a person who is lawfully residing on the residential premises is not permitted to be kept on the premises.
The 2016 Census figures show that more than 30 per cent of households in Australia rely on rental accommodation for their housing needs. Combine that figure with the fact that 62 per cent of households have companion animals and we have a significant social problem with the lack of legal protections for tenants with companion animals. This problem is escalating as housing affordability causes many people to remain tenants, often for life. In Europe, where renting is the norm, there is legal recognition that tenants should not be unfairly restricted from experiences such as living with pets.
A landlord may own a property to derive income and capital gains and it is obviously not unreasonable for them to want to protect that asset. As a society we recognise the benefit that private landlords bring to the housing sector for people who cannot afford to buy their own homes or who are not eligible for social housing. However, we must also acknowledge that the landlord’s asset is also the tenant’s home. I believe that it is entirely reasonable for tenants to be able to enjoy the same benefits of living with companion animals as do home owners. It also helps to address a terrible tragedy, that is, the increasing number of tenants who are forced to surrender their animals to pounds and shelters.
RSPCA statistics show that 15 per cent of the dogs and cats that are surrendered are because people are moving house and cannot not find accommodation that allows companion animals. As a society we intervene in the operations of many commercial enterprises on the understanding that it is for the public good. We legislate to ensure that retailers must sell food that is not adulterated, that a motel owner cannot refuse to book a room for a gay couple, and that property developers must comply with building standards to ensure public safety. We do this because we believe that public health, welfare and fairness is important and that the “market” is unlikely to provide those protections if left to its own devices.
Landlords are currently free to refuse tenants and the consequences are such that most landlords choose the easy option of not allowing any pets, without any consideration of the social, physical and psychological benefits that companion animals have in the lives of humans. We live in a society where single and older person households are on the rise. These two groups are at risk of social isolation. For older persons the isolation may be due to physical disabilities or illness. Both groups may struggle with the lack of social interaction leading to anxiety and depression. Psychiatrists at the University of Rochester Medical Center undertook research which found that those living with pets were 36 per cent less likely than non-pet owners to report loneliness. We know that human beings are social animals and that loneliness is a killer. Older adults who report feelings of loneliness are at an increased risk of many serious physical and mental health conditions, including death.
There have been many research studies undertaken that show a raft of health benefits from living with companion animals. Human-animal relationship lowers blood pressure and heart rate, and people recovering from heart attacks recover more quickly and survive longer when there is a pet in the home. For people living alone, a companion animal may be the only affectionate touch they experience through their day. Petting an animal is known to release oxytocin, a hormone that reduces stress as well as boost levels of serotonin and dopamine, which promote alertness and a sense of wellbeing. According to beyondblue, it is estimated that 45 per cent of people will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime and that in any one year approximately one million Australian adults will experience depression and more than two million will have anxiety.
According to depression research, being responsible for the care of an animal promotes mental health. Self-esteem is improved when people realise they are capable of caring for another sentient being. For people debilitated by depression, living with a companion animal brings a structure to the day and may be the only reason that they are able to get out of bed. Feeding, caring and exercising a beloved animal provides positive feedback and helps with healing from depression. I note that the Victorian Government has recently amended its residential tenancy legislation to allow pets in rental accommodation and that the Queensland Government has a similar provision before its Parliament. If our sister States are able to recognise the case in favour of companion animals, then surely we can join them in that compassionate approach. Allowing tenants to have companion animals will not only significantly improve the wellbeing of people but also quite simply save lives, both human and animal. I commend the amendment.
The Hon. CATHERINE CUSACK (11:56): The Animal Justice Party amendment is not supported by the Government. Companion animals are not defined under the Companion Animals Act 1998 as a dog or cat. Properties vary greatly and different types of pets may not be suitable for some properties. The landlord and tenant are best placed to negotiate on whether a particular pet would be appropriate for a property. The Residential Tenancies Act leaves the issue of whether a tenant can keep a pet—but not an assistance animal—to be negotiated between a landlord and tenant, and the Government considers that that is appropriate.
Mr JUSTIN FIELD (11:57): The Greens support the amendment moved by the Hon. Mark Pearson on behalf of the Animal Justice Party. The Greens had a similar amendment to ensure that those living with companion animals are not unfairly impacted by these changes and that the Residential Tenancy Act supports them to continue to live with their pets. There are more people living in rental properties than ever before. Many of them have pets and these pets are an important part of their family. Certainly I have had that experience living in rental accommodation. I have been fortunate to find rental accommodation where it has been possible for my family to have our pets. I know how important our pets are to my young son. It is important that we keep families together, including the non-human parts of our families. The Greens support the amendments moved by the Animal Justice Party.
The Hon. PETER PRIMROSE (11:58): The Opposition appreciates the intent of the amendment moved by the Animal Justice Party. We are concerned about the need to ensure that there are not unintended consequences. The best way of doing that is to have consulted fully with all stakeholders involved to ensure that the outcome is both fair and balanced and that there are no negative impacts that we are aware of. While we appreciate the intent, for the reasons I have outlined at this stage the Opposition does not support the amendment.
The CHAIR (The Hon. Trevor Khan): The Hon. Mark Pearson has moved Animal Justice Party amendment No. 1 on sheet C2018-119A. The question is that the amendment be agreed to.
Amendment negatived.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line881
|
__label__cc
| 0.543833
| 0.456167
|
N. Katherine Hayles
James B. Duke Professor Emerita of Literature
101 Friedl Building, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90670, Durham, NC 27708-0670
katherine.hayles@duke.edu
Digital Humanities; Electronic Literature; Literature, Science, and Technology; Science Fiction; Critical Theory
Ph.D., University of Rochester 1977
M.A., Michigan State University 1970
M.S., California Institute of Technology 1969
B.S., Rochester Institute of Technology 1966
Film and New Media, Literary and Cultural Studies, Modernism and Modernity, Science Studies, The Americas and the US
Hayles, N. K. “Artificial Life and Literary Culture.” Cyperspace Textuality: Computer Culture and Literary Theory, Indiana University Press, 1999, pp. 205–23.
Hayles, N. K. “The Life Cycle of Cyborgs: Writing the Posthuman.” Cybersexualities: A Reader on Feminist Theory, Cyborgs and Cyberspace, edited by J. Wolmark, Edinburgh University Press, 1999, pp. 157–73.
Hayles, N. K. “From Self-Organization to Emergence: Aesthetic Implications of Shifting Ideas of Organization.” Chaos and the Changing Nature of Science and Medicine, American Institute of Physics, 1998, pp. 133–57.
Hayles, N. K. “The Condition of Virtuality.” Language Machines: Technologies of Literary and Cultural Production, edited by Jeffrey Masten et al., Routledge, 1997, pp. 183–208.
Hayles, N. K. “Voices Out of Bodies and Bodies Out of Voices.” Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustical Technologies, University of North Carolina Press, 1997, pp. 74–96.
Hayles, N. K. “Consolidating the Canon.” The Science Wars, edited by Andrew Ross, Duke University Press, 1996, pp. 226–37.
Hayles, N. K. “How Cyberspace Signifies: Taking Immortality Literally.” Immortal Engines: Life Extension and Immortality in Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by George Slusser et al., University of Georgia Press, 1996, pp. 111–24.
Hayles, N. K. “Narratives of Artificial Life.” Futurenatural: Nature, Science, Culture, edited by George Robertson et al., Routledge, 1996, pp. 146–64.
Hayles, N. K. “Virtual Bodies and Flickering Signifiers.” Electronic Culture: Technology and Visual Representation, edited by T. Druckrey, Aperture, 1996, pp. 259–78.
Hayles, N. K. “Simulated Nature and Natural Simulations: Rethinking the Relation Between the Beholder and the World.” Uncommon Ground: Toward the Reinvention of Nature, edited by William Cronon, Norton, 1995, pp. 409–25.
Hayles, N. K. “Desiring Agency: Limiting Metaphors and Enabling Constraints in Dawkins and Deleuze/Guattari.” Substance, vol. 30 (no. 1 & 2), no. 94–95, 2001, pp. 144–59.
Hayles, N. Katherine. “Metaphoric Networks in "Lexia to Perplexia".” Electronic Art and Animation Catalog, vol. 31–34, 2001, pp. 31–34. Manual, doi:10.1076/digc.12.3.133.3226. Full Text
Hayles, N. Katherine. “Visualizing the Posthuman.” Art Journal, vol. 59, no. 3, Informa UK Limited, Sept. 2000, pp. 50–54. Crossref, doi:10.1080/00043249.2000.10792011. Full Text
Hayles, N. K. “Cognition on a Desert Island (Commentary on Edwin Hutchins' "Cognition in the Wild").” Genre, vol. 23, no. 3–4, 2000, pp. 331–38.
Hayles, N. K. “The Invention of Copyright and the Birth of Monsters: Flickering Connectivities in Shelley Jackson's "Patchwork Girl".” Postmodern Culture: An Electronic Journal of Interdisciplinary Criticism, vol. 10, no. 2, Johns Hopkins University Press, Jan. 2000.
Hayles, N. K. “Adam Ross: Paranoid Utopias.” Art/Text, vol. 70, 2000, pp. 62–65.
Hayles, N. K. “Review of Brian Richardson's "Unlikely Stories: Causality and the Nature of Modern Narrative".” South Atlantic Review, 1999, pp. 140–41.
Hayles, N. Katherine. “Simulating Narratives: What Virtual Creatures Can Teach Us.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 26, no. 1, 1999, pp. 1–26. Manual, doi:10.1086/448950. Full Text
Hayles, N. K. “The Illusion of Autonomy and the Fact of Recursivity: Virtual Ecologies, Entertainment, and "Infinite Jest".” New Literary History: A Journal of Theory and Interpretation, vol. 30, no. 3, 1999, pp. 675–97.
Hayles, N. K. “Hot List: N. Katherine Hayles on Byte Lit.” Artforum International, vol. 37, no. 2, 1998.
How We Read: Close, Hyper, Machine. October 15, 2010
Complex Temporalities. October 8, 2010
Posthuman Reading (and Writing). September 24, 2010
How We Read. September 10, 2010
Becoming Digital. December 15, 2009
“Effects of Spatializing Software". December 15, 2009
Plenary: “Digital Art and Culture and the Humanities: Challenges and Opportunities,”. December 15, 2009
“Digital Humanities: New Directions":. December 15, 2009
“Writing Machines". December 15, 2009
Comparative Textual Media: Transforming the Humanities in the Postprint Era (Electronic Mediations)
How We Think: Digital Media and Contemporary Technogenesis
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line883
|
__label__wiki
| 0.592838
| 0.592838
|
Using music and creativity to aid recovery
Liverpool Philharmonic and Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust have been working in partnership for 10 years, delivering programmes in Mersey Care in-patient settings and the local community, targeted at service users, their families, carers and Trust staff.
The programme supports people in Liverpool and the wider city region living with a range of mental health needs and over the 10 years 10,000 service users and their families and carers have participated.
The programme creates pathways and progression routes including independent visits to Liverpool Philharmonic and sign-posting to other activities. We deliver a range of activities within Community settings, including Mersey Care’s expanding Life Rooms facilities.
"There are methods other than medication, to help people living with mental health problems. We know the music programme is working, the service users tell us it’s working and it’s making a difference. People with poor mental health lose their social networks and through creative projects we can help them recreate these and build new ones as part of their recovery. Being socially active and culturally engaged creates new lease of life."
Mersey Care Manager
Sessions and activities include: high quality music making, informal adult learning opportunities, composition and song writing, improvisation, participant-led group performances, visiting musician performances, Recovery College courses including singing and music appreciation, and employability opportunities and skills development. The programme also includes supported concert and rehearsal visits to Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.
"During the long process of recovery, the music sessions have helped me as some kind of anchor I can hold on to."
Service User
A team of Liverpool Philharmonic lead musicians deliver the sessions and a further 50 Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Musicians have been involved with the programme, since 2008.
At the heart of every session is creating a person-centered approach to recovery, using high-quality music as a mechanism of change through self-expression and ownership.
"One of the most memorable sessions I have had, was with someone who had been in and out of services for 40 years. I had gone to the session with another member of the orchestra and we ended-up playing a Beatles song. This gentleman decided to join in and sing with us. He began to cry and get quite emotional, it turns out the song had been played at his mother’s funeral but his emotions had never come out. He had been planning to leave the centre that day, but after that he stayed on. He said that it had helped overcome the tension inside him. He has now been ‘clean’ for three years and credits it to what happened that day."
Case study from Lead Musician
Liverpool Philharmonic staff have played a key role in supporting high-profile anti stigma and advocacy activities in the city, championed by our Chief Conductor, Vasily Petrenko. For example, we took part in the Zero Suicide Alliance Launch at the House of Commons in 2017, supported the Big Brew and other Mental Health Awareness campaigns and have contributed to the All-Party Parliamentary group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing.
In 2017 we launched a five year vision to roll out our programmes across Liverpool City region, also expanding our programme at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. This will include a series of dementia-friendly and relaxed concerts in our Music Room venue.
Over the next five years, we will also develop plans to deliver our ground breaking work in new settings and environments including hospital trusts and community services, young people’s services and additional secure services delivery such as Prisons.
Our aim is that this programme will support the wellbeing and recovery of 10,000 people living with mental health needs, their carers, families and communities, by 2023. The programme will develop confidence, skills and hope for the future, reducing isolation and exclusion of often highly marginalised individuals at very challenging times in their lives.
Read the review outlining the positive impacts of Liverpool Philharmonic’s innovative and far-reaching programme:
For further information contact learning@liverpoolphil.com
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line885
|
__label__wiki
| 0.882899
| 0.882899
|
A life honored
Chrystal Houston, April 23rd, 2010
On April 1, close to 700 people in electric blue tee shirts enjoyed a concert from country crooner Granger Smith ’02 at the Wolf Pen Creek amphitheater in College Station. But neither the tee shirts nor the concert were about Smith—the crowd gathered to celebrate one of Mays’ most beloved figures, Jeff Conant, professor of marketing, who was lost to illness in June 2009. The “Project Conant” tee shirts were part of a fund raising effort that netted approximately $10,000 to be added to a scholarship fund set up in Conant’s name.
Students and friends listen to country singer Granger Smith ’02 at a concert benefiting the Project Conant scholarship fund. (view more concert photos)
Janet Parish, clinical associate professor and assistant marketing department head, was one of the key organizers of the concert, which was hosted by Team Conant (a group of his family, former students, and close colleagues). She estimates that 1,000 shirts were sold. While the total donation amount is not fully tallied, expectations are that the fund will reach its $30,000 mark, creating the largest endowed scholarship in the Department of Marketing. There was more than $12,000 already in the fund when Team Conant began their effort. Donations are still being accepted.
Parish imagines that Conant would be very pleased by the scholarship, as he was an enthusiastic educator with a passion for his students. When he took the StrengthsFinders assessment, one of his high scoring areas was “developing others.” She says, “He always liked looking for the best in others and encouraging others.”
The concert was the culmination of events honoring the late professor. Earlier in the day, a ceremony and reception were held as the Dr. Jeffrey S. Conant Behavioral Research Lab was dedicated in the Wehner Building. The lab is a fitting tribute to Conant, said Bala Shetty, executive associate dean and Letbetter Chair in Business, as its creation was Conant’s brainchild. It has been in use since August 2007. “Jeff vigorously advocated for a behavioral lab,” he said, noting that while space in the building was at a premium, Conant successfully argued for the college-wide benefits of the research facility, which he loved to tell people was “one of the best, probably the best behavioral research lab in the country.”
Assistant Professors Kelly Haws and Karen Winterich have been the faculty members most heavily involved in research in the lab. They relayed Conant’s attention to detail in its creation, and his enthusiasm for all that went on there. “He took it upon himself to personally ensure that everything needed for state-of-the-art research was firmly in place,” said Winterich. “He cared about making this a great resource.”
Carol Conant, wife of the late Dr. Jeff Conant, and Mays Dean Jerry Strawser ’83 formally dedicate the Jeffrey S. Conant Behavioral Research Lab at Mays Business School. (view more dedication photos)
Haws says the lab is significant: “We think it’s destined to play a major role in enhancing the reputation of the marketing department at Mays and the university as a whole for scholarly research.”
Stephen McGee ’07, a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, was one of Conant’s MS in Marketing students last year. Speaking at the dedication, he remembered the faculty member fondly, saying that he was one of the best men and best teachers he’s ever known. “Dr. Conant had a passion to make students better. He wanted to, as he put it, take them out of their comfort zone.”
Brandon Coleman, Jr. ’78, a graduate and a supporter of the marketing department, echoed McGee, recalling what an upstanding man Conant was in life. To honor his friend, Coleman will provide the funding for the first student to receive the Conant memorial scholarship this fall.
Mays Dean Jerry Strawser remembered that Conant was very involved in the A&M Center for Teaching Excellence, frequently participating in their Faculty Teaching Academy program where faculty shared ideas with each other with the goal of improving their teaching. This group has chosen to honor Conant in that they have announced that the 2010-2011 Faculty Teaching Academy will be presented in his honor.
To give to the scholarship that has been started in Conant’s name, go to givenow.tamu.edu. Choose “Mays Business School” from the first pull-down menu; then “College of Business Administration General Scholarships” in the second pull-down menu. In the “Special Instructions and Comments” box, type in “Jeffrey S. Conant Memorial Scholarship.”
Categories: Faculty, Featured Stories, Students
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line894
|
__label__wiki
| 0.738729
| 0.738729
|
Posts Tagged ‘petition for mandamus’
Will the Judges In the Eleventh Circuit Lie to Protect Judge Graham?
Will the Eleventh Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeal lie to protect Judge Donald L. Graham? The answer is a resounding yes.
Judge Donald L. Graham
Lying About Appellate Review Of Judge Graham’s Disqualification The lie told by the Eleventh Circuit is really quite simple. As set forth below in Case No. 01-13664, the Eleventh Circuit declined to review the issue of whether Judge Graham should have disqualified or not due to alleged misconduct in their decision of October 16, 2002. However, sometime in early 2005, Marcellus Mason subsequently filed a petition for mandamus seeking appellate review as to whether or not Judge Graham should have disqualified due to alleged misconduct. On March 16, 2005, Case No. 05-10623, pg. 2, the Eleventh Circuit promptly lied by explicitly suggesting that they had reviewed this matter. This is dishonesty of the highest magnitude. Case No. 01-13664
In an unpublished opinion, [Case No. 01-13664] the Eleventh Circuit, Judges Stanley F. Birch, Jr., Susan H. Black, and Stanley Marcus have expressly stated that allegations of judicial misconduct are not reviewable on appeal. Theses allegations were not tested for veracity they were simply ignored. Specifically, in the opinion rendered on October 16, 2002, Judges Stanley F. Birch, Jr., Susan H. Black, and Stanley Marcus asserted:
“Mason also raises issues that relate to non-sanction matters, e.g., .. the denial of his motions to disqualify the district court and magistrate judges…”
See Opinion, page 10. This is the sum total of appellate review as to whether Judge Donald L. Graham should have been disqualified due to misconduct. There is absolutely no discussion as to whether the allegations of misconduct are true or not.
Eleventh Circuit Case No. 05-10623
On March 16, 2005, Case No. 05-10623, pg. 2, the Eleventh Circuit and Judge Rosemary Barkett asserted the following:
In this case, Mason is not entitled to the recusal of Judge Graham because final judgment has been entered in his employment discrimination case, and he raised Judge Graham’s denial of his recusal motion on appeal.
This is a classical example of how a half- truth can be a lie because it is misleading. Mason did raise the issue of Judge Graham’s failure to disqualify (Case No. 01-13664), however, as fully set forth and documented above, the Eleventh Circuit refused to review this issue or to test the veracity of the allegations of misconduct and abuse by Judge Graham which Mason had asserted in his brief.
Tags:allegations of misconduct, Appellate Review, dishonesty, Disqualification, Eleventh Circuit, final judgment, Judge Donald L. Graham, Judge Rosemary Barkett, Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., Judge Stanley Marcus, Judge Susan H. Black, lie, magistrate judge, mandamus, misconduct, motions to disqualify, petition for mandamus, protect, U.S. Court of Appeal
Posted in Appeal, Eleventh Circuit, Evading Issues and Outcome, Judge Donald L. Graham, Judicial Misconduct, Lying, nonpublication, U.S. Court of Appeal, Unpublished | Leave a Comment »
Are Allegations of Misconduct Reviewable on Appeal?
“If, for example, a precedent is cited, and the other side then offers a distinction, and the judges on the panel cannot think of a good answer to the distinction, but nevertheless, for some extraneous reason, wish to reject it, they can easily do so through the device of an abbreviated, unpublished opinion, and no one will ever be the wiser. (I don’t say that judges are actually doing this–only that the temptation exists.) Or if, after hearing argument, a judge in conference thinks that a certain decision should be reached, but also believes that the decision is hard to justify under the law, he or she can achieve the result, assuming agreement by the other members of the panel, by deciding the case in an unpublished opinion and sweeping the difficulties under the rug. Again, I’m not saying that this has ever occurred in any particular case, but a system that encourages this sort of behavior, or is at least open to it, has to be subject to question in any world in which judges are human beings.” 1 J. App. Prac. & Process 219 (1999). UNPUBLISHED OPINIONS: A COMMENT, Richard S. Arnold, Copyright © 1999 University of Arkansas – Little Rock School of Law ; Richard S. Arnold
The Meaningless Appeal
Marcellus Mason filed appellate briefs with the Eleventh Circuit, U.S. Court of Appeals, in two separate cases, 01-13364 and 01-15754, accusing U.S. Dist. Judge Donald L. Graham of the following misconduct and mismanagement:
Lying and intentionally misrepresenting the law.
Refusing to rule on a motion for a preliminary injunction that had been pending for about 19 months.
Usurping legal authority by allowing a Federal Magistrate Judge, Frank Lynch Jr., to render an injunction in clear violation of law and 28 U.S.C. § 636 (b)(1)(A) which clearly states:
Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary-(A) a judge may designate a magistrate judge to hear and determine any pretrial matter pending before the court except a motion for injunction relief,…”
Usurping legal authority by allowing a Federal Magistrate Judge, Frank Lynch Jr., to render an injunction to prohibit lawful and protected out of court communication between a citizen and his government.
Usurping legal authority by allowing a Federal Magistrate Judge, Frank Lynch Jr., to render an injunction placing restrictions on how public records are accessed under the Florida Public Records Act that the State of Florida does not allow. Judge Graham has refused to state where a federal judge gets the legal authority to administer public records under the Florida Public Records Act.
Allowing scores of significant pre-trial motions to go undecided for months without taking any action.
Involved in possible criminal behavior by issuing a void sua sponte pre-filing injunction or vexatious litigant injunction which ultimately formed the basis of a criminal contempt complaint and conviction. See Framing An Innocent Person.
Similarly, a petition for mandamus [Case No. 01-15754] was submitted to the Eleventh Circuit on or about October 2, 2001. This petition accused Judge Graham of misconduct. The Eleventh Circuit, Judges Rosemary Barkett, Jr., Susan H. Black, and Stanley Marcus, simply ignored the allegations of misconduct by stating only the following in a one sentence unpublished “opinion” :
The ” petition for writ of mandamus and petition for writ of prohibition” is DENIED.
mmason.freeshell.org/15754/mandamus_denied.pdf .
Case No. 01-13664 Appellant’s Brief
Case No. 01-15754 Mandamus Petition
Tags:allegations of misconduct, Appellate Review, clear violation, complaint, conviction, criminal contempt, Eleventh Circuit, Federal Magistrate Judge, Florida Public Records Act, framing, Frank Lynch Jr., injunction, intentionally misrepresenting the law, Judge Donald L. Graham, Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., Judicial Misconduct, Lying, misconduct, Mismanagement, motions to disqualify, petition for mandamus, pre-filing injunction, prohibit, Stanley Marcus, sua sponte, Susan H. Black, U.S. Court of Appeals, U.S.C. § 636 (b)(1)(A), Usurping legal authority, Vexatious Litigant, void
Posted in Appeal, Constitutional Law, Constitutional Rights, Criminal Acts, Due Process, Eleventh Circuit, Evading Issues and Outcome, first amendment, Judge Donald L. Graham, Judicial Misconduct, Junk and Absurd Law, Lying, nonpublication, U.S. Court of Appeal, Unpublished | 2 Comments »
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line896
|
__label__wiki
| 0.55601
| 0.55601
|
Kerfuffle Wading: On Liberal Fascism’s sadly missing chapter
Posted on January 8, 2008 by medievalkarl
I probably shouldn’t wade into the kerfuffle with Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism (well treated at Sadly No, here and here. EDIT More seriously, see here), but here I go with a medievalist intervention, deferring responsibility for doing what I should not do by saying, with Dietrich, that I can’t help it.
I quote the following from a recent interview between Goldberg and Theodore Beale
Beale: You know, Guerri says the reason the Fascist regime was less dramatic than the German and Soviet regimes was because Italians were weak Catholics. So when they replaced their religion with the secular religion, they became weak Fascists as well.
Goldberg: I think that’s right. Michael Ledeen has many detractors when it comes to contemporary politics, but he was a very serious scholar of Italian Fascism in his previous career. One of the things that first got me interested in this topic was over ten years ago when Ledeen gave a talk at AEI. It was very interesting and at the end, a buddy of mine turned to me and said: “I think what he is saying is that Nazism was really bad because they had the Black Forest and terrible weather, and Italian Fascism wasn’t that bad because the Italians are a bunch of nice people.” That’s a really grotesque way to put it, and yet there’s a certain truth there. These sorts of isms are going to bring out the character of a people. No idea so sets fire to the minds of men that it erases their culture, their background, or their fundamental psychological understanding of the world. Certainly not on a mass scale.
Beale: It’s very Eddie Izzard: “We are all Fascists now…. ciao!”
Goldberg: There’s a story that Ledeen tells about a restaurant. One of the things that Mussolini did in this very Jamesian way was to declare all of these domestic policy wars, these moral equivalents of war. There was the Battle of the Grains and the Battle of the Births, and one of them was the Battle of the Flies, because there was so much disease going around Italy back then. Anyhow, this guy goes into a restaurant and sees there’s flies all over the place, so he asks what’s going on with the war against them. The waiter says “well, the flies won.” That’s a very Italian perspective. One of the things I learned while writing the book is that there’s this glib association of fascism with anti-semitism, and while one can’t say that the Italians were completely blameless in that regard, at the end of the day, anti-semitism was just completely contrary to Italian history and culture. Italy was polyglot, multi-ethnic and Catholic, so whatever anti-semitism was there was theological, not biological; the Catholic Church’s position was that Jews could be saved, not that they should be eradicated like vermin. I wanted to do an entire chapter on this but it was just too far afield. The heroism and decency of thousands upon thousands of Italians when it came to the Jews is one of the incredibly untold stories of that era. Anti-semitism and Italian Fascism are just not kindred phenomena.
There’s too much to deal with here. For instance: Italy, being a Catholic country (or people? I suppose in this case one means the other, except for the “multi-ethnic” part), did not practice a virulently antisemitic fascism because of Catholicism’s policy on Jews (rooted in Augustine’s commentary on Psalms 58:12); Italians did not become serious fascists because they were weak Catholics. So, did Catholicism guide them in its strength or its weakness? Or both?
As for polyglot, multi-ethnic, Catholic countries and their tolerance towards Jews…well, there’s medieval London, which would fit the criteria, were it not for the pogrom during Richard I’s coronation, and/or twentieth-century France, except for its complicity in the Holocaust. Even with his conceptual mistakes, Goldberg can still wonder why antisemitism didn’t take root as intensely in Italy as it did in Northern Europe. He might have started his wondering by reading Gavin Langmuir’s “L’absence d’accusation de meurtre ritual à l’ouest du Rhône” (in Juifs et judaisme de Languedoc. Cahiers de Fanjeaux 12. Toulouse, 1977, 235-49) and perhaps he would wondered whether to be convinced by the several possibilities Langmuir offers (perhaps, to cite my notes, the earlier development of credit and commerce in Southern Europe made Jews less distinct, or religious belief played a different role in these societies that were more Romanized, or there’s some kind an inverse relationship between clerical activity and popular hostility, or perhaps heretics were the real bogeymen in S. Europe).
I do wish, however, that Goldberg had written the chapter he claims was “too far afield.” Perhaps he would have ran across some information of use on medieval Italian Jews and how they helped form the Italian national character (more on that below). He could have started with Ariel Toaff’s Love, Work, and Death: Jewish Life in Medieval Umbria (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1996). He might have discovered the racism used against Pope Anacletus II (discussed in Mary Stroll’s The Jewish Pope: Ideology and Politics in the Papal Schism of 1130, 1987), and perhaps have found something similar to his own racist noise against Obama.
Had he done his research (not really his habit), he would have discovered in any number of sources that in fact it generally was better to be Jewish in Rome than in Cologne, Rouen, London, or York, that is, so long as one wasn’t being compelled to race during Carnival and be stoned by Christians (see Stallybrass and White, Politics and Poetry 53). Or so long as one wasn’t an old man rolled down a hill in a spiked barrel (I found reference to this tradition in Claudine Fabre-Vassas The Singular Beast: Jews, Christians, and the Pig, Carol Volk trans., Columbia UP, 162, and, in my effort to confirm it just now, in the online Medici Archive Project:
The “palio degli ebrei” or “race of the Jews” in the Corso had a long and peculiar history of its own predating the Counter Reformation by several centuries. At one point, Christian “jockeys” in the race rode Jews instead of horses. Another festive “game” of the season was to roll a Jew in a nailed barrel down the Testaccio Hill. By the mid-sixteenth century, there are accounts of the Pope personally watching “races of barbarians, buffaloes, donkeys and Jews,” from the balcony of Palazzo Venezia (where four centuries later Mussolini made his most famous public appearances.) By the 1580s, the Jews are known to have run the race naked; later, they evidently began to assume elaborate costumes, thereby reversing the originally humiliating intention of the event. In 1668, Pope Clement IX Rospigliosi abolished the “palio degli ebrei”, substituting an annual tax of 300 scudi for the festive decoration of the street and a stylized ceremony of homage to the Pope on the Capitoline Hill.
(for the transmutation of the old Jew to pig, see here)). Goldberg might also have run across information on the expulsion of Jews from various parts of Italy in the Middle Ages and afterwards: Sicily (depending on my notes) in either 1492 or 1493 and Naples in 1541, and the forced conversions in Southern Italy in 1290. Perhaps he would have found something on the Jewish ghetto of Venice (and how Napoleon ended it). This is all pretty lugubrious stuff (especially when one needs a murderous tyrant to break down the gates), but all to the point on the so-called national character of Italians.
Or “Italians.” I put the nation in the quotation marks in hope of responses to my invitation. Let my readers and co-bloggers, if they have anything handy, provide something less woeful about Italian Jews, something that might point us towards a discovering of intermingling, interdependent Jewish and Christian culture in Italy, medieval or otherwise, perhaps something like this, perhaps something less hostile even. And perhaps if we can come up with some thought on that we can help, at least in our fantasies, to lead Goldberg away from the poisonous invocation of “biology.”
This entry was posted in Book Reviews, MedievalBlog and tagged Antisemitism, Jews, Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, racism by medievalkarl. Bookmark the permalink.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line898
|
__label__cc
| 0.739297
| 0.260703
|
You may not always get the opportunity to physically sit down with someone who is skilled in the art of reading the cards, or perhaps afford to pay for regular readings, so here at Lotus Tarot we aim to provide you with a little guidance and easy and convenient access to information. Hopefully, this will bring you some pleasure, as well as insights and hope for the future.
"Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, 'These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.' And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, 'I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.' And he came out that very hour. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities (Acts 16:16-19, NKJV).
Additional Tarot Definitions are still available. For those of you who have studied tarot yourself or are simply after further detailed analysis of each card. The wonderful soul Avia Venefica from Tarot Teachings has graciously donated her interpretations. All brought to life by the exquisite tarot cards provided by Aquatic Tarot and Ciro Marchetti
14. You feel the presence of Spirits – You sense that there *could* be a spirit, but you’re not sure. Maybe you feel like someone is watching you, but it’s just you and Fido hanging out, snacking on popcorn and watching Game of Thrones. You may feel a sudden wave of emotion, such as sadness or anxiety associated with the presence. (clairsentience)
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you.
A series of mediumistic séances known as the Scole Experiment took place between 1993 and 1998 in the presence of the researchers David Fontana, Arthur Ellison and Montague Keen. This has produced photographs, audio recordings and physical objects which appeared in the dark séance room (known as apports).[185] A criticism of the experiment was that it was flawed because it did not rule out the possibility of fraud. The skeptical investigator Brian Dunning wrote the Scole experiments fail in many ways. The séances were held in the basement of two of the mediums, only total darkness was allowed with no night vision apparatus as it might "frighten the spirits away". The box containing the film was not examined and could easily have been accessible to fraud. And finally, even though many years have passed, there has been no follow-up, no further research by any credible agency or published accounts.[185]
Now that I’ve explained a bit about Psychics and Mediums…I am a SPIRITUAL Medium. I am a Medium aligned with the Holy Spirit, a dedicated person doing work with the intention of achieving the greater good. Most of us never become famous. But the highest reward for this work comes to us on a soul level. Sure, we have bills to pay. But bringing hope and closure to people and giving them peace lifts us higher than money possibly could.
Just because spirits can come to me doesn’t mean they are in control — I am. I wasn’t so disciplined at the beginning, but then I was more inexperienced and possibly a little naïve. As an example, I do remember one time when I was at a party where no one knew me. I was mingling with the guests when a young man walked in and pushed past me to get a drink.
Magicians have a long history of exposing the fraudulent methods of mediumship. Early debunkers included Chung Ling Soo, Henry Evans and Julien Proskauer.[59] Later magicians to reveal fraud were Joseph Dunninger, Harry Houdini and Joseph Rinn. Rose Mackenberg, a private investigator who worked with Houdini during the 1920s, was among the most prominent debunkers of psychic fraud during the mid-20th century.[60]
Thus, I am able to tap into the soul of who you are, as this soul resides within the physical body that you call yourself to be whatever earth dimension name you have gifted yourself for this Life Experience, and by tapping into this, I can gift you the reading or clear channel of healing for whatever it is that your soul and your spirit guides wish for you to know. This can be based upon a question that you ask of me, or me simply just tuning in to you on a soulful resonance. I am free from needing to speak with you or see you physically in your human form person to be able to do this and be this as this occurs on a soulful resonance. Yes, there is an energy to it, a spiritual energy of connection on a soulful resonance, tapping into the soul of which the physical body resides in, the two BEing as One.
After drawing your cards, revisit your initial question to ensure that it has been addressed properly. A good tarot guide can help you interpret the images you see on the tarot cards, but there’s really no substitute for personal reflection. As with any skill, practice makes perfect, so use this tarot tool often (daily, if possible), or order a set of Astrology Answers Master Deck Tarot Cards and practice at home!
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line899
|
__label__wiki
| 0.890934
| 0.890934
|
Heroic teenager rescues 55 orphans from aftermath of Nepal earthquake
Nicholas ReillySaturday 2 May 2015 3:56 pm
Ishwor Ghimire rescued 55 orphans
This is Ishwor Ghimire, and he’s been hailed as a hero, after leading 55 orphans to safety in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake.
The 19-year-old was having lunch at the Nepal Deprived Women and Children Upliftment Centre Orphanage in Kathmandu, shortly before the earthquake struck the capital last Saturday.
But as the earthquake began, he immediately gathered all 55 and led them to safety, while personally carrying the younger children.
Speaking to MIC, he explained: ‘All the kids were so panicked and started screaming and crying.
These 55 orphans were rescued by Ishwor Ghimire
‘I asked everybody to get out from the building. The earth was still shaking but I was running here and there to rescue all the kids and take them to the safety place’.
And once out, Ghimire helped to construct a small, plastic tent in a nearby garden, to act as temporary shelter.
But perhaps most remarkably, Ghimire was visiting the orphanage because he grew up there, before receiving a scholarship to study at Pulteney Grammar School in Adelaide, Australia last year.
Shelter was set up for the orphans
He had returned to mentor children at the orphanage, and Pulteney Grammar School is now raising funds to rebuild the orphanage.
The death toll of the earthquake, which is worst Nepal has seen in more than 80 years, has now surpassed 6,000.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line902
|
__label__wiki
| 0.82677
| 0.82677
|
Published on Mises Institute (https://mises.org)
The Horrors of Communist China
May 1, 2017 - 12:57 PMLlewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. [1]
Big Government [2]World History [3]
It's a scandal that few Westerners are even aware, or, if they are aware, they are not conscious, of the bloody reality that prevailed in China between the years 1949 and 1976, the years of communist rule by Mao Zedong.
How many died as a result of persecutions and the policies of Mao? Perhaps you care to guess? Many people over the years have attempted to guess. But they have always underestimated. As more data rolled in during the 1980s and 1990s, and specialists have devoted themselves to investigations and estimates, the figures have become ever more reliable. And yet they remain imprecise. What kind of error term are we talking about? It could be as low as 40 million. It could be as high as 100 million or more. In the Great Leap Forward from 1959 to 1961 alone, figures range between 20 million to 75 million. In the period before, 20 million. In the period after, tens of millions more.
As scholars in the area of mass death point out, most of us can't imagine 100 dead or 1000. Above that, we are just talking about statistics: they have no conceptual meaning for us, and it becomes a numbers game that distracts us from the horror itself. And there is only so much ghastly information that our brains can absorb, only so much blood we can imagine. And yet there is more to why China's communist experiment remains a hidden fact: it makes a decisive case against government power, one even more compelling than the cases of Russia or Germany in the 20th century.
The horror was foreshadowed in a bloody civil war following the Second World War. After some nine million people died, the communists emerged victorious in 1949, with Mao as the ruler. The land of Lao-Tzu (rhyme, rhythm, peace), Taoism (compassion, moderation, humility), and Confucianism (piety, social harmony, individual development) was seized by the strangest import to China ever: Marxism from Germany via Russia. It was an ideology that denied all logic, experience, economic law, property rights, and limits on the power of the state on grounds that these notions were merely bourgeois prejudices, and what we needed to transformed society was a cadre with all power to transform all things.
It's bizarre to think about it, really: posters of Marx and Lenin in China, of all places, and rule by an ideology of robbery, dictatorship, and death that did not come to an end until 1976. So spectacular has the transformation been in the last 25 years that one would hardly know that any of this ever happened, except that the Communist Party is still running the place while having tossed out the communist part.
The experiment began in the most bloody way possible following the second world war, when all Western eyes were focused on matters at home and, to the extent there was any foreign focus, it was on Russia. The "good guys" had won the war in China, or so we were led to believe in times when communism was the fashion.
The communization of China took place in the usual three stages: purge, plan, and scapegoat. First there was the purge to bring about communism. There were guerillas to kill and land to nationalize. The churches had to be destroyed. The counterrevolutionaries had to be put down. The violence began in the country and spread later to the cities. All peasants were first divided into four classes that were considered politically acceptable: poor, semi poor, average, and rich. Everyone else was considered a landowner and targeted for elimination. If no landowners could be found, the "rich" were often included in this group. The demonized class was ferreted out in a country-wide series of "bitterness meetings" in which people turned in their neighbors for owning property and being politically disloyal. Those who were so deemed were immediately executed along with those who sympathized with them.
The rule was that there had to be at least one person killed per village. The numbers killed is estimated to be between one and five million. In addition, another four to six million landowners were slaughtered for the crime of being capital owners. If anyone was suspected of hiding wealth, he or she was tortured with hot irons to confess. The families of the killed were then tortured and the graves of their ancestors looted and pillaged. What happened to the land? It was divided into tiny plots and distributed among the remaining peasants.
Then the campaign moved to the cities. The political motivations here were at the forefront, but there were also behavioral controls. Anyone who was suspected of involvement in prostitution, gambling, tax evasion, lying, fraud, opium dealing, or telling state secrets was executed as a "bandit." Official estimates put the number of dead at two million with another two million going to prison to die. Resident committees of political loyalists watched every move. A nighttime visit to another person was immediately reported and the parties involved jailed or killed. The cells in the prisons themselves grew ever smaller, with one person living in a space of about 14 inches. Some prisoners were worked to death, and anyone involved in a revolt was herded with collaborators and they were all burned.
There was industry in the cities, but those who owned and managed them were subjected to ever tighter restrictions: forced transparency, constant scrutiny, crippling taxes, and pressure to offer up their businesses for collectivization. There were many suicides among the small- and medium-sized business owners who saw the writing on the wall. Joining the party provided only temporary respite, since 1955 began the campaign against hidden counterrevolutionaries in the party itself. A principle here was that one in ten party members was a secret traitor.
As the rivers of blood rose ever higher, Mao brought about the Hundred Flowers Campaign in two months of 1957, the legacy of which is the phrase we often hear: "Let a hundred flowers bloom." People were encouraged to speak freely and give their point of view, an opportunity that was very tempting for intellectuals. The liberalization was short lived. In fact, it was a trick. All those who spoke out against what was happening to China were rounded up and imprisoned, perhaps between 400,000 and 700,000 people, including 10 percent of the well-educated classes. Others were branded as right wingers and subjected to interrogation, reeducation, kicked out of their homes, and shunned.
But this was nothing compared with phase two, which was one of history's great central planning catastrophes. Following collectivization of land, Mao decided to go further to dictate to the peasants what they would grow, how they would grow it, and where they would ship it, or whether they would grow anything at all as versus plunge into industry. This would become the Great Leap Forward that would generate history's most deadly famine. Peasants were grouped into groups of thousands and forced to share all things. All groups were to be economically self-sufficient. Production goals were raised ever higher.
People were moved by the hundreds of thousands from where production was high to where it was low, as a means of boosting production. They were moved too from agriculture to industry. There was a massive campaign to collect tools and transform them into industrial skill. As a means of showing hope for the future, collectives were encouraged to have huge banquets and eat everything, especially meat. This was a way of showing one's belief that the next year's harvest would be even more bountiful.
Mao had this idea that he knew how to grow grain. He proclaimed that "seeds are happiest when growing together" and so seeds were sown at five to ten times their usual density. Plants died, the soil dried out, and the salt rose to the surface. To keep birds from eating grain, sparrows were wiped out, which vastly increased the number of parasites. Erosion and flooding became endemic. Tea plantations were turned to rice fields, on grounds that tea was decadent and capitalistic. Hydraulic equipment built to service the new collective farms didn't work and lacked any replacement parts. This led Mao to put new emphasis on industry, which was forced to appear in the same areas as agriculture, leading to ever more chaos. Workers were drafted from one sector to another, and mandatory cuts in some sectors was balanced by mandatory high quotas in another.
In 1957, the disaster was everywhere. Workers were growing too weak even to harvest their meager crops, so they died watching the rice rot. Industry churned and churned but produced nothing of any use. The government responded by telling people that fat and proteins were unnecessary. But the famine couldn't be denied. The black-market price of rice rose 20 to 30 times. Because trade had been forbidden between collectives (self-sufficiency, you know), millions were left to starve. By 1960, the death rate soared from 15 percent to 68 percent, and the birth rate plummeted. Anyone caught hoarding grain was shot. Peasants found with the smallest amount were imprisoned. Fires were banned. Funerals were prohibited as wasteful.
Villagers who tried to flee the countryside to the city were shot at the gates. Deaths from hunger reached 50 percent in some villages. Survivors boiled grass and bark to make soup and wandered the roads looking for food. Sometimes they banded together and raided houses looking for ground maize. Women were unable to conceive because of malnutrition. People in work camps were used for food experiments that led to sickness and death.
How bad did it get? In 1968 an 18-year-old member of the Red Guard, Wei Jingsheng, took refuge with a family in a village of Anhui, and here he lived to write about what he saw:
"We walked along beside the village… Before my eyes, among the weeds, rose up one of the scenes I had been told about, one of the banquets at which the families had swapped children in order to eat them. I could see the worried faces of the families as they chewed the flesh of other people's children. The children who were chasing butterflies in a nearby field seemed to be the reincarnation of the children devoured by their parents. I felt sorry for the children but not as sorry as I felt for their parents. What had made them swallow that human flesh, amidst the tears and grief of others — flesh that they would never have imagined tasting, even in their worst nightmares?"
The author of this passage was jailed as a traitor but his status protected him from death and he was finally released in 1997.
How many people died in the famine of 1959–61? The low range is 20 million. The high range is 43 million. Finally in 1961, the government gave in and permitted food imports, but it was too little and too late. Some peasants were again allowed to grow crops on their own land. A few private workshops were opened. Some markets were permitted. Finally, the famine began to abate and production grew.
But then the third phase came: scapegoating. What had caused the calamity? The official reason was anything but communism, anything but Mao. And so the politically motivated roundup began again, and here we get the very heart of the Culture Revolution. Thousands of camps and detention centers were opened. People sent there died there. In prison, the slightest excuse was used to dispense with people — all to the good, since the prisoners were a drain on the system, so far as those in charge were concerned. The largest penal system ever built was organized in a military fashion, with some camps holding as many as 50,000 people.
There was some sense in which everyone was in prison. Arrests were sweeping and indiscriminate. Everyone had to carry around a copy of Mao's Little Red Book. To question the reason for arrest was itself evidence of disloyalty, since the state was infallible. Once arrested, the safest path was instant and frequent confession. Guards were forbidden from using overt violence, so interrogations would go on for hundreds of hours, and often the prisoner would die during this process. Those named in the confession were then hunted down and rounded up. Once you got through this process, you were sent to a labor camp, where you were graded according to how many hours you could work with little food. You were fed no meat nor given any sugar or oil. Labor prisoners were further controlled by the rationing of the little food they had.
The final phase of this incredible litany of criminality lasted from 1966 to 1976, during which the number killed fell dramatically to "only" one to three million. The government, now tired and in the first stages of demoralization, began to lose control, first within the labor camps and then in the countryside. And it was this weakening that led to the final, and in some ways the most vicious, of the communist periods in China's history.
The first stages of rebellion occurred in the only way permissible: people began to criticize the government for being too soft and too uncommitted to the communist goal. Ironically, this began to appear precisely as moderation became more overt in Russia. Neo-revolutionaries in the Red Guard began to criticize the Chinese communists as "Khrushchev-like reformers." As one writer put it, the guard "rose up against its own government in order to defend it."
During this period, the personality cult of Mao reached it height, with the Little Red Book achieving a mythic status. The Red Guards roamed the country in an attempt to purge the Four Old-Fashioned Things: ideas, culture, customs, and habits. The remaining temples were barricaded. Traditional opera was banned, with all costumes and sets in the Beijing Opera burned. Monks were expelled. The calendar was changed. All Christianity was banned. There were to be no pets such as cats and birds. Humiliation was the order of the day.
Thus was the Red Terror: in the capital city, there were 1,700 deaths and 84,000 people were run out. In other cities such as Shanghai, the figures were worse. A massive party purge began, with hundreds of thousands arrested and many murdered. Artists, writers, teachers, scientists, technicians: all were targets. Pogroms were visited on community after community, with Mao approving at every step as a means of eliminating every possible political rival. But underneath, the government was splintering and cracking, even as it became ever more brutal and totalitarian in its outlook.
Finally in 1976, Mao died. Within a few months, his closest advisers were all imprisoned. And the reform began slowly at first and then at breakneck speed. Civil liberties were restored (comparatively) and the rehabilitations began. Torturers were prosecuted. Economic controls were gradually relaxed. The economy, by virtue of human and private economic initiative, was transformed.
Having read the above, you are now in a tiny elite of people who know anything about the greatest death camp in the history of the world that China became between 1949 and 1976, an experiment in total control unlike anything else in history.
Don't tell me that we've learned anything from history. We don't even know enough about history to learn from it.
Excerpted from The Death Camps of Communist China [4]
Source URL: https://mises.org/wire/horrors-communist-china
[1] https://mises.org/profile/llewellyn-h-rockwell-jr
[2] https://mises.org/topics/big-government
[3] https://mises.org/topics/world-history
[4] https://mises.org/library/death-camp-communist-china
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line907
|
__label__wiki
| 0.691814
| 0.691814
|
HomeInmigracionAP FACT CHECK: Trump plays on immigration myths – Boston.com
AP FACT CHECK: Trump plays on immigration myths – Boston.com
February 8, 2019 mundolatino13 Inmigracion 0
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has long railed against immigration as a scourge on the economy and national security. He’s committed his administration to starting construction on a wall along the Mexican border to stop illegal immigration and asylum seekers, yet he reversed his past policy efforts on restricting legal immigration in this year’s State of the Union address.
Trump managed to accuse immigrants in the country illegally of stealing jobs from American workers, while declaring that the country needs more immigrants because of its economic boom. This argument rested on a series of false stereotypes.
“I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally,” he declared, only to say later, “Working-class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal immigration: reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools, hospitals that are so crowded you can’t get in, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net.”
That’s a slight variation on his drumbeat going back to 2015, when he declared: “They’re taking our jobs, they’re taking our manufacturing jobs, they’re taking our money, they’re killing us.”
The fact is that 75 percent of immigrants arrived legally, according to the Pew Research Center. In general, the entire immigrant population is increasingly better educated than native-born Americans.
They’re more likely to have jobs. They’re less likely to commit violent crimes. They help fuel economic growth. And as a group over time, they’re no more a drain on taxpayers than native-born citizens.
Moreover, for all the attention to the southern border, in recent years immigrants to the U.S. have been more likely to come from Asia than from Mexico.
Three Harvard University economists released a paper in June that looked at immigration in multiple countries and concluded that native-born Americans as a whole wildly overestimate the prevalence of immigrants. These Americans estimated, on average, that legal immigrants made up 36 percent of the U.S. population, more than triple their actual share. They thought that immigrants were less likely to work and more dependent on government aid than immigrants actually are — and these stereotypes made them less supportive of social programs that might aid immigrants.
“We were surprised by how much of a misperception there was about the level of education, income and contribution to society that immigrants give,” said Alberto Alesini, a Harvard economist who co-wrote the paper.
Here are some fundamental myths about U.S. immigration and the economy:
MYTH: VAST NUMBERS OF IMMIGRANTS ARE POURING ACROSS U.S. BORDERS
REALITY: Not really.
The net flow of all migration into the United States in recent years — around 0.3 percent of the total population — is roughly at a long-standing historical average, according to an analysis of government data by Lyman Stone, an economist who studies demographic issues.
“It isn’t rock-bottom, but it isn’t that high either,” Stone said.
Economists say that restricting immigration would probably weaken economic growth. Given today’s lower birth rates in the United States, immigrants are increasingly needed to sustain a level of population growth for the U.S. economy to keep expanding.
Immigrants as a whole do make up a greater percentage of the total U.S. population than they did back in 1970, having grown from less than 5 percent of the population to more than 13 percent now.
But there’s a largely overlooked reason for that: Native-born Americans are having fewer children. The falling birth rate means that immigrants now make up a greater share of the population. In 2030, it’s projected that immigrants will become the primary driver for U.S. population growth, overtaking U.S. births.
MYTH: IMMIGRANTS ARE TAKING AWAY JOBS
REALITY: Many people have firsthand stories of losing a construction bid or an office job to a foreign worker. This happens in an economy as large and diverse as the United States’, where numerous people also lose jobs to native-born Americans.
But employment data suggest that the influx of immigrants helps increase overall hiring for the U.S. economy rather than erode job growth. The trend is clear in the government’s monthly jobs report. The data doesn’t distinguish between immigrants who are in the U.S. legally and illegally.
Nearly 64 percent of immigrants hold jobs, compared with roughly 60 percent of workers born in the United States, according to the Labor Department. Last year, immigrants accounted for roughly 40 percent of the 2.4 million jobs added.
Because a steady growth in the workforce helps the economy expand, economists say fewer immigrants would equal slower growth and fewer jobs. Falling birth rates and the retirement of the vast generation of baby boomers mean fewer people will flow into the workforce in the coming years — a drag on economic growth, which will, in turn, probably limit hiring.
Many economists have noted that adding immigrants would help maintain the flow of workers into the economy and support growth.
MYTH: IMMIGRANTS ARE UNEDUCATED
REALITY: The president has pledged to create an immigration system based on “merit,” thereby implying that the United States is a destination mainly of unskilled and uneducated workers.
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” Trump said at his 2015 campaign kickoff.
But today’s immigrants are more likely to be better educated than Americans. And the country has increasingly become a magnet for foreigners with doctorates and master’s degrees. Sixteen percent of all immigrants who arrived since 2000 hold an advanced degree, compared with 13 percent of the native-born population, according to the Census Bureau.
As of 2017, immigrants who have become citizens are almost twice as likely to hold a doctorate than are native-born U.S. citizens. Foreign-born citizens were more likely to have a doctorate at least as far back as 2000.
And Census records also show that the children of immigrants are more likely to graduate from college than are those of native-born parentage.
This doesn’t mean, of course, that all immigrants are better educated. Such are the disparities within the immigrant population that immigrants as a whole are less likely than native-born Americans to have completed high school. But the trend shows that the United States is increasingly a home for foreigners with graduate degrees and higher earnings.
MYTH: IMMIGRANTS ARE TO BLAME FOR TODAY’S SLUGGISH WAGE GROWTH
REALITY: The weight of the research suggests that immigrants have not suppressed wages.
David Card, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, first studied the issue in 1990 by reviewing the arrival of Cuban migrants in Miami during the 1980 “Mariel boat lift.” This historical rush of immigrants created a natural experiment to measure what then happened to incomes in the local area. He concluded: “The influx appears to have had virtually no effect on the wages or unemployment rates of less-skilled workers.”
Giovanni Peri, an economist at the University of California at Davis, studied immigration into California between 1960 and 2005. He wrote in a 2010 paper that it had “essentially” no effect on wages or employment of native-born workers.
But many people seeking to reduce immigration rely on research from George Borjas, a Harvard economist. His research found that the arrival of Cubans in the Mariel boat lift caused wages to fall for native-born high school dropouts in Miami. Other economists have questioned his methodology.
In addition, Borjas’ findings would apply to a small fraction of U.S. jobholders today, only about 6.2 percent of whom lack a high school degree.
Other explanations for sluggish wage growth go beyond immigration. They include the decline in unionization, an intensified push to maximize corporate profits, growing health insurance costs that supplant wages and the rise of a lower-wage global labor force that in an intertwined worldwide economy can hinder pay growth for Americans.
MYTH: IMMIGRANTS ARE A DRAIN ON TAXPAYERS
REALITY: The National Academy of Sciences explored the costs to taxpayers in 2016. It’s a tricky issue. The federal government runs a budget deficit, which means it spends more than it collects in taxes. This means that, on average, most Americans are a net drain on taxpayers.
All told, the costs imposed by immigrants are about the same as they are for native-born citizens.
“An immigrant and a native-born person with similar characteristics will likely have the same fiscal impact,” the report said.
But the report also examined spending by states and localities, which generally must maintain balanced budgets. Because state and local governments supply most of the money for public schools, immigrants often receive more in benefits than they pay in taxes.
That said, there are longer-term benefits from educating children, who grow into adults who get jobs, buy cars, buy houses and pay taxes and thereby contribute to economic growth. The National Academy found that the net cost from 2011 to 2013 for state and local budgets combined averaged $1,600 a year for a first-generation immigrant. But that figure became a net positive of $1,700 for the second generation and $1,300 for the third.
Immigrant households with children are generally more likely to use welfare programs like food assistance and Medicaid than native-born households, largely because the immigrant families have lower average incomes and larger families, according to the National Academy report.
MYTH: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION LEADS TO VIOLENT CRIME
REALITY: Trump frequently highlights violence by the “savage” MS-13 gang, saying in his speech Tuesday that it operates in at least 20 states and “they almost all come through our southern border.”
He invokes that gang, whose members come predominantly from El Salvador or are U.S. citizens descended from there, to portray immigrants as criminals. Widespread crime makes it harder, of course, to run a business, spend money and engage in the daily transactions that keep an economy humming.
But there is scant evidence that immigrants are perpetuating a crime wave. In a paper published last year, sociologists Michael Light and Ty Miller reviewed crime in every state and the District of Columbia from 1990 to 2014. They found that a rising number of immigrants in the country illegally corresponded with a drop, not a rise, in reported crime.
The authors acknowledged that it’s possible that people who came illegally are less likely to report a crime. But the authors also note that such immigrants overwhelmingly arrived to work, a trend that helps to reduce crime levels. Past research cited in their paper found that 93 percent of the men in the country illegally either have a job or are looking for one.
“At a minimum, the results of our study call into question claims that undocumented immigration increases violent crime,” their paper concluded. “If anything, the data suggest the opposite.”
Find AP Fact Checks at http://apne.ws/2kbx8bd
Follow @APFactCheck on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APFactCheck
immigrants to the U.S. are now more likely to come from Asia than from Mexico or Latin America.
EDITOR’S NOTE _ A look at the veracity of claims by political figures
For immigrants in Boston’s court, the shutdown will reverberate for years – The Boston Globe
Pelea por puesto de estacionamiento acaba en sangre
Watchdog: ICE doesn’t know how many veterans it has deported – NBC News
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “does not know exactly how many veterans have been placed in removal proceedings or removed, or if their cases have been handled according to ICE’s policies,” a federal watchdog report […]
America’s mayors brace for ICE raids: ‘Frankly, we’re in the dark’ – CNN
July 12, 2019 mundolatino13 0
The mayors of the nine cities are speaking out as questions linger about whether city law enforcement will play a part in the raids that the administration has called a method of “deterrence.” The New […]
Russia Uncovers 40000 Year-Old Wolf Head, Preserved in Ice – The Moscow Times
About 40,000 years ago, a wolf died in what we know as Siberia. Now its severed head has been found, and because of the freezing conditions, it is so well preserved that its fur, teeth, […]
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line910
|
__label__wiki
| 0.883208
| 0.883208
|
Celebrities, Muppet Movies Actors, Muppet Movies Cameos, Muppet Puppeteers
Landis with Kermit and Piggy.
Landis, Tim Burton, and many more dozens of puppeteers in the finale shot of The Muppet Movie
John Landis (b. 1950) is a fim director who has helmed such films as The Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Into the Night, and Spies Like Us, and Animal House. In many of these films he has cast Frank Oz in bit roles, and An American Werewolf in London even features a scene from The Muppet Show.
His earliest Muppet connection was as a performer in the finale of The Muppet Movie. In a scene filled with hundreds of Muppets and performers, Landis manipulated Grover.[1]
In 1990, Landis directed the Muppets in Disneyland's 35th Anniversary Celebration.
Landis also made several cameo appearances in Muppet productions; including in The Muppets Take Manhattan as Broadway producer Leonard Winesop, and as himself in the "She Drives Me Crazy" music video and the Muppets 2007 Presentation Pilot.
↑ IGN FilmForce "An Interview with John Landis" by Kenneth Plume, 02/11/04
Retrieved from "https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/John_Landis?oldid=1072424"
Muppet Movies Cameos
Muppet Puppeteers
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line911
|
__label__wiki
| 0.969896
| 0.969896
|
DLA Piper – First Corporate Supporter
Museum of London announce DLA Piper as first corporate supporter for new museum project.
The Museum of London has today announced that global law firm, DLA Piper, has become the first corporate supporter of its New Museum project, one of the biggest cultural projects currently happening anywhere in Europe.
The project will see the Museum of London transform a suite of Victorian and 20th Century market buildings in West Smithfield into a new Museum, fit to tell the story of London and Londoners at the historic heart of the city. At its new home, the Museum will double visitor numbers with more exhibitions and a broader appeal, whilst delivering significant economic and social benefits for London and Londoners.
DLA Piper, whose new London office on Aldersgate will be located minutes away from the Museum’s new home at West Smithfield will become the project’s inaugural Corporate Champion.
The announcement sees DLA Piper become the latest high profile supporter to commit its backing for this transformational project. Last year the Museum announced that the Mayor of London and City of London Corporation would be formally supporting the project, together pledging £180million, alongside a £10m commitment from the Goldsmiths’ Company and its affiliated Charity.
Sharon Ament, Director of the Museum of London, said of the partnership:
“DLA Piper is a leader in its field, with a global reach, and also shares with us a real passion for London, so it is fantastic that the firm has become the New Museum’s first corporate supporter. This is a wonderful commitment to the future of this great city and its people and DLA Piper’s support for our vision will become a model for other major businesses and organisations to get involved with this truly transformational project.”
Simon Levine, Global Co-CEO at DLA Piper, commented:
“At the heart of our global business is a commitment to innovation and a culture of diversity and inclusion which perfectly chimes with the values and ambitions of the new Museum of London. The firm has been a corporate supporter of the Museum of London for many years, and the New Museum, just a short stroll from DLA Piper’s new London office at 160 Aldersgate, marks an important cultural milestone for our own people as well as the city as a whole.”
Catherine McGuinness, Policy Chairman at the City of London Corporation, said:
“My colleagues and I send our sincere thanks to DLA Piper for its significant investment in the New Museum of London. A leading City firm and now, firmly established as the first corporate sponsor of the New Museum, DLA Piper should take pride in its contribution towards this landmark building in Culture Mile.”
The Museum’s new home will help it meet key operational objectives such as the expansion of its educational programmes and improvement of its back-office facilities. The Museum of London will begin a comprehensive programme of engagement with Londoners on initial concepts for the West Smithfield site in the autumn. Its aspirations are to achieve a successful planning consent in 2020, to start construction in 2021.
The Goldsmiths’ Company Pledges £10M
£15M Announced for New Museum of London
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line912
|
__label__wiki
| 0.899372
| 0.899372
|
County Council makes selections for planning board slots
Neal Earley 2 weeks ago 0 0
An old and new face will be on the Montgomery County Planning Board, after the Montgomery County Council unanimously approved the appointments of Casey Anderson and Partap Verma on June 25.
Anderson, the current chair of the planning board, will be returning for another term and will be joined by Verma, a first-time member.
“I look forward to continuing to work with Chairman Casey Anderson on issues of economic development, smart growth, pedestrian safety, expanded multimodal transportation options and much more,” said Council President Nancy Navarro. “I also welcome Partap Verma to his new position. His fresh approach to planning, innovative ideas and experience in the law, diplomacy and community advocacy will help to shape a more inclusive future of our county.”
Casey Anderson. (Courtesy Photo)
The planning board consists of five members who advise the county council and the county executive on master plans, managing growth and infrastructure. The planning board also helps recommend what sites should receive historical designation and helps manages the county’s park system.
Anderson was first appointed to the planning board in 2011, and has served as its chair since 2014. While Anderson received praise from the council for his work on the board, County Executive Marc Elrich, said he was “not a fan” of Anderson’s, stating that he would like to see the planning board acknowledge the negative impact that some of their plans have had on minority communities in Montgomery County.
While Elrich does not approve of Anderson, he pledged to not veto his appointment.
Councilmember Hans Riemer (D-at large), who chairs the council’s Planning, Housing and Economic Development Committee, credited Anderson’s leadership in several major projects in the county, such as the Purple Line, bus rapid transit and the Bethesda and White Oak master plans.
“Casey has played a central role in just about every major decision we have made about land use, transportation, and our park system,” said Riemer. “He has poured his energy into helping to make Montgomery County both more equitable and more prosperous.”
Both Anderson and Verma spoke during their interviews with the council about the development challenges in the county, such as the dwindling business of brick-and-mortar retail stores, the rising cost of living, the need for better access to transit and racial inequity.
In the last decade, the planning board, along with the council, has worked to create master plans that call for more density and development in areas around mass-transit stops. While some residents have pushed back against the increased population size – which has led to overcrowded schools and more congestion on roads – county officials have contended that their plans for “smart growth” are what will lead to a more-equitable and sustainable county.
Members of the planning board serve staggered four-year terms. In total, 24 people applied for the two open positions, with the council deciding to interview seven. Anderson, who previously worked as a congressional staffer and founded a jury consulting firm, thanked the council for giving him another term.
“I look forward to this work. It’s tremendously challenging, but that’s why it’s worth doing,” Anderson said. “It wouldn’t be the job that I love so much if it didn’t have such tremendous variety.”
Verma worked as an associate counsel on immigration law at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and also has served as an attorney-advisor at the U.S. State Department and as a U.S. diplomat-consular officer in Turkey and India.
He also become the first openly gay and first Indian-American member of the Montgomery County Planning Board, something that Navarro noted when she announced his appointment.
“It wasn’t too long ago I was meeting a lot of you for coffee talking about how we can make Montgomery County more equitable and safe(r) for everyone, and to be here, is really special,” Verma said.
Tags articles breaking news general knowledge Google google map google search headlines latest news local Local News map google Maryland MoCo moco news montgomery county montgomery county news news news headlines news of the day news today newspaper newspaper article newspaper paper politics search stories world news
Neal Earley
Neal Earley is the lead reporter for the Montgomery County Sentinel. He covers the County Council, Rockville, politics, and spot news. Follow him @Neal_Earley.
Maryland Municipal League names Gaithersburg’s Spiegel as new president
A Sentinel Moment in Time: July 4, 2019
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line914
|
__label__wiki
| 0.863909
| 0.863909
|
Watch Movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Movie got problem? Report now!
Indiana Jones, famed adventurer and archaeologist acquires a diary that holds clues and a map with no names to find the mysterious Holy Grail- which was sent from his father, Dr. Henry Jones, in Italy.
Alison DoodyDenholm ElliottHarrison FordSean Connery
ActionAdventure
Ask your friends to Watch Movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Watch this movies too
Always (1989)
Fantasy, Romance
74,533 views.
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)
Action, Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of ...
Action, Adventure, Comedy, Horror, Romance, Semi
American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989)
Recommended Watch Movies
The Bay (2012)
Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Heaven (2002)
Crime, Drama, Romance, Thriller
Raise the Red Lantern (1991)
Drama, History, Romance
Flower and Snake (2004)
Drama, Thriller, Semi
Reign of the Supermen (2019)
Animation, Action, Sci-Fi
A Relative Who Shows (2018)
Semi, Raw
Parasyte: Part 2 (2015)
Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Show All Genre
Please note, the videos on this web obtained from web search on the internet. We do not store the files on the server itself and we just paste those links on our website.
Watch Movie Action Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Adventure Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Alison Doody Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Denholm Elliott Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Harrison Ford Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Sean Connery Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Steven Spielberg Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie USA Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Ganool Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie GOmovies Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie 123Movies Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Fmovies Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Putlocker Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Watchfree Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie CmoviesHD Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie SolarMovie Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Openload Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Streamango Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Google Drive Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Youtube Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie SlingTV Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Twitch Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie NetFlix Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Sony Crackle Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie HBO Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Yidio Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Hulu Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Vudu Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie PlutoTV Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Tubi Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie SnagFilms Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Viewster Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Popcornflix Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Top Documentary Films Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Classic Cinema Online Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Retrovision Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Big Five Glories Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Free Movies Cinema Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Veoh Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Kanopy Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Movies Found Online Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie TheMovieDB Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie IMDB Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Torrent Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Unlimited Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie No Limit Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Direct Link Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Watch Movie Live Streaming Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)
Movie Studio Tycoon | Watch movie streaming for free in our studio tycoon
Copyrights @ 2019, moviestudiotycoon.com
Report movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
Detail Issue
Security: 5 + 9 = ?
Send Issue
Filter Latest Best Rating Most Populer Most Favorite Alphabetically Release Year
Sort Sort Descending Sort Ascending
Genre1
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line919
|
__label__wiki
| 0.535587
| 0.535587
|
Xavier is a limnogeologist based at the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Preventives (National Institute of Preventative Archaeological Research, or INRAP) in Lyon, France. Prior to joining the WTAP in 2010 and refocusing his work on the East African Rift System (EARS) Xavier worked at Lake Baikal in central Asia.
Limnogeology is the study of sediments formed by inland waters (e.g. lakes, ponds, rivers, wetlands), and in West Turkana Xavier’s specific research interest is the sedimentary cyclicity and temporal evolution of lake deposits, which he uses to reconstruct past climatic, tectonic, and environmental changes and how they influenced hominin evolution during the Plio-Pleistocene. His approach involves identifying sequences of ancient lake sediments where they are exposed in the Nachukui Formation and performing detailed sediment analyses to determine the processes and contexts (deep, shallow, endorheic etc) that led to their deposition. As the largest endorheic water body in a desert on earth, Lake Turkana has undergone remarkable changes in size, shape, and hydrology over time, and has played a key role in affecting the environments and locations that were available for hominins to exploit.
What do you like about being in the field in Turkana?
“The inescapable heat, lack of water, and the unexpected incidents that take place, no matter how prepared you are.”
What do you miss when you are in the field?
“When I’m in France I often dream of being in Turkana, and when I’m in Turkana, I dream about being back in France…we always want what we don’t have.”
How would you describe your role in the WTAP team?
“I am a geologist but, in Turkana, I just happen to pass the time searching for drinking water as well!”
For more information about Xavier’s research or to contact him directly, please visit his page on Researchgate
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line920
|
__label__wiki
| 0.856142
| 0.856142
|
Michigan Medicine Headlines> Michigan Medicine News
Michigan Medicine hospitals ranked No. 6 in the country by U.S. News & World Report
August 8, 2017 // FOUND IN: Michigan Medicine News, Top Story
Ranked No. 1 in Michigan and No. 6 in the country, Michigan Medicine’s adult hospitals were recognized among the best in the nation by U.S. News & World Report for 2017-2018.
The annual U.S. News & World Report “Best Hospitals” rankings distinguish hospitals that excel in providing high-quality patient care and treating the most challenging health conditions.
“We are pleased that U.S. News & World Report recognizes the outstanding care we provide,” said Marschall Runge, M.D., Ph.D.
“We appreciate that our values of caring, teamwork, integrity, innovation and excellence are reflected in this ranking as one of the top six hospitals in the nation,” said Runge, who is executive vice president for medical affairs, chief executive officer of Michigan Medicine and dean of the U-M Medical School.
Michigan Medicine has made a commitment to improve outcomes and patient care, which likely led to the improved rankings, said David Spahlinger, M.D., president of the U-M Health System and executive vice dean for clinical affairs of the U-M Medical School.
“Our focus is on continually improving the care we provide,” Spahlinger said. “Having 15 specialty areas noted for excellence is evidence of the breadth of those efforts and recognition of the expertise of our staff and faculty.”
“These rankings validate what everyone here at Michigan Medicine does every day, providing excellent, innovative patient-focused care.”
This is the 25th consecutive year the hospitals and health centers of Michigan Medicine have been nationally recognized by U.S. News & World Report for strong across-the-board performance.
Nine U-M specialty areas rank in the top 10 in the country: Gynecology (No. 3), Otolaryngology (No. 6, 2-way-tie), Pulmonology (No. 6, 2-way-tie), Geriatrics (No. 7), Urology (No. 7), Neurology and Neurosurgery (No. 8), Ophthalmology (No. 8), Gastroenterology and GI surgery (No. 9), and Cardiology and heart surgery (No. 10).
U-M is recognized in 15 of 16 adult specialties. Also receiving impressive rankings: Cancer (No. 12, 3-way-tie), Rheumatology (No. 12), Nephrology (No. 13), Rehabilitation (No. 14), Diabetes and Endocrinology (No. 17) and Orthopaedics (No. 28, 2-way-tie). Only 3 percent, or 152 hospitals out of approximately 4,500, earned even one ranked spot.
“It is an honor to be ranked among the best,” said Jeffrey Desmond, M.D., chief medical officer of Michigan Medicine. “However, the credit goes to our employees, both on the front lines and behind the scenes, it is their compassion and hard work every day which creates the exceptional care we provide.
“We have many strengths here at Michigan Medicine, but it is the people who work here, in every area, which bring those many strengths together to serve our patient’s needs.“
USNWR ranks hospitals on a number of factors including patient safety, clinical resources, quality of care, family centeredness and staff professionalism. Some specialty rankings are also based on hospital reputation, which is determined by surveying more than 125,000 physicians across the country.
Two months ago, Michigan Medicine also received recognition by USNWR for its pediatric hospital — C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Mott was ranked No. 1 in Michigan and was the only hospital in the state ranked in all 10 pediatric specialties.
In spring 2017, USNWR also ranked the U-M Medical School 4th in the nation for training in family medicine, 5th in the nation for training primary care physicians, 6th for training internal medicine physicians, 8th in geriatrics training and 9th in women’s health training. The U-M Medical School also was 9th in the nation for research-based medical schools in its “Best Graduate Schools” ranking.
Nursing quality
Earlier this year, U-M Hospitals and Health Centers earned Magnet status designation. Only 6 percent of U.S. hospitals receive this coveted honor, given to organizations that meet rigorous standards for quality patient care, nursing excellence and innovations in professional nursing practice.
U-M nurses lead innovative quality improvement initiatives, train the next generation of nurses, and provide compassionate, patient-centered care to patients and their families.
“We are all very proud of the excellent work and dedication of our more than 5,000 nurses in caring for our patients and providing leadership in all of our important initiatives,” said Margaret Calarco, Ph.D., RN, NEA-BC, chief nurse executive.
“Our nurses’ achievement in earning Magnet designation signifies their professionalism and commitment to providing the finest care possible to the patients and families we serve. It also reflects our partnership with our U-M Professional Nurse Council and the Michigan Nurses Association. USNWR also considers Magnet status in the rankings of best hospitals.”
To learn more about other U-M clinical care honors, click here.
For detailed data about the safety and quality of care at U-M, far beyond what is available from rating agencies, visit www.uofmhealth.org and www.michiganmedicine.org.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line924
|
__label__wiki
| 0.540508
| 0.540508
|
Your public services are at breaking point. Hear from the people who provide them – and their personal, and often frank stories of the tremendous pressures they face.
Hear their voices. Share their stories. Take a stand for your public services. #momentsoftruth
The lack of funding for public services has, in turn, put the health of its workers at risk – both mentally and physically. Find out just how much damage is being done by watching their personal moments of evidence above.
It affects me every single day
As we lose more and more of our children’s centres and other public services, Lisa fears for her children’s future. As a single mum, she’s felt the blow of government cuts – and now, she wants everyone of us to act.
If we all stick together we can make a change
Florence has been on a zero-hours contract and has had to work 7 days a week to get by. She loves her job and the people she cares for. But now Florence’s health – and the wellbeing of everyone she cares for – is under real strain.
I can’t leave my job because I really love it.
The academy Karen works for is on the verge of closing, putting her at risk of redundancy and jeopardising the education of hundreds of children. Determined to help future generations, Karen wants to raise awareness of the unjust pressure that’s being put on our schools.
It’s not just a job, it’s a vocation, and I think you have to have a specific quality to do that
Since 2002, Miriam has worked at her local Library and helped build a programme of events for the community. Now, impending cuts are set to destroy everything she’s given to this vital neighbourhood resource and the people who depend on it.
The staff are what make the heart and soul of the library. Otherwise, you’ve just got a roomful of books.
Increasing workloads and stress are pushing Wendy and her colleagues to breaking point. She believes change is needed to save our public services and that this needs to start at the top.
I don’t know what needs to change but it’s got to start at the top and work its way down.
When Joyce joined a child abuse unit in the Police force in 2011 there was a team of 15. Now, there are just 5. Joyce is committed to her job, but fears that further cuts will leave the safety of her community hanging in the balance.
I’m a member of the public who needs to see police officers on the streets.
After years of staff cuts and being stretched from managing 1 children’s centre to 5, Anne believes public service workers need a fairer chance to deliver better one-to-one help to the families and children that need them.
I feel very strongly about the pressures that public sector workers and health workers are being put under.
Sophie’s loves the people she meets working in the NHS, but she’s had enough of the government’s lack of support for our health service. Continuous cuts and lack of staff are putting her wellbeing and the treatment and health of patients in jeopardy.
We are not able to provide the care that we need for our patients because we don’t have enough staff
UNISON, UNISON Centre, 130 Euston Road, London NW1 2AY. Telephone: 0800 0 857 857
We use cookies on our website to ensure you find the information you need in the simplest way. By continuing to use our website you are consenting to their use. Find out more about cookies and how we use them.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line925
|
__label__cc
| 0.70776
| 0.29224
|
Obama Occupies Wall Street
By Timothy Noah
President Obama spoke today about economic inequality and the plight of the middle class more forcefully than he ever has before. He gave the speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, site of Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism" speech in 1910. Here's what Obama said:
"Look at the statistics. In the last few decades, the average income of the top one percent has gone up by more than 250 percent, to $1.2 million per year. For the top one hundredth of one percent, the average income is now $27 million per year. The typical CEO who used to earn about 30 times more than his or her workers now earns 110 times more. And yet, over the last decade, the incomes of most Americans have actually fallen by about six percent. This kind of inequality–a level we haven’t seen since the Great Depression–hurts us all. When middle-class families can no longer afford to buy the goods and services that businesses are selling, it drags down the entire economy, from top to bottom. America was built on the idea of broad-based prosperity–that’s why a CEO like Henry Ford made it his mission to pay his workers enough so that they could buy the cars they made. It’s also why a recent study showed that countries with less inequality tend to have stronger and steadier economic growth over the long run."
But wait, there's more:
"We tell people that in this country, even if you’re born with nothing, hard work can get you into the middle class; and that your children will have the chance to do even better than you. That’s why immigrants from around the world flocked to our shores. And yet, over the last few decades, the rungs on the ladder of opportunity have grown farther and farther apart, and the middle class has shrunk. A few years after World War II, a child who was born into poverty had a slightly better than 50-50 chance of becoming middle class as an adult. By 1980, that chance fell to around 40%. And if the trend of rising inequality over the last few decades continues, it’s estimated that a child born today will only have a 1 in 3 chance of making it to the middle class."
Okay, the "if present trends continue" bit is a little bogus, because the president doesn't say when your odds of becoming middle class will drop to 1 in 3. Are we talking five years from now, or 50 years from now? And I was not previously familiar with the statistic that upward mobility into the middle class fell from 50 percent to 40 percent between the late 40s/early 50s and 1980. (I'm told it came from Berkeley's David Card and Alan Krueger, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.) But it's well-established that the rate of upward mobility declined between the 1950s and the 1970s, and the evidence suggests it's declined further since then. Even in the 1950s, Obama might have added, upward mobility was not as great as it was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. (The industrial revolution brought the U.S. more upward mobility and more income-based inequality than we've seen before or since. Today we're experiencing growing income inequality, static-to-shrinking upward mobility, and shrinking upward mobility relative to other advanced industrialized democracies. This will all be in my book.)
Where does this all end up? In a ringing call to restore the top marginal tax rate to what it was under Bill Clinton:
"[W]hen President Clinton first proposed these tax increases, folks in Congress predicted they would kill jobs and lead to another recession. Instead, our economy created nearly 23 million jobs and we eliminated the deficit. Today, the wealthiest Americans are paying the lowest taxes in over half a century. This isn’t like in the early 50s, when the top tax rate was over 90%, or even the early 80s, when it was about 70%. Under President Clinton, the top rate was only about 39%. Today, thanks to loopholes and shelters, a quarter of all millionaires now pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Some billionaires have a tax rate as low as 1%. One percent. This is the height of unfairness. It is wrong that in the United States of America, a teacher or a nurse or a construction worker who earns $50,000 should pay a higher tax rate than somebody pulling in $50 million. It is wrong for Warren Buffett’s secretary to pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. And he agrees with me. So do most Americans–Democrats, Independents, and Republicans. And I know that many of our wealthiest citizens would agree to contribute a little more if it meant reducing the deficit and strengthening the economy that made their success possible."
Also, Obama talked about how the Republicans wouldn't let him install Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau:
"Does anyone here think the problem that led to our financial crisis was too much oversight of mortgage lenders or debt collectors? Of course not. Every day we go without a consumer watchdog in place is another day when a student, or a senior citizen, or member of our Armed Forces could be tricked into a loan they can’t afford–something that happens all the time."
Also, Obama said,
"Too often, we’ve seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there’s no price for being a repeat offender. No more. I’ll be calling for legislation that makes these penalties count–so that firms don’t see punishment for breaking the law as just the price of doing business."
Maybe we should have a presidential election every year, because I much prefer this Obama to the excruciatingly reasonable fellow who's inhabited the White House for the previous three years.
The president will of course get called a pinko, but in fact this speech is much tamer than TR's 1910 speech. Check out the original:
"The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power. The prime need is to change the conditions which enable these men to accumulate power which it is not for the general welfare that they should hold or exercise. [...] We grudge no man a fortune in civil life if it is honorably obtained and well used. It is not even enough that it should have been gained without doing damage to the community. We should permit it to be gained only so long as the gaining represents benefit to the community. This, I know, implies a policy of a far more active governmental interference with social and economic conditions in this country than we have yet had, but I think we have got to face the fact that such an increase in governmental control is now necessary."
Wouldn't it be great to see Obama start talking about "malefactors of great wealth"? Leon Cooperman, the 68 year-old hedge fund manager who can't bear even to hear the president say the word "millionaire" out loud, would squeal like a stuck pig. Too bad!
Timothy Noah, Clinton, Alan Krueger, Osawatomie, David Card, Henry Ford, Theodore Roosevelt, Kansas, White House
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line928
|
__label__wiki
| 0.835352
| 0.835352
|
Foster Farms Chicken Salmonella Sickens 22 People in San Diego
by Staff on October 11, 2013 · 0 comments
in Environment, Health, San Diego
Public health officials are reporting that 22 San Diegans have fallen ill due to the salmonella outbreak from Foster Farms chicken products.
Consumer groups have demanded a recall of the California-produced chicken, but there haven’t been enough federal food inspectors to deal with the problem due to furloughed employees.
County’s Health & Human Services Agency reported to the press that the average number of salmonella cases in the area for this stage in the year is 324. We now have 354 cases.
10News says that “chickens processed at the three California plants may not say Foster Farms on the packaging. They are sold under a variety of names including Ralphs, Safeway, O Organics, Eating Right and Kirkland, among others.”
Editor: the following was an earlier post about the outbreak from this week:
As the government shutdown has furloughed the vast majority of the nation’s public health officials, it may not be any easier to trace the salmonella strain.
By Tara Culp- Ressler / ThinkProgress – Nation of Change / October 9, 2013
On Monday night – Oct. 7, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a public health alert for raw chicken packaged in California. The chicken has been linked to nearly 300 salmonella cases across 18 different states, a widespread outbreak that appears to have begun in March.
According to a spokesperson from the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, investigators have “had a difficult time pinpointing the source of the illnesses.” And now, as the government shutdown has furloughed the vast majority of the nation’s public health officials, it may not be any easier to trace the salmonella strain.
As NBC News reports, the USDA and CDC can’t provide many details about the latest outbreak “because of limited staffing caused by a week-long government shutdown.” So far, the two agencies do know that the chicken in question was packaged at three facilities owned by Foster Farms, the same company that was the source of a different salmonella outbreak earlier this year. They believe it was mainly distributed to outlets in California, Oregon, and Washington state — but they haven’t yet been able to pinpoint the strain to a particular product or a specific time period.
State health officials in California are still able to work, and are encouraging residents to make sure they’re fully cooking their chicken in order to kill potential bacteria. But the CDC, which typically monitors multi-state outbreaks of food poisoning, has been forced to scale back to a “skeletal crew” during the current shutdown. All but two of the CDC’s health officials who typically analyze foodborne pathogens have been furloughed.
For the past week, CDC officials have been pointing out that they don’t have enough staff to continue the agency’s work while the government remains closed. The agency’s director, Dr. Tom Frieden, repeated those warnings on Monday. “Our ability to find, stop and prevent health threats has been cut by two-thirds,” Frieden told Georgia Health News. “The biggest concern is what we don’t know. It’s very difficult to keep operations at full tilt.”
Wired notes that CDC officials couldn’t help track the current salmonella outbreak — which involves analyzing microbes in an attempt to link cases that occurred states apart — even if they wanted to. Scientists have been locked out of their offices, labs, and email accounts.
The current shutdown is already one of the largest and longest in history, and it’s also coinciding with the beginning of flu season — another one of the CDC’s multi-state tracking efforts.
On Tuesday afternoon – Oct. 8 – , CDC officials confirmed that some furloughed staff are coming back to work to help with the salmonella outbreak. Nearly a dozen people who typically work on foodborne analysis and outbreak response are now allowed to do their jobs again. “Now that we’re into our second week, we have to consider the possibility of this being a longer-term shutdown. We’re reevaluating some of the roles,” a CDC spokeswoman explained, saying that the low staffing levels have “come to a head” in the agency’s foodborne illness department. About 9,000 of the CDC’s 13,000 workers remain furloughed.
Older Article: An Introduction to San Diego’s Latest Celebrity Poet — Meet Sunny Rey
Newer Article: Want to Try Herbal Products? 4 Ways to Make Sure You Don’t Get Ripped Off (Or Worse)
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line930
|
__label__wiki
| 0.547803
| 0.547803
|
Home / Work of the Church / News / Headline News /
Metropolitan Tikhon presides at 80th Anniversary of the “Vatra”
GRASS LAKE, MI [OCA]
For 80 years, the Vatra Românească—“vatra” means “hearth” in the Romanian language—has been a gathering point for the faithful of the Orthodox Church in America’s Romanian Episcopate. The Vatra houses the Episcopate’s administrative headquarters, episcopal residence and museum and is the site of numerous programs, retreats, conferences and summer camps. The center of life at the Vatra, however, is the Chapel of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, at the invitation of His Eminence, Archbishop Nathaniel of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate, presided at the celebration of the 80th Anniversary of the Vatra September 6-8, 2018 in conjunction with the Episcopate’s 86th annual Church Congress.
The history of the Vatra is closely tied to the arrival in 1935 of the first Romanian Orthodox bishop in North America—His Grace, Polycarp [Morusca]. Upon his arrival, he found no designated episcopal residence. Soon, however, a group of energetic faithful from Detroit facilitated the purchase of Grey Tower Farm in Grass Lake Township, Jackson County, MI.
On July 3-4, 1938, the property—renamed “Vatra Românească “/“The Romanian Hearth”—was dedicated and a cornerstone was laid for the chapel. Once the ancestral home of the Ottawa and Chippewa Tribes, the site was part of a 1,000 acre holding of the Boland Family, originally from Scotland, who came to the US in 1710 and settled the land on a grant by President Jackson. From Native Americans to Scotch settlers to Romanian Americans, the land has a rich history, and the “Vatra” remains a well-known local landmark.
Metropolitan Tikhon was warmly welcomed upon his arrival at the Vatra on Thursday, September 6. The following day, he addressed the Congress’ plenary session.
“We recently concluded the 19th All-American Council with the theme, ‘For the Life of the World,’” Metropolitan Tikhon observed. “I personally was reinvigorated every day of the Council and encouraged by the lively discussions that took place in the forums and in my one-on-one interactions with the delegates. It was all inspiring and, in a very concrete way, life-giving.
“I was also encouraged by the positive response to the document I had prepared, Of What Life Do We Speak?,” Metropolitan Tikhon continued. “The subtitle to that work is ‘Four Pillars for the Fulfillment of the Apostolic Work of the Church,’ and it was clear to me, especially from the inspiring testimonies offered by each of our dioceses in their video presentations, that this apostolic work is, in fact, already firmly established in our parishes and dioceses…. It is clear to me that we are a Church not only prepared to take up our apostolic work with a renewed zeal, but that in every corner of the Orthodox Church in America that zeal has been encouraged, nurtured and already in bloom.”
Later the same day, the Hawaiian Myrrh Streaming Icon of the Iveron Mother of God arrived at the Vatra, where it remained throughout the anniversary celebration and the services marking the chapel’s patronal feast, the Nativity of the Mother of God, on Friday evening and Saturday morning.
On Saturday, September 8, Metropolitan Tikhon concelebrated the festal Divine Liturgy with Archbishop Nathaniel and His Eminence, Archbishop Michael of New York and New Jersey and His Eminence, Archbishop Benjamin of San Francisco and the West. At the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy, Metropolitan Tikhon awarded the Order of Saint Innocent, Gold Class, to Archbishop Nathaniel “in celebration of over 50 years of ordained service to Jesus Christ, 38 years of episcopal ministry and 34 years as ruling bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America; and in grateful recognition of his tireless ministry as chief shepherd for his flock, zealous proponent of Orthodox unity in North America, and faithful preacher of the resurrection to the world.” Metropolitan Tikhon also delivered a stirring homily, the text of which may be found below.
Homily of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon on the
Great Feast of the Nativity of the Theotokos and the 80th Anniversary of Vatra Românească
86th Annual Romanian Episcopate Church Congress
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
My dear brothers and sisters and Christ,
Today, we embark together on the journey of the Church’s liturgical year with the celebration of this first great feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God. It is a journey that will bring us around to the last great feast of the liturgical year, her Holy Dormition. Chronologically, then, we move from birth to death, following the example of the Theotokos. But theologically, and spiritually, we move from death to life, from barrenness to the outpouring of life.
In contrast to the Dormition, which presents us with the reality of human death as a means of bearing witness to the glory of the resurrection, today’s feast presents us with the reality of our mortality and our barrenness through the birth of the Mother of God.
By Your Nativity, O Most Pure Virgin,
Joachim and Anna are freed from barrenness;
Adam and Eve, from the corruption of death.
And we, your people, freed from the guilt of sin, celebrate and sing to you:
The barren woman gives birth to the Theotokos, the nourisher of our life!
These are the words of the kontakion—words which do not weigh us down with the obstacles of barrenness, sin and death, but rather offer us hope that, just as a barren woman can give birth to the Theotokos, so the Mother of God herself can become the nourisher of our life.
In today’s Gospel we have the Lord’s own words about what makes his mother, as Father Thomas Hopko used to say, not the great exception but the great example. She is holy, as we can be holy, not because she gave birth to Jesus and nursed Him, but because she does so as one who “hears the word of God and keeps it.”
But today I would like to consider especially the world we inhabit, or rather the universe we inhabit, and to which we are called to bring the Gospel.
“Your nativity, O Virgin, has proclaimed joy to the whole universe.” These opening words of the troparion for this feast seem so out of touch with the realities we are facing as Orthodox Christians, at least in North America, where we are a tiny minority. All of us here, to one degree or another, and at different stages of our vocations, are engaged in apostolic ministry. And apostolic ministry at its heart is encapsulated here in this feast, “proclaiming joy to the whole universe.”
The universe is a vast space. As Psalm Eight says, “When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have established, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You care for him…?” The vastness of the universe is magnified a thousand times when we consider the tiny reality we are as Orthodox Christians, called to be the mission in North America. How does one “proclaim joy to the whole universe?” How many people in Grass Lake, let alone the rest of America and the rest of planet earth, know we are here on a Saturday morning celebrating and proclaiming this joy? How many know that the miracle-working icon of the Iveron Mother of God is blessing us today with her presence and her life-giving fragrance? The universe would appear to little notice what we do here.
The scriptures and the Orthodox Tradition refuse to reduce the vastness and the mystery. They keep a fine balance, moving between the unimaginable expanse of God’s universe and the little things of daily life and traditions that shape our lives in a manner well-pleasing to God. And just as there is infinitely more in the unseen universe than in the seen, so God is at work and the universe rejoices far beyond what human beings can imagine.
How do we offer such work that is well-pleasing to God? We should follow the example of the humility of the Mother of God, who provides us with a model, not only of great holiness, but also of Apostolic labors. She may not have left us with as many words as the Evangelists and Apostles and Fathers, but she offers her life of prayer and service, united in one humble human being.
One of the Desert Father said, “If you have words, but no work, you are like a tree with leaves but no fruit. But just as a tree bearing fruit is also leafy, a person who has good works comes up with good words.”
At this time, Metropolitan Tikhon presented the Order of Saint Innocent to Archbishop Nathaniel, the Senior Bishop on the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America, on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of his ordination.
A photo gallery can be viewed on the OCA website and Facebook page.
IOCC ready to respond as Hurricane Florence makes landfall
North Carolina community hit hard by Hurricane Florence
OCA News
Pastoral Changes
OCAreview
Orthodox World News
The 18th All-American Council
Browse News by Year
2019{/year} 2018{/year} 2017{/year} 2016{/year} 2015{/year} 2014{/year} 2013{/year} 2012{/year} 2011{/year} 2010{/year}
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line931
|
__label__wiki
| 0.613449
| 0.613449
|
Congress calls Kovind’s speech ‘hollow, uninspiring’
Edited By Odishatv Bureau Published By IANS On Jun 20, 2019 - 4:50 PM
New Delhi: The Congress on Thursday described President Ram Nath Kovind’s speech in Parliament as “hollow” and “uninspiring”.
Addressing the media, party leader Anand Sharma and Leader of Congress in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said Kovind’s address to the joint session of Parliament was just a repetition of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech.
“The President’s address was just a repetition of Modi’s speech. He has missed major points like unemployment and GDP downfall,” Sharma said.
He took a dig at Kovind for supporting the ‘one nation, one election’ concept and said that simultaneous elections were not feasible due to the country’s diversity.
Making a strong case for simultaneous parliamentary and Assembly elections, the President said this was the need of the hour to accelerate development.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line932
|
__label__wiki
| 0.577386
| 0.577386
|
Fort Sill to gain positions under Army restructuring
by Chris Casteel
Published: Tue, February 2, 2016 1:02 PM Updated: Tue, February 2, 2016 1:21 PM
WASHINGTON _ Fort Sill, the U.S. Army artillery post in southwest Oklahoma, will once again gain jobs while many other bases are downsizing, according to officials at the post and on Capitol Hill.
Over the next two years, restructuring will mean a gain of roughly 400 positions.
As of today, the Army expects to cut 290 civilian jobs and 116 military positions at the post. However, there will be a gain of 834 active duty military connected to other missions.
Fort Sill officials announced Tuesday that they are using guidance from the Army to plan for the next decade. Training in field artillery and air defense artillery is conducted at the base, and artillery units are stationed there.
Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City, said, "I’m thankful that the reductions at Fort Sill are less than at other bases, but even more thankful for the Fort Sill leadership that will ensure these reductions do not impact the readiness of our soldiers. There is no better partner for the Army than the men and women in Oklahoma."
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Tulsa, a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, praised the Fort Sill leaders for their work to mitigate the impact of downsizing.
He said Fort Sill plays a critical role for the Army.
"The importance of Fort Sill’s mission, coupled with unparalleled community and state support, has resulted in continued growth," he said.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, whose district includes Fort Sill, said, “Due to budget demands placed on the Department of Defense, the Army has made necessary adjustments to both civilian and military billets at posts across the United States.
"While Fort Sill has been fortunate that the changes are minor, in comparison with other installations, adapting to any change is difficult. I am confident that Fort Sill will continue to find the best solutions despite budget challenges, and I will work to ensure it has the resources needed to complete its mission. I continue to believe our military’s end strength is too low, and not reflective of the global reality or potential for conflict.”
Last summer, the post was also tapped to gain work while many others faced deep personnel cuts.
Chris Casteel
Chris Casteel began working for The Oklahoman's Norman bureau in 1982 while a student at the University of Oklahoma. Casteel covered the police beat, federal courts and the state Legislature in Oklahoma City. From 1990 through 2016, he was the... Read more ›
CommentsFort Sill to gain positions under Army restructuring
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line933
|
__label__wiki
| 0.539977
| 0.539977
|
INEC server: Allegation on planned protest mischievous – Atiku
June 16, 2019 Judiciary, News, Politics, Project
By Abdallah el-Kurebe
#TrackNigeria: Former Vice president and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku has described as mischievous the allegation that he plans to lead a street protest if the Presidential election petition tribunal rules against him and his party on the issue of a server for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
A statement by his Media Adviser said the allegation is handiwork of mischief makers made to mar Atiku Abubakar’s spotless pro-democratic record, lay the groundwork on false charges against him.
Read the full statement below:
Our attention has been drawn to a statement circulating in a section of the media, to the effect that Atiku Abubakar, Presidential candidate of PDP in the 2019 presidential election and Vice President of Nigeria, 1999-2007 plans to lead a street protest in the event that the election petition tribunal rules against him and his party on the issue of a server for the Independent National Electoral Commission.
I wish to emphatically state that such a statement did not emanate from Atiku Abubakar or his privies. It is the work of mischief makers who want to mar his spotless pro-democratic record and lay the ground work for their threatened actions against him on false charges of being a threat to national security.
For the avoidance of doubt, Atiku Abubakar believes in the Rule of Law and in the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. In his almost four decades in politics, he has never taken action or spoken words against democracy and will not start now.
Atiku Abubakar and his team have confidence in God and thus call on those bent on mischief to have the fear of God and retrace their steps. Democracy has come to stay in Nigeria. The culture of fear being created now cannot rein in our democracy. Nigeria and Nigerians have a consistent history of outlasting tyranny and will continue to do so by the grace of God.
Paul Ibe, Media Adviser to Atiku Abubakar
Atiku
Buhari’s Executive Order will lead to another recession- Atiku
October 14, 2018 Featured, News
The Atiku Presidential Campaign organization has slammed the Executive Order issued by President Muhammadu Buhari,saying it will lead Nigeria to another economic recession. A statement by the campaign office the order will also fast track […]
Atiku condemns Sen. Abbo’s alleged assault
July 3, 2019 News
Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Vice President Abubakar Atiku, has condemned the actions of Sen. Elisha Abbo, who was caught on camera assaulting a woman in Abuja. Abbo, representing Adamawa […]
Buhari, Atiku, Saraki, Dogara Mourn Senator Kanti-Bello
August 29, 2017 News
President Muhammadu Buhari has condoled with the Kanti-Bello family as well as the government and people of Katsina State on the death of Senator Mahmud Kanti-Bello. A statement Tuesday said President Buhari also commiserated with […]
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line935
|
__label__wiki
| 0.644966
| 0.644966
|
"American West"
"Oklahoma"
"Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company"
Amusements 1
Communities 1
Description and travel 1
Social life and customs 1
Motion pictures (visual works) 1
McIntosh County 1
Muskogee County 1
Rentiesville 1
Jones, S. S. 1
Rev. S.S. Jones Home Movies: Reel 6
16mm motion picture film of Rev. S.S. Jones Home Movies: Reel 6
Rev. Jones, S. S., American, 1869 - 1936
Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, American, founded 1906
16mm Film (a): acetate film;
Film Reel (b): plastic;
Film Can (c): metal
Length (Film): 300 Feet
motion pictures (information artifacts)
Place filmed
Muskogee, Muskogee County, Oklahoma, United States, North and Central America
Rentiesville, McIntosh County, Oklahoma, United States, North and Central America
Summit, Muskogee+County"&edan_local=1&op=Search">Muskogee County, Oklahoma, United States, North and Central America
Rev. Solomon Sir Jones was a Baptist minister, businessman, and amateur filmmaker. This collection of home movies by Jones documents African American communities in Oklahoma between 1924 and 1928, depicting residents at work and in their homes, as well as activities at local schools, businesses, and churches. Community social events such as parades and funerals are prominently featured.
A 16mm silent, black and white film (a) with original plastic film reel (b) and original metal can (c) featuring footage taken in Oklahoma during the middle and late 1920s by Solomon Sir Jones, the sixth in a collection of nine films.
Inscribed on the outside of the canister in is [#6] in red and black ink and [S.S. Jones (illegible)] in black ink. Handwritten inscriptions on three white adhesive labels read: [Okla - Jones], [Mme C J Walker / class], and [Summit Parade / 6]. Remnants of a green label with black text are in ther center of an imprinted design.
The film begins with a procession of people dressed in semi-formal clothing walking by the camera before entering what appears to be a brick church building. The next scene shows men exiting a storefront with a Simmons Drug Store sign in the window. A title sign reads Mme C. J. Walker Graduating Class 1927 & Agents By Mme Dora Stephen of Muskogee, Oklahoma. The camera pans over a large group of women from the beauty school dressed in white seated with a man and woman in the center of the group not dressed in white. The crowd moves around and then walks up the front stairs of the building and enters the front door. The next title sign reads South Muskogee District Fair Parade & Board Summit September 17, 1926, L. W. Thomas Manager & J. I. Jones, S. M. Winston, A. C. Calloway. The footage shows a parade of cars in a parade and many of the cars are decorated with streamers. The cars pass in front of the camera. There are also horses pulling decorated wagons. The next scene shows a group of men standing on the stairs in front of a building and the camera pans in front of the building after then men walk down the stairs. The next title sign reads Rentiesville, Oklahoma, Free Fair & Board, W. A. Roberson, S. H. D., A. L. Morris, H. Hill, Professor A. G. McKeney, L. W. Prestly Co. 1926. The footage shows men in a marching band playing instruments and walking out of the front door of Rentiesville High School. A group of men and women follow the band out of the front door and walk by the camera. The camera pans across the front of the building and show the crowd in front. The next scene shows the interior of a business that appears to be a bakery. The scene shows a man and a woman get into a car and then exit the car. The next title sign reads Hugh Vocational Department Professor Prestley And B. T. Roberson, Rentiesville, Oklahoma, 1926. The footage is from an elevated position and shows cars with decoration and horses passing in front of the camera. The horses are being ridden by riders as well as pulling wagons. The next scene shows the exterior of the Home Undertaking Company building. There is also a sign hanging on the outside of the building that says Idlewild Rooms. The next title sign reads One Of Walker's Up Town Buildings in Muskogee, Oklahoma, September 17, 1926. A family walks down the front stairs and out to a building in the backyard and then returns to the house. The family also stands for a portrait. The next scene is filmed from a moving vehicle, probably a train, and shows a body of water and the coastline. Ships are visible in the distance and a road runs parallel to the tracks and cars can be seen driving on the road. There a brief shot from the back of train showing the train tracks and then the camera returns to the side window of the train.
United States--Social life and customs
Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Naomi Long Madgett
2011.79.6.1abc
Rev. S.S. Jones Home Movies
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line939
|
__label__wiki
| 0.963774
| 0.963774
|
You are here: Home » Featured » Exclusive: Songwriter Donovan Woods Establishes Himself Through “Leaving Nashville”
Exclusive: Songwriter Donovan Woods Establishes Himself Through “Leaving Nashville”
Craig Shelburne • June 10, 2016
Donovan Woods co-wrote “Leaving Nashville” after making monthly visits to Music City from Canada. He’s never actually lived in Nashville, yet the song — which he wrote with Abe Stoklasa — nails the emotion, ambition and heartbreak of trying to earn a living as a Nashville songwriter.
“It took me a long time for me to say that it was a good idea, that it wasn’t too ‘inside,” Woods said during a visit to MusicRow on Tuesday (June 7). “I feel like it’s started to open doors. Everybody I write with now, that’s the first thing—they want to chat about that song for a while. It’s certainly been invaluable.”
In May, Woods officially signed with Warner/Chappell Music Publishing in Nashville. While at MusicRow, he sang a new song called “Kings of Nothing” as well as “Leaving Nashville” and a tempo song he wrote with Tom Douglas called “What Kind of Love Is That?”
Dividing his time between Toronto and Nashville, Woods is a notable folk artist in Canada, building an audience through reflective songs such as “On the Nights You Stay Home.” He released a full-length album titled Hard Settle, Ain’t Troubled in Canada in February.
With a quiet yet affecting voice, Woods is gaining traction as a touring artist. Later this year, he is scheduled to open shows for Buffy Sainte-Marie as well as Sarah Jarosz. With his dry humor and self-awareness, he knows being a touring artist in the United States is easier said than done: “There are a lot of dudes who do what I do in America. There’s 300 million of you guys, so 10 times the amount of dudes who look like me.”
Pictured (L-R): Will Overton, Manager, A&R, Warner/Chappell Nashville; Ben Vaughn, Executive Vice President, Warner/Chappell Nashville; Donovan Woods; Sherod Robertson, Owner/Publisher, MusicRow; BJ Hill, Sr. Director, A&R, Warner/Chappell Nashville
Growing up, Woods was drawn to music but didn’t let himself consider a career as a performer.
“To be honest with you, when I was a kid, I thought I would be a songwriter. I knew there was no way I could be an artist. I was a chubby kid and thought, ‘I won’t be an artist, I’ll just be a songwriter,’” he recalled.
“I Googled if that was even a job. I think I Googled ‘Are there just songwriters?’ and the first company I found out about was Warner/Chappell. I was like, ‘Oh, there’s a company called Warner/Chappell that’ll pay you to just be a writer. I’ll just work for that company.’”
After ending a publishing deal in Los Angeles, Woods joined Warner/Chappell after developing professional relationships with executives BJ Hill and Blain Rhodes. He says he will continue to write for his own albums too, even as artists like Billy Currington (“Sweet Love”) and Tim McGraw (“Portland, Maine”) are recording his songs.
And at this stage of the game, Woods’ good-natured attitude is closer to the optimistic first verse of “Leavin’ Nashville” than the desperate last verse.
“Yeah, I love Nashville. I just love the system. It’s such a fun hustle to me,” he says. “I’m not jaded on it yet, maybe because I’m not mired in it all the time. I don’t ever feel jaded — but you wouldn’t know that from the song!”
Pictured (L-R): Troy Stephenson, Molly Hannula, Craig Shelburne, Donovan Woods, Sherod Robertson, Eric T. Parker, Jessica Nicholson
Craig Shelburne is the General Manager at MusicRow.
Bobby Karl Works The Room: Thursday Night At CMA Fest »
« Kris Kristofferson To Be Honored With Woody Guthrie Prize In Tulsa
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line943
|
__label__wiki
| 0.600125
| 0.600125
|
Tag: The Color of Compromise
What Jemar Ignored
Published on May 1, 2019 by D. G. Hart8 Comments
Details from Presbyterian church history about race relations in the United States are not pretty. Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, for instance, saw members and officers leave when Mariano Di Gangi, predecessor to James Montgomery Boice, preached about racial prejudice, opened the church and session to African Americans, and served on the mayor’s commission on civil rights. At the time, Tenth Church was still part of the Presbyterian Church USA and did not join the Presbyterian Church in America until 1982; but that denomination had hurdles of its own to overcome. Sean Michael Lucas’s history of the PCA’s founding, For a Continuing Church (2015), includes stories of Southern Presbyterian conservatives who defended racial segregation on biblical grounds and sought ways to guard the church from important figures regarded as having erroneous understandings of racial equality.
The OPC herself debated the merits of civil rights during the 1960s in the pages of The Presbyterian Guardian that showed opposition to political reforms designed to end segregation. A black pastor in the church, Herbert Oliver, wrote an article about the positive contribution the Christian church had made to social reforms in the past and that supporting Civil Rights for African-Americans was another instance when Christians could be instruments of social change. Letters to the editor indicated that Oliver had failed to persuade some Orthodox Presbyterians. E. J. Young, for instance, wrote a letter to the editors in which he objected to both a view of egalitarianism that was clearly unbiblical and an understanding of the church’s role in society that failed to highlight the ministry of the gospel. If these instances seem inconsequential, perhaps J. Gresham Machen’s 1913 letter to his mother, strongly objecting to the integration of Princeton Seminary, will show how much ideas of white supremacy afflicted conservative Presbyterians who contemporary Orthodox Presbyterians esteem. If a black man were to take up residence in Alexander Hall, Machen wrote, he would consider moving out, which would have been “a great sacrifice to me.”
The rest of the review of The Color of Compromise.
Categories J. Gresham Machen, Orthodox Presbyterian Church•Tags book reviews, E. J. Young, Herbert Oliver, Jemar Tisby, Mariano Di Gangi, Ordained Servant, PCA, race, racism, Sean Michael Lucas, Tenth Presbyterian Church, The Color of Compromise
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line948
|
__label__wiki
| 0.962082
| 0.962082
|
News: In case some of you have forgotten, please go back and read the agreement you signed before registering on this board. "PERSONAL ATTACKS" will not be tolerated. Continuous attacks on an individual, including revealing who you think a person is or sending Private Messages with threats and attacks, are grounds for removal from the registration listing. If you can't be civil, go someplace else. Don't discredit your education by showing your "thug" personality.
Tuskegee (10-2) vs. West Georgia (11-1); NCAA II Quarterfinals
Author Topic: Tuskegee (10-2) vs. West Georgia (11-1); NCAA II Quarterfinals (Read 3198 times)
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/rankinfile/2015/12/03/tuskegee-quarterback-kevin-lacey-compares-turkey-day-classic-and-playoffs/76708772/
)112 SIAC Titles; Elite 8 Men's Basketball '14; SIAC Softball Champs '14, '15 & "16; NCAA WBB Title Game '82; NCAA Football Playoffs, '13, '14 , '15 & '16; 31 SIAC Football Titles; 8 HBCU Football National Titles; Only HBCU with 600 football wins (692); 7 USA Olympians-'48, '52, '56, '60
klg14
Re: Tuskegee (10-2) vs. West Georgia (11-1); NCAA II Quarterfinals
Skegee!!!
July 4, 1881 - A Great Day in History...
"Everyone can be great, because everyone can serve." - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one.” - Neil Gaiman
http://www.goldentigersports.com/news/2015/12/3/FB_1203155911.aspx?path=football
http://www.d2football.com/nationalcolumnist/16/
lew9ball
Alright GOLDEN TIGERS.. We Can Do This Again .
"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else"
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/sports/college/football/game-day/2015/12/04/gameday-preview-tuskegee-west-georgia/76768764/
GAME-DAY
Gameday Preview: Tuskegee at West Georgia
FOUR-DOWN TERRITORY
1. “I haven’t forgotten about last year”: Tuskegee’s Division II national quarterfinals matchup features a familiar foe in West Georgia. UWG defeated the Golden Tigers 20-17 in the first round last year in Tuskegee, and now they have a chance to return the favor. Not that the team needs any extra motivation, but senior receiver Travis Hawkins said the rematch adds to the game’s intensity.
“I haven’t forgotten about last year. Definitely motivated, definitely hungry. They’re the team everybody’s trying to beat. They’re on top,” Hawkins said. “I don’t think many people are expecting us to win, and that’s how I like it. But I know I’m ready, I know my team’s ready, and I’m excited to play them.”
2. The ultimate goal: It’s been a historic year for Tuskegee coach Willie Slater. He moved to second place in school history in wins, and led the team to its first playoff win in school history. It’s tough to reflect in the middle of a playoff run, but Slater said this year’s team has accomplished the “ultimate goal.”
“Our ultimate goal has been to win in the playoffs. That’s what we started off the year saying. We wanted to get into a position where we could win the playoffs. Honestly, I felt we were a year away. But I think they see now, ‘We can win in the playoffs. Those guys we’re playing against, they put their pads on one at a time just like we do,’” Slater said.
“We’re playing a great team, I feel like one of the best teams in the whole country. But as crazy as it sounds, we’re kind of excited about it. They have like 26 Division I players, guys that’ve played Division I football. So that’s what we’re up against. Which makes our kids excited because they get a chance to play against the best and see how good they really are. I think we have some good players too. It’s going to be an interesting game.”
3. One to remember: Tuskegee won its second-round matchup with some late-game drama last week. After throwing four interceptions, quarterback Kevin Lacey delivered when it mattered most, hitting Desmond Reece for a 33-yard gain down to the 2-yard line with less than 30 seconds to play to set up the game-winning touchdown. Proving he could deliver in the clutch turned Lacey’s game from one to forget to one to never forget.
“It was probably the best throw I’ve had since I’ve been throwing a football. Many people would feel excited. But for me when I saw him catch it, it was more of a weight being lifted off my shoulders. It was a relief because, after the day I had, it was one to forget. But I don’t want to forget that day because I know if it comes to a crunch situation, I know I can do it,” Lacey said. “Even if I’ve had a terrible day, it doesn’t matter. It’s all what you do in the moment. If you take advantage of the moment and don’t let the past get to you. That throw, it really felt like I had someone standing on my shoulders, and it was a huge relief. I was just grateful we could get down there and score, especially after the day I had.”
4. Humbled and hungry: No one wants to blow a big lead against a rival, but that’s what happened to the Golden Tigers in the regular-season finale against Miles. It knocked Tuskegee out of the conference championship, but it may have actually been a good thing. Instead of pouting after the loss, Hawkins said the team has rallied around the disappointment during the playoff run.
“I think it humbled us to lose, especially a game that we had one where we just didn’t finish. So it humbled us. I feel like in the past I’ve seen our team go two ways: We either take that negatively and feel bad for ourselves, or we get hungry and we fight harder. I feel like that’s what we’re doing,” Hawkins said. “Since that Miles loss, we’ve come back and just are hungry, more determined. We’re humble and we just remember that feeling. So it’s definitely in the back of our heads, but we’re looking ahead and excited to see what God has planned for us. I know good things are coming.”
KEY MATCHUP
Tuskegee DE Julian Morgan vs. UWG QB Dallas Dickey
Dickey is a two-year starter, and the best rushing quarterback in school history. He ran for a 9-yard touchdown to win last week’s game, and will be tough for the speedy Morgan to wrap up. Morgan has 91/2 sacks this season in 12 games, but will face his toughest test of the season in the quarterfinals.
Kevin Lacey
QB, Jr., 6-6, 175
Lacey delivered when it was crunch time last week, but he’ll have to be more efficient against West Georgia. Another four-interception game won’t cut it in the quarterfinals, and he knows that. This offense will run as smoothly as he does, and the experienced junior should bring his “A” game.
This is a team on a mission. Tuskegee has an experienced quarterback that’s delivered in the clutch, a game-breaking running back and three experienced wide receivers. On defense, playmakers across the board can rush the passer and get their hands on the ball. It’s a tough task going into West Georgia and winning on the road, but the Golden Tigers have all the ingredients to win. A late-game defensive stand allows Tuskegee to move on to the semifinals.
Tuskegee 21, West Georgia 20
WHEN: 11 a.m. Saturday
WHERE: University Stadium, Carrollton, Ga.
RECORDS: Tuskegee (10-2, 7-1 SIAC); West Georgia (11-1, 6-1 Gulf South)
ON THE AIR: None
TWITTER: @mgmsports @MyTUAthletics
3: West Georgia beat Tuskegee by three points (20-17) in last year’s playoff game.
39: Dennis Norfleet has run 39 times in the past two games, 37.5 percent of his carries this year.
150: Tuskegee is 9-1 when holding opponents under 150 rushing yards this season.
†***************************
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/sports/college/football/game-day/2015/12/04/tuskegee-football-measure-morgans-heart/76768724/
Tuskegee football: Can’t measure Morgan’s heart
Tuskegee defensive end Julian Morgan has 91/2 sacks for the Golden Tigers this season.
TUSKEGEE — It’s funny the way things work out. Tuskegee didn’t even recruit defensive end Julian Morgan out of high school, and now he’s one of its best players.
It’s not that Tuskegee coach Willie Slater didn’t know who Morgan was. He actually met him at Lithia Springs (Georgia) High School when he was recruiting Morgan’s teammate, linebacker Joseph Ross.
But Morgan never got a scholarship offer. Why?
“His size,” Slater said.
The 6-foot-2, 200-pound junior doesn’t look like your typical defensive end. He played quarterback in high school. So Morgan played his freshman year at Arkansas-Pine Bluff before he got a chance to go to the place he wanted all along.
“I’ve been coming to homecoming since I was 5. I had uncles graduate from here, I’ve had a lot of family come through Tuskegee, so I’ve always loved Tuskegee. It didn’t really bother me. It was sore feelings at first, but it wasn’t too bad,” Morgan said. “I was like, ‘I can’t let that chance go to waste.’”
So Morgan joined the Golden Tigers as a sophomore, and led the team with 91/2 sacks despite being “too small.” He’s proven it was no fluke this season, as he’s racked up 91/2 sacks again despite missing two games with an injury.
“I’m glad he didn’t give up on us,” Slater said. “He’s kind of proven himself. Guys like that, you can’t measure their heart. You can say they’re undersized and all that stuff, but you can’t measure his heart and his willingness to work hard. He has all of the intangibles.”
Morgan played his best last game, leading the team with 12 tackles and two sacks to help defeat North Alabama in the second round of the NCAA Division II playoffs.
Playing with a chip on his shoulder his whole career, Morgan intends to keep it going against West Georgia in the quarterfinals this week, a rematch of Tuskegee’s first-round playoff game last year.
“I remember they felt like they were going to do whatever they wanted to us the entire game. They took us lightly and we shocked them, so that’s what I remember. This year, since we shocked everybody else, they’re going to be a little more serious. I think they took us as a joke coming into the game, but I don’t think that we’ll be taken as a joke again,” Morgan said.
West Georgia defeated Tuskegee 20-17 last season in Tuskegee’s first home playoff game ever. Morgan is more than willing to return the favor.
“It adds a lot of oil to this fire we’re starting over here. Not a lot of motivation is needed
for this game. It’s going to be who wants it the most. All I can say is, we’re ready,” Morgan said.
Go Golden Tigers!
« Last Edit: December 04, 2015, 07:13:31 AM by TUTiger »
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/rankinfile/2015/12/04/michigan-transfer-force-in-tuskegee-playoff-run/76767828/
Michigan transfer Norfleet finds 'new family,' success at Tuskegee
TUSKEGEE -- Dennis Norfleet is more than 800 miles from home, but Tuskegee has made him feel right at home.
"I've started a new family," Norfleet said Wednesday.
In return, the Michigan transfer has made a sizeable impact in helping Tuskegee advance to the NCAA Division II quarterfinals for the first time ever. The 5-foot, 7-inch, 168-pound running back scored the game-winning touchdown in last week's 35-31 stunner at second seed North Alabama.
"The impact he's had on this team is unbelievable," said Tuskegee senior linebacker Jewell Ratliff, a D-I transfer from Kentucky. "You rarely catch guys from a D-I coming to a D-II performing because usually people get caught in their feelings, but Norfleet stayed down, stayed humble and just giving us everything he got every day off and on the field."
Norfleet and the sixth-seeded Golden Tigers (10-2) will look to win a third straight postseason road game as they play Saturday at top seed West Georgia (11-1).
"It's a blessing being here playing with guys that's after the same dream that I want and guys that love me for who I am and it's not for the football side," Norfleet said.
Norfleet still keeps in contact with his Michigan teammates, particularly his roommate, Willie "Big Earl" Henry. The Detroit native made it clear he only had a problem with one particular individual at Michigan -- first-year head coach Jim Harbaugh.
"Those are my brothers to the death," Norfleet said. "I didn't get into with Michigan fans or the Michigan players or all the Michigan coaches. I just had an incident with Harbaugh."
Norfleet and Michigan parted ways after spring ball when Harbaugh released him from his scholarship. The issue was over academics. Norfleet told the Detroit News that Harbaugh thought he was going to be ineligible, but said he wouldn't have been.
Later this month, Norfleet, a history major, will earn his degree.
"It feels great," he said with a huge smile.
Months before, Tuskegee was granted permission to talk to Norfleet and wound up getting Michigan's all-time leader in yardage on kickoff returns. It take long for Tuskegee coach Willie Slater to see Norfleet could make a difference for the SIAC school.
"When you hear about a kid, you look at him on film," he said. "He was like a two-framer. You look at two frames and you know. That wasn't a hard decision at all."
Slater said Tuskegee did "a little background" on Norfleet.
"Good kid," Slater continued. "We've been very fortunate to have a guy like that on our team."
Norfleet leads Tuskegee in rushing (752 yards), kick return yards (351) and punt return yards (93). He's averaging 7.2 yards a carry, has four rushing touchdowns and 11 receptions for 149 yards.
"He knows how to make plays," Slater said. "He does things you can't teach. You just can't teach certain things. You can't give them heart. He's got the package. He's got the heart, he's got the skill.He's got the speed. The only thing he doesn't have is size, but he makes up for it for his size with the other intangibles."
Norfleet said he watched every Michigan game this season. The Wolverines are 9-3 and like many who watched them, Norfleet credited Harbaugh for the program's resurgence. Michigan went 5-7 in 2014.
"Coach Harbaugh came in there and did a great job as he always does with whatever team he goes to," Norfleet said. "They did a real good job this year. They kind of stumbled through Michigan State and Ohio State, but things happen."
While Michigan awaits a bowl bid, Tuskegee is making postseason history with Norfleet playing a major role. He rushed for a career-high 136 yards and two touchdowns with the latter score being the game winner with 19 seconds left in last week's win.
"When 'Fleet dove into the end zone, it was just very exciting," Tuskegee sophomore safety Jonah McCutcheon said. "We got a penalty and everything, but we accepted the penalty."
Tuskegee has also accepted Norfleet to help form a bond that's lead to a historic season -- and a new family.
"In so many ways, it helped me," Norfleet said. "It opened my eyes. I don't have a new pair of cleats every day. I don't have a field that got lights on it. I don't have the things that a lot of D-I players have like a nutritionist.
"Right now at a D-II, I'm loving it because it shows you the correct way and how it feels not to have something in order to get something. I give them 110 percent of everything that I do when I'm on the field because I know they'll give it to me."
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/rankinfile/2015/12/03/tuskegee-quarterback-kevin-lacey-compares-turkey-day-classic-and-playoffs/76708772
TWIST ON A CLASSIC
Lacey, Tuskegee set for D-II quarterfinals vs. West Georgia
Duane Rankin
TUSKEGEE — Kevin Lacey didn’t miss a Turkey Day Classic until he started playing for the school that traditionally played in it.
“I grew up in this area, so the Turkey Day Classic was a Thanksgiving tradition for me as well,” said Lacey, a Wetumpka High graduate.
Tuskegee last played Alabama State in the annual game in 2012 at ASU when Lacey was a redshirt freshman. Freed up from that game, the Golden Tigers could play in the NCAA Division II playoffs and have made it each year since.
This season, Tuskegee has reached the D-II quarterfinals for the first time with Lacey as its starting quarterback. The sixth-seeded Tigers (10-2) will play Saturday at top seed West Georgia (11-1).
Drawing from his experiences as a fan of the Turkey Day Classic, having watched the game as a player and now a playoff participant, the Tuskegee junior offered an insightful perspective on it all.
“Just being a part of these playoffs, it’s just a different atmosphere,” Lacey said Wednesday. “The intensity is a lot higher.”
He said that playing in the Turkey Day Classic was exciting because it was such a big rivalry. It’s HBCU’s Alabama-Auburn.
“For us, just playing in that game, it meant a lot, but you knew it was your last game. So you laid it on the line because of that, but in the playoffs, you lay it on the line because any week could be your last week.”
Tuskegee will renew its rivalry with Alabama State starting in 2017, but the game will be played in September, and Lacey will have used up all his eligibility by then. So he’ll never get to play in a game that meant so much to him as a kid, but Lacey is experiencing a postseason that would have never happened had Tuskegee continued playing in the Turkey Day Classic.
“If you win, you keep going until you finally get to that national championship game,” Lacey continued. “That’s what you’re fighting for. So they’re both a big deal and especially a part of Tuskegee history, but the playoffs bring upon a different atmosphere, a different vibe because you know you’re fighting for something each and every week. You keep winning, you keep going. You lose, it’s over.”
TU by 10!
Let's go Tuskegee
oleschoolaggie
pulling for ya’ll, tuskegee! do the dayum deal!
BulldogWillie
GO GET'EM GOLDEN TIGERS!!! BRING IT BACK FOR ALL HBCUS!
Oldschoolram
Alright Tigers. One more hunt!
The Sloping Hills and Verdent Green
#1 NCCU Fan
GOOOO TUSKEGEE!!!! It is time to Ball and Parlay one more time. There should be a large contingent of Tuskegee fans at this game. Turn West Georgia out Tiger fans.
LOOK OUT MEAC WE ARE BACK AND READY
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line949
|
__label__wiki
| 0.67612
| 0.67612
|
The Abracadabra Kid: A Writer's Life
by Sid FleischmanSid Fleischman
The man with the spats rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to pluck a polished red billiard ball out of thin air. Presto! It vanished. Abracadabra! It reappeared. It turned white. it blushed red again. Voilá! Suddenly there were four billiard balls between this amazing man's fingers.
I was stunned. All of this was happening right under my nose. And there was more. He flipped the deck into falling waterfalls of cards, spun them into fans, and thrust a sword through a shower of cards to impale the seven of diamonds selected a moment before.
I was dazzled. The moment he finished his act and ushered us gawkers back onto the sidewalk, I knew what I wanted to be. Someone else could be president of the United States.
I wanted to be a magician.
Sid Fleischman wrote more than sixty books for children, adults, and magicians. Among his many awards was the Newbery Medal for his novel The Whipping Boy. The author described his wasted youth as a magician and newspaperman in his autobiography The Abracadabra Kid. His other titles include The Entertainer and the Dybbuk, a novel, and three biographies, Sir Charlie: Chaplin, The Funniest Man in the World; The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West; and Escape! The Story of The Great Houdini.
The Fateful Nickel
Dear Sid Fleischman, I have read Mr. Mysterious & Company. It's the second best book I ever read.
I am astonished, when I pause to think about it, to discover myself to be an author of humorous novels for children. Or an author at all. I had a childhood much like everyone else's. What went wrong?
Few kids aspire to be writers when they grow up. When we are young, authors are unseen, ghostly presences. They certainly didn't hang around my neighborhood in San Diego when I was growing up. I was in my early twenties before I saw a live author.
During the Second World War the U.S. Navy briefly stationed me in New York City. Late one afternoon I stepped into an elevator and there stood Carl Sandburg. I recognized him at once and promptly quick-froze. I wanted desperately to say something profound, such as "Hello, Mr. Sandburg," but I was unable to thaw out my voice. it was a hot, humid summer day, and I did notice that the great American poet and Lincoln biographer was perspiring. That was my first clue that authors were human, like the rest of us.
And alive. From time to time my publisher sends along a letter from a child inquiring how long Sid Fleischman has been dead. There seems to be a kind of childhood folklore that all authors are dead. Or ought to be.
The role modeling just isn't there.
I became a writer quite by accident. in school I was being properly formatted to become a productive member of society, but I decided to become a magician instead.
I was in the fifth grade. The Great Depression was a dismal year old. Even a child couldsense that something was wrong, for many of the downtown shops had fallen dark as tombs. Still, San Diego, with its vast blue harbor, was luckier than most cities. It was the nesting place for the U.S. Navy Eleventh Fleet, and mercifully sailors on shore liberty had a few bucks to spend.
By a stroke of luck, my father, who'd been a child tailor in "the old country," had a shop on Fifth Avenue catering to sailor's needs-uniforms, boatswains' whistles, and other naval impedimenta. He was managing to survive, hanging on by his tobacco-stained fingernails.
One autumn day the large vacant store next door was hung like a stage set with gaudy canvas signs. A ten-in-one sideshow troop had moved in. The numbers described the procession of bizarre and wonderful features you could witness for a single admission.
My father gave me a fateful nickel to tour this storefront extravaganza, and my life changed forever. I was allowed past the velvet curtain. There, under the blazing lights, the first performer was about to drive a gleaming six-inch spike up his nose. I watched without the slightest inclination to go home and do likewise. What I envied about the spike man were the dove gray spats he wore tightly buckled over his shoes. They struck me as worldly and theatrical.
I quickly learned that everyone in the ten-in-one doubled or tripled as acts. The man with the spats, whose polka dot blue bow tic kept bobbing above a restless Adam's apple, became our guide through the wonders in the room. He introduced a pretty young woman named Wanda, who could throw her voice into a scuffed suitcase and did a vent act with a redheaded dummy. She reappeared after the fat lady, this time climbing into a packing case. The man with the spats ran swords through the box, yet moments later indestructible Wanda hopped back into view without a scratch.
The two pinhead freaks disturbed me, with their puzzled, spider monkey faces, and I was glad to move on around the room. By time Wanda reappeared a last time, I was smitten. Not only was she enchanting, but Wanda was a show biz Renaissance woman, for now, slipping into a coat of fringed buckskin, she did a sharpshooting act. Decades later I was to draw on her in creating the character of the sharpshooting Arizona Girl in my novel Jim Ugly.
But there was one more act. The man with the spats rolled up his sleeves and proceeded to pluck a polished red billiard ball out of thin air. Presto! It vanished. Abracadabra! It reappeared. it turned white. It blushed red again. Voila! Suddenly there were four billiard balls between this amazing man's fingers.
I was stunned. All of this was happening right under my nose. And there was more. He flipped the deck into falling waterfalls of cards, spun them into fans, and thrust a sword through a shower of cards to impale the seven of diamonds selected a moment before.
"In this funny, poignant, insightful and thoroughly entertaining autobiography, [Fleischman] proves himself an effortless raconteur, possessed of a rapid-fire wit," said PW, in a starred review of the Newbery Medalist's memoirs. Ages 10-up. (Apr.)
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Gr 5 UpIn a chatty style, this Newbery-award winning author of over 30 children's books converses about his "three lives." As a child, Fleischman was introduced to the world of magic, and was so enthralled by it that he read every book about it that the San Diego Public Library had to offer. Later, he traveled the country, performing in town halls, vaudeville theaters, and clubs. When he couldn't make big paychecks appear, he wrote a book of magic tricks, Between Cocktails, which has been in print for 50 years. Then he went back to school to study writing and again utilized the public library's resources. After military service he worked as a screen writer. Had the Hollywood screen writers not gone on strike, children's literature may have been deprived of a great writer. During the strike he wrote Mr. Mysterious and Company (Little, 1962; o.p.), and was amazed by the enthusiastic response it got from young readers. Casual in tone, Fleischman's words sparkle with sly humor and clever phrasing: "In those days, I was no literary diamond in the roughI wasn't even a zircon." Each chapter is prefaced by choice excerpts from his fan mail. A professional magician to the end, Fleischman does not give away his signature magic tricks; nor does he leave his audience empty handed. Instead, he presents youngsters with his favorite writing tips. This book is the next best thing to having the author visit your school or library and will be a boon to all those assigned to read an autobiography.Marilyn Payne Phillips, University City Public Library, MO
Subtitled "A Writer's Life," this is a lively self-portrait of the writer as a young magician turned conjurer of "literary magic tricks." The son of an "airy optimist with nimble skills" and a mother who was a "crackerjack penny-ante cardplayer," Fleischman grew up enterprising and obsessed with magic. In high school he parlayed "a certain knack for inventing tricks" into a slim volume of match tricks that became an enduring classic, then did a stint in vaudeville in a ten-dollar tux and a hitch in the wartime navy. There's a postwar tour of duty in China, and years as a newspaperman, pulp-fiction writer, and screenwriter before a happy marriage and three kids drew him to the realm of children's books. Fleischman offers a gold mine of interesting reflections of writing, and a vivid representation of a life lived adventurously and thoughtfully.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line954
|
__label__wiki
| 0.713778
| 0.713778
|
Quality services, first and foremost
The Ordre des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes agréés du Québec is an order with a reserved title representing more than 2,100 members, all of whom are certified language professionals.
As part of its mandate to protect the public, the Order has adopted the following mission: to ensure and promote the competence and professionalism of its members in the fields of translation, terminology and interpretation.
Building on its presence in Quebec’s professional world and its strength as a recognized professional order, the Ordre des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes agréés du Québec (OTTIAQ) seeks to become a national and international authority on translation, interpreting and terminology. That is why OTTIAQ has become a fully fledged member of the International Federation of Translators (FIT). Created under the auspices of UNESCO, the FIT has the goal of promoting professionalism in the disciplines it represents. The international grouping of associations of translators, interpreters and terminologists comprises more than 100 professional associations representing over 80,000 language professionals in 55 countries.
In issuing a permit, the Order attests to the competence and professionalism of an individual holding the title of certified translator, terminologist or interpreter, thereby fulfilling its mandate to protect the public.
Its mission is to promote the professionalism of members’ duties, foster improvements in professional practice and assist members in adapting to technological, economic, institutional and cultural changes.
The Order aims to become Québec’s reference and gathering point for the domains of translation, terminology and interpretation.
Accountability. Accountability is one’s commitment to take ownership of one’s actions, to conform to the Code of Conduct and to protect the public.
Professionalism. Professionalism means ensuring the utmost quality and skill in one’s work and professional relationships. It implies working in an efficient and thorough manner and being proactive. It is the result of a creative process combined with continuing professional development and a high degree of autonomy.
Leadership. Leadership is the capacity to guide, influence and inspire. It requires vision and strategy, confidence in one’s skills, as well as the ability to communicate and be persuasive.
History : Some important dates in the history of the Order.
Consult the letters patent (85 kB document in French only).
Founding of the Société des traducteurs de Montréal (STM).
STM changes its name and becomes the Société des traducteurs du Québec (STQ).
The STQ welcomes to its ranks the members of the Cercle des traducteurs and the Corporation des traducteurs professionnels du Québec. This step ensures the continuing pursuit of the common goals that had prompted the founding of all three associations: provide information and training for members and advance the profession while raising its profile.
The Société des traducteurs du Québec becomes the Corporation professionnelle des traducteurs et interprètes agréés du Québec (CPTIAQ).
The Corporation changes its name to the Ordre des traducteurs et interprètes agréés du Québec (OTIAQ), in compliance with the Act to amend the Professional Code and other legislation respecting the professions.
With the Quebec National Assembly approving the addition of the title “terminologues” to its name, OTIAQ officially becomes the Ordre des traducteurs, terminologues et interprètes agréés du Québec. On September 11 of the same year, the Board adopts a resolution approving the modified acronym, OTTIAQ.
OTTIAQ is the largest association of language professionals in Canada.
The Language Alchemists, a history of the Société des traducteurs du Québec from 1940 to 1990, is published by the University of Ottawa Press and is available at certain university libraries.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line958
|
__label__cc
| 0.655851
| 0.344149
|
Tag Archives: annu mari
Branded to Kill – Review
There are many film makers that create movies that leave me baffled. David Lynch and his fever dreams like Eraserhead and Inland Empire stand out, but who can forget the psychedelic nightmares of Alejandro Jodorowsky and his films like The Holy Mountain and Santa Sangre? A name that never really stood out to me was Seijun Suzuki, a Japanese film makers that was actually blacklisted from directing because of the odd and unmarketable nature of his movies. One of, if not his most infamous creations is the 1967 gangster film Branded to Kill. This is a movie that takes genre conventions and blows them out of the water. Is this film just one giant narrative mess or is it a satirical, yet experimental, look at the gangster subgenre? That’s for the viewer to decide.
Goro Hanada (Joe Shishido) has the honor of being the third ranked hit man in the Japanese underworld. He also has found a strange, and often unsettling, kind of love in his newly wedded wife, Mami (Mariko Ogawa). Hanada is assigned many important missions by the yakuza, including the killing of three seemingly unrelated civilians. He is also approached by a mysterious woman with a death wish named Misako (Annu Mari), who hires Hanada to kill a foreigner that she will be seen with the following day. When this new mission goes wrong, Hanada is soon on the run and betrayed by almost everyone he knows, with the only possible exception of Misako. Things only get worse for Hanada when he finds out the mythic hitman, known only as Number One (Koji Nanbara) is gunning for him and will stop at nothing until he is dead.
Take that summary with a grain of salt since Branded to Kill was not the easiest movie to follow, and it took me a little while after finishing it to fully process what I saw. At it’s core, this movie tells a classic gangster noir tale about murder, love, femme fatales, and betrayal. What makes Suzuki’s film so odd is the way this simple story is told. There are jumps in time and location that is incredibly jarring and takes a while to get used to. This movie is only an hour and a half long, but it felt so much longer than that because time and space was played with so much. The story could take place over the span of a week or a couple of months. Telling a totally linear story was clearly not Suzuki’s intention. While I do very much appreciate the strangeness, the odd continuity, and all of the confusion that goes along with it, I’m not sure how this really fits with telling the story. What I mean is that I can’t really thematically see any reasoning for telling the story like this. The third act gets really out of whack, which is appropriate for the action, but I’m not sure about the other two acts.
Despite Branded to Kill being totally strange, it still has a classic noir vibe which I really like. The lighting is harsh and the violence is sudden, but definitely leaves an impression. Another great example of noir that pushes the boundaries is another Japanese film called Pale Flower, which I reviewed quite some time ago. Branded to Kill takes it to another level, however, and some of it genuinely shocked me. This film came out in 1967, which is still some years before exploitation cinema hit audiences internationally. This film almost pushes things to that exploitive level. Like it comes real close. There are things in this movie that would have made mainstream audiences in America at this time lose their minds. Hell, there’s some things that would make modern American audiences gasp. I have to give Suzuki credit for daring to go the extra mile.
This brashness and willingness to go places traditional films of the time went didn’t come without a price. This is one of those movies where the history kind of provides a good context as to how to look at an appreciate the film itself. Seijun Suzuki made 40 B-movies for the Nikkatsu Company. That’s a lot of time dedicated to working for a company, but it didn’t last forever. Nikkatsu was not pleased with the original script for Branded to Kill, so they had Suzuki rework it. Instead of keeping it the traditional gangster tale, he made it something completely different, which is the movie I’ve done my best to illustrate as a crazy, untraditional ride. Nikkatsu was even more upset with the end result, and this got Suzuki fired. Jokes on Nikkatsu. Over time, Branded to Kill has become something of a cult classic.
Branded to Kill is certainly not for everyone, and it even took me a little bit of time to fully wrap my head around what I just saw. It takes a gangster story with hints of noir and turns it into a dreamscape where time and logic are unimportant. Sometimes I felt like this worked against the film, but most of the time I was really into the weirdness. I have to give Seijun Suzuki credit for making a movie that no one else at the time seemed interested in making, even if it end with him getting fired from Nikkatsu. For any fan of off the wall kind of movies, I’d recommend Branded to Kill. Anyone looking for something easier to comprehend, you can find plenty of other great gangster stories out there.
Tags: action, annu mari, arthouse, branded to kill, crime, criterion collection, cult classic, cult film, drama, femme fatale, film, gang, gangster, hitman, hitmen, japan, japanese, joe shishido, koji nanbara, mariko ogawa, movies, murder, nikkatsu, noir, revenge, review, satire, seijun suzuki, yakuza
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line960
|
__label__wiki
| 0.615092
| 0.615092
|
infocenter@nra.bg
FISCAL CONTROL
You area at:
What is NRA?
NRA Call Center
Charter of NRA Client
Chair person and members of NRA’s Board of Directors:
1. Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Managing Board
2. Deputy Minister of Finance
3. Governor of the National Social Security Institute (NSSI)
4. Director of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF)
5. Director General of the National Revenue Agency (NRA)
.......................................................................................................................
Director General of the National Revenue Agency (NRA)
Galia Dimitrova
E-mail: g.dimitrova@nra.bg
Mrs. Galia Dimitrova has been working for more than 20 years in the tax administration at various positions – Tax inspector, Expert, Head of Audits department, Director of Performance Management Directorate in the Headquarters of the National Revenue Agency, Director of Large Taxpayers and Contributors Directorate, Deputy Director General since 2013.
She has been appointed Director General of the National Revenue Agency on 11 May 2017.
Gavrail Zaburtov
E-mail: g.zaburtov@nra.bg
.........................................................................................................................
Deputy Director General
Milena Krastanova
E-mail: m.krastanova@nra.bg
Aleksander Georgiev
E-mail: a.georgiev@nra.bg
Plamen Dimitrov
E-mail: p.dimitrov@nra.bg
Organogram BG
Keyword or phrase
National Revenue Agency — 1000 Sofia, 52, Dondukov Blvd.; Information Centre of the NRA - 0700 18 700, E-mail: infocenter@nra.bg
© Official website of the National Revenue Agency
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line963
|
__label__wiki
| 0.7259
| 0.7259
|
Is There Intelligent Life on Earth? (part 1)
Puerto Rico: We Can’t Pay the Bankers
Jewish Groups Received 97% of $10 Million DHS “Defense Grants”
Jews and Slavery: Three Books by the Nation of Islam
Biological Reality, part 1
American Racial History Timeline, 1960-2008
96% Expect More Black Rioting This Summer
The Ideology of Contraception
by Andrew Hamilton
THE MORE ONE thinks about it, the more obvious it becomes that, where race is concerned, sex is of central importance. A group’s sexual behavior, marriage, reproductive patterns (having or not having children), and family strength are decisive for racial survival and expansion.
The white race, everywhere on earth, is failing to reproduce itself. It is demographically collapsing, and will be the first major race of mankind — formerly consisting of hundreds of millions of people — to have been deliberately wiped out.
According to Italian demographer Massimo Livi-Bacci, “the decisive factor in [recent] fertility decline” (emphasis added) among whites was the widespread adoption of contraception. He therefore draws a sharp distinction between the historical norm of “natural fertility” and today’s “voluntary fertility control” (behavior determined by birth control ideology). (A Concise History of World Population, 4th ed., Blackwell, 2007, p. 240 n. 14)
The traditional or commonsense point of view about this aspect of human behavior has been expressed by demographic historian Ole. J. Benedictow:
All known societies have normative systems securing a level of fertility that prevents their populations from dying out, that secure the survival of their populations and their continuation as societies. This generalization arises from the inherent behavioural patterns of the individual persons who constitute populations and form societies, aimed (in accordance with evolutionary theory) at making it likely that they will, under the general social circumstances moulding their lives, succeed in passing on their genetic material and securing the continuity of their basic social network of descent group and local society. (The Black Death, 1346-1353: The Complete History, 2004, p. 255)
A prerequisite for the effective operation of this natural law is that a group retain its power to formulate and enforce its own distinctive customs. It is plain that the “normative systems” insuring replacement fertility and group survival over time have ceased to function among Europeans.
Livi-Bacci refers to current fertility rates as “dangerously low,” so low that they “might jeopardize the development of European society.” Following demographic convention, he does not explain to his readers that a large proportion of births in Europe and neo-European societies are to non-whites, or the result of interracial unions with non-whites. Most people who read a sentence like his will unthinkingly conjure up an image of a white Europe, which is not accurate.
Crucially from our perspective, there are far fewer white births than his or any other official, racially-aggregated demographic statistics suggest. Second Demographic Transition theory, an influential academic paradigm, views ultra-low European birth rates as structural and permanent, as does Livi-Bacci. Absent revolutionary change, these trends will destroy the white race.
Contraception’s Great Leap Forward in the United States occurred when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first birth control pill, Enovid, in 1960, though various state laws continued to ban its sale. In 1965 the US Supreme Court in Griswold v. Connecticut overturned Connecticut’s statute prohibiting the sale of the Pill to married women. Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972) extended Griswold’s holding to unmarried couples. By the early 1970s a majority of U.S. women had access to the Pill.
A racial group’s reproductive boundary (sex, marriage, procreation, and family patterns) is evidently far more fragile and vulnerable to cultural, psychological, and behavioral manipulation by hostile groups and rulers than had previously been imagined. Radical alteration of behavior brought about by resolute, top-down manipulation of culture can and will override innate individual or group biological predispositions that would otherwise intervene to preserve and replicate racial or ethnic DNA. (Keep in mind that anyone who managed to obtain the upper hand and possessed the requisite will could reverse engineer the destructive process and direct it against today’s murderous elite. Minor modifications would be necessary, but nothing inherent in nature would prevent it.)
The war against the white race is being waged on a multitude of fronts. Contraception, which targets sex and procreation and hugely impacts intimate sexual, marital, and family relationships, is one of them.
Contraception is heavily ideologized. Though its public propaganda is frequently couched in benign, even unobjectionable terms, the true impulse behind it is masked. Contraception masquerades as “family planning” and the prevention of “unwanted pregnancies,” where children are viewed as “accidental by-products of sexual intercourse.”
Drill down a bit and you discover the ideological centrality of “woman as [non-]childbearer.” We’re all familiar with the dogma, exemplified by the following two randomly-selected comments by different women (such statements always sound the same; I have compressed them slightly, but the original spelling, grammar, and punctuation have been retained).
I started the mini pill about two years ago. I have never regretted it. I can have sex when I want to and not get pregnant. I am 28 and don’t want to have kids for a few more years. What next do these crazy religious nuts want to stop all forms of birth control. Do they realize that pregnancy can actually kill some women? Hey I am an ultra consertative! Keep religious nuts and government off my body and out of my personal business!!!!!!!
My body and my choice to not have kids is none of their business. I have the Paragard IUD. They’ll have to literally rip it from my womb. After they outlaw abortion, they’re coming for our birth control next. They want us barefoot and pregnant. PATHETIC.
The female’s sole and unlimited ability, conferred and consecrated by the centralized state and culture, to plan or avoid pregnancies, free of all responsibilities to male partners, family members, the racial community, or even a newly conceived child, has decisively overturned, in the smug opinion of two leading academic birth control promoters, “the traditional [i.e., Aryan] concepts of the role and status of women in society and helped to make the relationships between the sexes more equal” (Vern L. and Bonnie Bullough, Contraception: A Guide to Birth Control Methods, Prometheus Books, 1990, p. 6).
Despite efforts by proponents to construct an august genealogy for birth control, effective contraceptives were not widely available, or used, until the mid-20th century. By then whites had lost control of their culture, so widespread radical change in sexual, marital, family, and childbearing attitudes and behavior occurred almost instantaneously.
Perceived moral acceptability of birth control by Americans, 2012
Today, contraception is universal among women of reproductive age according to the US Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC’s) National Center for Health Statistics.[1] An analysis of the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth found that 99 percent of all women who had ever had intercourse had used at least one contraceptive method.
Of the large sample surveyed for the study (deemed representative of 62 million women aged 15 to 44), 62 percent were using contraception on the day they were interviewed. The remaining 38 percent were not using contraception because they were currently pregnant or postpartum, trying to become pregnant, sterile for medical (non-contraceptive) reasons, unable to conceive, or had not had intercourse recently or ever.
It is notable that birth control studies conventionally utilize the age range of 15 to 44 years for women. The low end for sexual activity and potential pregnancy among girls, 15, must now be normative. The age of consent for sexual intercourse for both boys and girls will doubtless continually be lowered.
The CDC study revealed that the proportion of girls who used a method of contraception at their first premarital intercourse had risen greatly in the 20 years between 1985 (when it was 56 percent), and 2005-2008 (84 percent). But in 1985 the Pill and other contraceptive methods had already been available for many years, so the “low” initial 56 percent figure represents a huge leap up from historical norms. Revolutionary social change occurred over an extremely short time span.
The conventional upper limit for women utilized in contraceptive studies, 44, suggests the age at which reproduction must effectively cease, because the unmistakable obsession of the ideologues is prevention of births.
This obsession can be seen in the works of sexologist Vern Bullough, a deceased Left-wing academic and birth control advocate who was originally a Mormon from Utah. Not a practitioner of what he preached, he was twice married and had four children. His scholarship, in the words of the New York Times, “fueled a lifelong interest in activism for gay, racial [anti-white] and feminist causes.”
Bullough approved of masturbation, mutual masturbation, anal intercourse, and oral-genital sex (fellatio and cunnilingus), all of which he viewed within a birth control framework: “Obviously, to become pregnant it is necessary to bring the sperm into contact with the egg and this cannot be done if sexual intercourse involves other orifices than the vagina.”
This reminded me of the odious Jewish spokesman Philip Roth, who crows exultantly about the contemporary prevalence of fellatio, which had obviously been nonexistent in his youth. My impression is that he perceived this change as a victory of Jewish men over Aryan (or, as Jews put it, “Christian”) women.
In another book, Encyclopedia of Birth Control (ABC-CLIO, 2001), Bullough listed “Homosexuality as birth control” in the index, characterizing it as “non-fertile intercourse”: “Because sexual intercourse between members of the same sex cannot result in pregnancy, the [social] toleration or encouragement of homosexuality and lesbianism can be regarded as a means of population control” (p. 128).
Important background facts omitted from Bullough’s scrupulously sanitized New York Times obituary and Wikipedia entry (the latter mentions the journal’s title, but not its purpose or any other information), but noted by a homosexual writer, is that he was a member of the editorial board of Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia, a “scholarly” homosexual child-sex advocacy publication. He
maintained that pederasty, or intergenerational sex, was historically common. He always supported the work of Bruce Rind, even when Rind and the American Psychological Association were unanimously condemned by both houses of Congress for publishing Rind’s skillful synthesis of all previous studies of the effects of intergenerational sex. Like Harry Hay, Vern never denounced nambla [the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), a pedophile and pederasty advocacy group]. (“Vern Bullough, Our Greatest Sexologist, Dies at 77,”Gay & Lesbian Review, November 1, 2006)
In Bullough we see the strange link between the advocacy of sex among the young (in his case, actual adult sex with small boys of the same sex), and a commitment to extinguishing births in populations on a large scale. Whether the joinder is a function of contraceptive ideology per se, Left-wing dogma in the broader sense, or something else, is unclear.
Contraception seeks to prevent fertilization of the female egg (ovum) by male sperm. Post-coital contraceptives (“morning-after pills”), euphemistically called “emergency contraceptives,” are designed to disrupt or delay ovulation or fertilization necessary for pregnancy after unprotected intercourse has taken place. As recently as 1990, Bullough in Contraception referred to postcoital contraception as “early abortion” (p. 135). Moving forward along the time spectrum, there are abortifacients (“medical abortions,” drugs that induce abortion after conception), and surgical abortions. The objective at each stage is to prevent childbirth by any means necessary. Evidently the only behavior rejected by contraceptive ideologues that accomplishes their sacred objective is celibacy.
The primary change agents in all of this have been Establishment Leftists and Jews. These individuals and groups developed and funded the requisite anti-natalist technologies, spearheaded academic research and mass media propaganda, and rammed through the necessary legislation and judicial and administrative decisions to forcibly institutionalize and impose their social and biological agendas.
Vern Bullough asserted that the Rockefeller Foundation was the primary supporter of sex research in this country for over 40 years, from before WWI to after WWII. “Their importance,” he wrote, “is hard to overestimate. In fact, in the period between 1914 and 1954, the Rockefellers were almost the sole support of sex research in the United States” (“The Rockefellers and Sex Research,” The Journal of Sex Research 21 (May 1985): 113-25).
The Rockefellers, of course, were white. But innumerable contraceptive ideologues, including Left-wing social activists, litigators, judges, legislators, publicists, academics, and the inventors of technologies such as the condom and the Pill, were Jews. Moreover, Rockefeller family “philanthropic” (social engineering would be a better term) organizations always employed many, many Jews in high salary, top-level administrative, research, and advocacy positions.
Banker David Rockefeller’s daughter Eileen feels “very blessed to have married into the richness” of Jewish culture. She and her Jewish husband have two children and are members of Ohavi Zedek Synagogue, the oldest and largest in Vermont. Like Harvard’s Robert Putnam, Eileen Rockefeller appears to have found a profound sense of psychological, emotional, and spiritual belonging among aliens that has admittedly been stamped out among our own people.
Contraception, like nuclear weapons, is a genie that has left the bottle. In responsible hands it would not be malicious but beneficial. But the way it is currently used, and the ideology driving it, is toxic to our people. It must never be forgotten that the imposition of measures intended to prevent births within a racial, ethnic, religious or national group constitutes a crime — the formal crime of genocide. The anti-white ruling class knows this, because its members invented genocide, and wrote the laws criminalizing it.
1. CDC data from William D. Mosher and Jo Jones, “Use of Contraception in the United States: 1982-2008,” Vital and Health Statistics 23, no. 29 (2010), available online in PDF format.
Source: Counter-Currents
YouTube: David Duke Channel Reinstated
The World in False Face
The Leo Frank Case: A Pseudo-History
Jews Promote Christian Zionism in Japan
The Core of Western Music
Royce Mann, Boy Who Recited 'White Privilege' Poem, Revealed to be Jewish
ISIS Trying to Kill Off Remaining Whites in Northern Iraq
Deliberate Deception
Tags:Andrew HamiltonBiological ReproductionContraceptionCounter-CurrentsCultureHuman BehaviorJewsSexWhite People
Empathy Without Sympathy
New Information: Soros, US Government Back Terror Groups
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line965
|
__label__cc
| 0.630096
| 0.369904
|
Come fall every year when every other fall colour leaf has already faded away, I look forward to the ginkgo tree’s leaves. This photo was taken at a nearby park.
I am posting an excerpt from an article below on the tree by Mark Brazil.
I find something inspiring in the bright yellow and pale gold of the ginkgo’s leaves. It is as if a summer’s worth of sunshine has been collected, concentrated and at last returned, bringing not only color but also depression-lifting brightness to gloomy early winter days.
A mature ginkgo, reaching to 20 or even 35 meters in height is a distinctive tree with a broad crown, widespread branches and curiously shaped leaves. Its history is also worthy of admiration — only a single species survives in a wholly unique family, the ginkgoaceae. A member of the gymnosperms, or “naked seed” plants, the ginkgo is sometimes called a “living fossil.” This relic of ancient times can be seen as symbolic of changelessness, surviving through an unimaginably long past.
As the fan-shaped leaves fall, they twist and spin, ultimately carpeting the ground in drifts of fine-ribbed shapes. Such golden cascades have been taking place each autumn and winter since before dinosaurs roamed the earth, and we are incredibly fortunate to be able to bear witness to the very last species of the ginkgos.
Perhaps you watched that wave of inspiring color wash over your hometown. Perhaps you live in Tokyo, in which case you can hardly avoid the official symbol of the capital — there the leaf’s shape is to be found almost everywhere, from roadside railings to official pamphlets, and the trees line many of the city’s streets. Though, as a symbol of changelessness, I wonder how it came to be chosen as the emblem for a city that has reshaped and reinvented itself over and over again.
Perhaps you enjoy the delicious ginkgo nuts (ginnan), which are served grilled on skewers and are commonly added to savory egg-custard (chawan-mushi).
The leave of the ginkgo is unusual in that each blade has multiple midribs fanning out rather than a single central one.
Otherwise known as the Maidenhair Tree, the ginkgo’s ancestors were first recognized in fossil form, their leaves found in deposits dating back some 270 million years to the Permian Period. The Western world was ignorant of the existence of living ginkgos until the German physician and botanist Engelbert Kaempfer (1651-1716), who lived in Japan from 1690 to 1692, discovered it here, where it had been grown from seeds imported from China around 1192 AD.
In China, this last remnant of a once great lineage of early seed plants had survived at the hands of
Buddhist monks who cultivated it in monastic, palace and temple gardens. Kaempfer carried seeds back with him to Europe and trees planted in the early 1700s can still be found growing there. It has subsequently been introduced as an urban street plant in many parts of the world, making it a surprisingly familiar tree to urbanites worldwide.
Herbalists know it as an important natural ingredient in medicines to boost energy and stamina and to sharpen the mind, and it is apparently used professionally in the early stages of treating dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, to such an extent that it is the most widely sold plant-medicine in Europe and one of the 10 top-selling herbal medications in the United States.
In our goal-oriented capitalist world, practical value and usefulness are respected attributes. In this sense, we can admire the ginkgo for its medicinal value, its food value, for being remarkably pest-and-disease free, and for being astonishingly tolerant of harsh conditions, including pollution, making it ideally suited for urban planting.
Yet, there is more than value here, there is a stunningly beautiful tree.
Perhaps your local trees are still golden yellow, perhaps their leaves have fallen and been scattered on winter winds. If you find one, take a moment to admire the extraordinary number of finely parallel veins running across the fan-shaped leaf. Soon the trees will be fresh-leaved and pale green again — further beauty to be cherished not for their value but merely for being there. And one day, if the technology arrives, perhaps we will be able to watch in real time and admire as that golden wave sweeps down the country, followed by the northward sweep of pale green.
Mark Brazil teaches biodiversity and conservation at Rakuno Gakuen University, Hokkaido. His first book “A Birdwatcher’s Guide to Japan” is now out of print, and highly collectible, but Mark has some mint-condition signed copies available. If interested please contact him by e-mail: markbrazil@world.email.ne.jp
(C) All rights reserved
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line966
|
__label__wiki
| 0.790093
| 0.790093
|
Veterans’ Services: “It’s Time for Action” to Meet Obama’s “Fine Words”
May 27, 2012; Source: The Republic
Maricopa County, Ariz. greeted Memorial Day with a commitment of $3.8 million in federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program funding to purchase and convert an existing housing development into 46 one- and two-bedroom units. The sponsor is Catholic Charities Community Services. The beneficiary population is veterans and homeless individuals and families, though with a maximum apartment size of two bedrooms, the likelihood that there will be large families moved into the development is kind of slim. One suspects that the occupants may end up being single low income homeless veterans or homeless veterans with small families.
Good for Maricopa and good for Catholic Charities, but our nation has a long way to go before it owns up to its responsibility for housing homeless veterans.
A member of the Santa Monica City Council took President Obama to task in the pages of the Los Angeles Times on this very subject. Bobby Shriver cited President Obama’s 2012 opening campaign statement that “Nobody who serves, nobody who fights for this country should have to fight for a job or a roof over their heads when they come back home.” Shriver acidly observed, “That claim may work elsewhere, but not in L.A., Mr. President.”
Shriver cited statistics from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority indicating that the total number of homeless in Los Angeles County had declined by 3 percent between 2009 and 2011, but that the number of homeless veterans had increased by 24 percent to 9,000 while the number of chronically homeless veterans had jumped by over 100 percent to 2,500. That would seem to make Los Angeles the nation’s epicenter of homeless veterans.
Los Angeles is only part of the story. The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Veterans Administration count approximately 67,000 homeless veterans. An average of 18 veterans commit suicide every day in the U.S., and the suicide rates are highest among young veterans aged 17 to 24. It is not unreasonable to speculate that at least some of these suicides are related to homelessness.
With repeated reports of disarray within the Veterans Administration, the president’s delivery on his campaign pledge has been pretty thin. Responding to the housing needs of the veterans and their families who are already here—and the tens of thousands who are slated to return from deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq in the next several months—seems to be an obvious issue for public-private partnerships of nonprofits, banks, and the government.
Shriver excoriates the White House for opposing the court case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe, a case built upon the argument that the Veterans Administration has an affirmative obligation to provide adequate housing and mental health services to homeless veterans. Then, Shriver concluded with another quote from President Obama’s campaign applause lines: “This country will care for our veterans and serve our veterans as well as they’ve served us,” the president said, but Shriver added, “Fine words. But the time for words has passed. It’s time for action.”—Rick Cohen
Youth Climate Case Claims Constitutional Right to a Livable World
By Karen Kahn
Indian Country Devastated by Ongoing Government Shutdown
By Sheela Nimishakavi
“Safety Net” Is Out, But Will Better Framing Impact Poverty Levels?
By Debby Warren
Courts Pull Tax Exemptions for Big Nonprofits
By Larry Kaplan
Taking Risks Is Part of the Territory for These Philadelphia Nonprofits
By Erin Rubin
Maine’s Last Nonprofit to Pay a Subminimum Wage Shows a Familiar Profile
By Ruth McCambridge
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line968
|
__label__cc
| 0.662357
| 0.337643
|
By Geddy Posted on May 19, 2016 April 3, 2017
40 Hours with… Dark Cloud 2
The original title of this article was “15 Hours with… Dark Cloud 2,” but since I’ve been having way too much fun playing Dark Cloud 2 and couldn’t manage to take a break to write about Dark Cloud 2, the whole tone of this is probably going to end up very different than originally intended. I’m on the cusp of completing this game, at least the main story and final “necessary” chapter, but I wanted to release this before I moved on to something else.
It’s not often I come across a game that I simply can’t stop playing for hours at a time. There’s only one word to describe this game based on my time with it so far, and that word is “absolute perfection.” Alright, two words. Ballsy to say about any game, as none are without their flaws, but this game resonates with me on a level that no other game ever really has. At least not in recent memory. Truth be told, there aren’t enough words to describe how much I’ve enjoyed this game.
At this point in time, I’m convinced that DC2 is one of the best RPGs ever made, and while I don’t expect to be able to articulate my case very well while I’m blinded by the desire to keep playing it instead of writing about it, I’m going to jot down some things about it really fast and see if I can convince you of it’s greatness, based solely on the gameplay elements.
If you’ve played the original Dark Cloud, known as Dark Chronicle outside of the ‘States, the second installment improves on all of the good features of DC1, fixes the not-so-good features, removes all the bad features (such as the dreaded thirst meter), and adds a huge amount of depth in the form of inventions and interactions with the physical world.
Your typical RPG consists of several formulaic elements, most of which are some sort of modification of the more traditional elements, like recruiting team members, learning movesets, different battle types, etc. What DC2 does is take all of these, spin it into an action-RPG, and reinvent the whole genre, with a ridiculous amount of unique features that to my knowledge, have never been done this well in a video game, if at all. Let’s dive into it.
The Basic Plot and Point of it All
To keep things simple, the plot can be summarized as thus: you need to collect Geostones, which are parts of history, that you then use to rebuild the past, to affect the future, and save the world. That’s about as plainly as it can be put – but the depths involved in this are way more complicated than it seems, and it gets more difficult as the game progresses. You also need to convince people to move into these new villages that you’re re-creating, and some folks are more specific about what type of home or environment they’d like to live in. All of this assists in keeping the experience unique throughout the game, as opposed to “grind dungeon floors, find Geostones, build houses, change the future” and repeat and repeat and repeat.
The Weapon Upgrading System!
In most RPGs, the typical system of advancement is that of leveling up your character. How you level up your character differs from game to game, but the overall purpose is to get more powerful, and to do that, you gain experience, and thus, levels. This gives you more strength, skill power, etc.
Dark Cloud 2 changes this around, and rather than upgrading your character, you upgrade weapons by using them. Each of the two characters you can play as, Max and Monica, come with two weapon types, ranged and melee, which can be leveled up individually and infused with magical powers. Once a weapon is infused with enough magical powers using items you find around the dungeon floor, you can “build up” the weapon, turning it into something completely different and also usually totally badass. I turned a wrech into a motherfuckin’ BATTLE DRILL. With THREE drills! What the fuck!
The Photography System!
Ever spend an hour and a half wandering around an in-game world, taking pictures of traffic lights, lamps, and beds? Well now I can officially put myself in that club! There are, literally, hundreds of common and not-so-common items scattered around the world that you can take pictures with, using your camera. The game will also identify these things, kept track as “ideas,” so take a picture of a pipe, and you now “Pipe” as an idea.
What are these ideas for? Well, they’re for you to use with…
The Invention System!
Want to build some cool things? Great! First, you need to invent those things! And the way you invent those things is by combining Ideas, or, things that you photographed. You can get clues of which three items to combine by reading books found around the world, or by talking to characters. Once you invent something, be it Bread, a Battery, some kind of shoes, or an admittedly absurd assortment of various other items, you can then build them with inventory items that you pick up from dungeons.
Like the ancient native americans using every piece of the buffalo, every little thing you obtain has a purpose. Nothing goes wasted here!
The Recruitment System!
As I touched on earlier, once you rebuild these villages in the past, you need to fill them with people, so that they can (theoretically) grow up and affect the future in the correct way. But not every person will leave the comfort of their homes to join you, and some need to be coerced, from beating them in a fishing contest or foot race, or demonstrating mastery of your weapons.
The Construction System!
As the main focus of this game is fixing the future by reshaping the past, each new village that you reconstruct has certain caveats that, together, render the village 100% complete. You have different goals to accomplish, ranging from having certain recruited NPCs to move into the town, plant specific numbers of trees, or place items on or near other items. It’s incredible, especially given the time that this game was released, just how flexible the building system is in the first place, and then to add all this specifity? Blows my mind every time.
As I mentioned up top, I’m currently in the final chapter of Dark Cloud 2. This game is an absolute pleasure to play, and has been one of the biggest game changers for me. I’m moving onto Kingdom Hearts upon the completion of the final chapter, and to be honest, I think it’s because it looks like Dark Cloud 2. It’s a third-person action RPG with a supposedly amazing storyline and I don’t want to leave that behind right now with Dark Cloud 2 ending.
Worth noting is that, when all is said and done, about 50-60 hours have gone into this game to beat the main story and a decent amount of the sidequests, but as there is such a bottomless pit of content in this game, one could easily spend 100+ hours on it without batting an eye. It’s totally worth the dollars/yen/currency of your country. Buy it. Play it. Love it.
Categories: Playstation 2, Thoughts On / ReviewsTags: dark cloud, Playstation 2, ps2, rpg
Previous Post Previous post:Summer Gaming Plans, Sponsored by SquareEnix
Next Post Wrapping my Head Around Earthbound, Finally…
4 Replies to “40 Hours with… Dark Cloud 2”
Sunny says: 3 years ago Reply
Thank you so much for making this article. This game deserves so much more recognition than it gets! This has been my favourite game since I was 8 years old. I brought a Playstation 2 and an old TV with me when I moved out for college just so I could play this game. I agree with you on all points. It still doesn’t bore me, and all the more amazing is the fact that it was released in 2002 and still has amazing features I haven’t seen in games released even now. Absolutely worthy of being my favourite RPG game.
NostalgiaTrigger.com says: 2 years ago Reply
Thanks for commenting! It’s surprising what a sleeper hit this game turned out to be. Rarely do you see it gracing any top-lists, yet it had just _so much stuff_ to do, I don’t see how it couldn’t. Not that quantity reigns over quality, but everything in this game was just done right.
Glad to hear from someone who shares a love for the game! It just made my top list of 2016 a week back 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
Isleif says: 3 years ago Reply
“This game resonates with me on a level that no other game ever really has”: well, that sentence resonates with my gaming experience… In fact, I think every single player has once played a game that fits that description. Or at least, I hope so for them. For me, that unique game was Avalon Code on the DS. I fell in love with it so deeply that I even brought my DS at work to play it during my breaks, and I polished off no less that seven playthroughs in a row for a total playtime of 170 hours. No game has ever enthralled me, enraptured me and fascinated me as much as this one. Some came very close, such as Dragon Quest IX, Pokemon X, Criminal Girls, Sorcery Saga, Demon Gaze and a couple of others, but the intensity of the feelings Avalon Code generated in me is unrivaled to this day.
Damn! 170 hours is more than I’ve sunk into any game, aside from Skyrim. That’s really incredible – I’ll need to definitely check that one out.
Pokemon X kept me going for a long time (relative to my normal playtime), sometimes everything just feels right and you don’t want it to end.
I’m hoping the fiancee will pick me up a Vita for my birthday in a few months, and that will open up a new world for me – Demon Gaze is one I am interested in 🙂
Leave a Reply to NostalgiaTrigger.com Cancel reply
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line969
|
__label__wiki
| 0.552644
| 0.552644
|
Tag: British
June 22, 2019 June 22, 2019 notestowomen6 Comments
Shy and accomplished in school, she comes from a long line of academics.
Her works include The Death of Socrates and Six Tragedies of Seneca.
She was interested in the ways and methods that Socrates used to educate people and his death as an image. Her interest in Seneca stemmed from the fact that, “he’s so precise in articulating what it means to have a very, very clear vision of the good life and to be completely unable to follow through on living the good life.”
In 2017, Emily Wilson, British classicist and professor, became the first woman to publish a translation of Homer’s Odyssey, the second oldest extant work of Western literature into English.
This was written for the Weekend Writing Prompt by Sammi Cox. For instructions, click Here.
Two Different Worlds
February 28, 2019 February 27, 2019 notestowomenLeave a comment
“I’m thinking of breaking up with Josiah,” Phyllis said to her friend, Veronica when they were having lunch at a cafe close to Veronica’s workplace.
Veronica looked surprised. “Why?” she asked. “I thought you were really into him.”
“I am but, I’m not sure where this relationship is going. We’ve been seeing each other for three and a half years now and I still haven’t met his family. The last two years when he flew to Seoul for the Christmas holidays, he doesn’t ask me to go with him. I don’t even know if he’s told them about me. He met my family in our second year of dating.”
“Yes, he did on Thanksgiving but as I recall, some of your relatives didn’t exactly welcome him with open arms. Maybe he’s trying to spare you from the same kind of treatment from his family.”
“You really like him, don’t you?” Phyllis asked.
“Yes. He’s the best thing that has ever happened to you. Don’t blow it. Hang unto him. He’s a keeper.”
Phyllis sighed. “All right. I’ll take it one day at a time. Thanks for being such a terrific friend.”
Veronica smiled. “You’re welcome.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s time for me to head back to the office.”
“Let’s do lunch again soon, okay?”
“Sounds good to me.”
They split the cheque and parted company. Phyllis walked back to her office. She was busy for the rest of the afternoon and was thankful when it was time to go home.
She grabbed a hot chocolate on her way to the subway. On the train ride home she thought about what Veronica said. Josiah was a really special guy who treated her like a queen. He liked to buy her gifts, take her places and cook dinner for her. Tonight, she was going over to his place for another romantic, home cooked dinner. She was really looking forward to the dinner and spending the weekend with him. She couldn’t wait to see the expression on his face when she wore her new negligee. I probably wouldn’t be wearing it for long, she mused. Yes, I would be a fool to break up with him. When the time is right, I will meet his family.
When she got home, she checked her messages and then took a long, hot shower before she got dressed, grabbed her overnight bag, handbag and left.
“Something smells really, really good,” she remarked as soon as she entered the apartment.”
“It’s Popcorn chicken with basil.”
“Hmmm. My mouth’s watering just thinking about it.”
He smiled as he helped her to remove her coat. After he put it away in the closet, he took her in his arms and kissed her. “I’ve been looking forward to doing that all day,” he said when he raised his head several minutes later.
Phyllis could hardly breathe. “You have?” she gasped.
“Yes and I want to kiss you again but if I do, it will lead to other things and the dinner will get cold.” Reluctantly, he released her and stepped back.
“Why-why don’t I go and freshen up in the meantime?”
“Good idea. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”
She took up her overnight bag and headed for the bedroom.
A few minutes later, they were sitting at the candlelit table, having dinner. In the background, classical music was playing. “This is so good,” she exclaimed after she finished her first mouthful of the food.
“You’re such an amazing cook.”
“Cooking is something I really enjoy doing. Before I became a Marketing and Sales Manager, I wanted to be a chef. After I left university, I went to a culinary school in Paris. It was a fantastic experience.”
“Why didn’t you become a chef?”
“As much as I loved it, I realized after a while that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life working in a kitchen. So, I decided that I would open my own restaurant and hire a guy who went to the same culinary school as the chef.”
“I’m glad you did. We met at your restaurant. One of my girlfriends was celebrating her fortieth birthday and we wanted to take her to the best restaurant in Soho.”
“Yes, I remember that night as if it happened today. When I came out to greet and chat with the diners, I saw the staff gathered around your table singing happy birthday. I came over and my eyes fell on you. I barely acknowledged who else was at the table.”
“I couldn’t believe that you were the owner. You looked so young.”
“Is that why you didn’t want to go out with me at first?”
“Well, I’ve never dated a younger man before and…”
“and one who’s from a different culture.”
“Yes, but then, I was so attracted to you that after a while, I had to stop making stupid excuses not to go out with you.”
“And here we are three and a half years later.”
She smiled. “Yes.” If she had followed her mind instead of her heart, she wouldn’t be here now enjoying a romantic dinner with him.
“I spoke to my parents this morning,” he said as they cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher.
“Oh. How are they?”
“They’re doing well. I’m planning to visit them in July.”
“Oh. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you.”
“They’re looking forward to meeting you.”
She almost dropped a glass. “They know about me?” she exclaimed.
“Yes, they do. I wanted to take you to Seoul to meet them but my grandmother was living with them and she wouldn’t have approved of us. I wanted to spare you that. While I was there and when she wasn’t around, I told my parents about you and even showed them pictures. I hated spending Christmas without you and I promised myself that I would never do it again. My grandmother died a couple of days after I left. I couldn’t go to the funeral because of the short notice and I had already been away from the restaurant for a while. My parents understood.”
“I’m sorry about your grandmother.”
“Me too. I wish she could have known you and accepted you.”
“I’ve met people like your grandmother. They don’t see past color or culture.”
“My mother had to deal with the same thing because she’s British. My grandmother wanted my father to marry a Korean girl and was furious when he didn’t. She refused to attend the wedding and stopped talking to my grandfather for months because he did. I’m surprised that she didn’t shun me because I was Eurasian but she said that I looked more Korean because my Korean blood was stronger than my English blood.”
Phyllis shook her head. “It’s sad that this sort of thing still happens in families.”
“Yes it is,” he agreed. “But let’s not talk about it anymore. The important thing is that we are together.”
“Yes. And we have our parents’ approval.”
“And even if we didn’t, it wouldn’t matter.”
They left the kitchen and the dishwasher going and went into living-room where they spent the evening talking and planning their trip to Seoul. It was close to mid-night when they decided to turn in. While he undressed in the room, she was putting on her negligee in the bathroom, her heart pounding with excitement and anticipation. When she finally emerged, he was standing beside the window, wearing only his pajama pants. He turned when he heard her and his eyes traveled over her. She knew that the negligee looked great on her. Its muted red shade flattered her coloring and the fine silk hugged her body in all the right places.
In a matter of seconds, she was in his arms and he was kissing her ravenously. She clung to him as she returned his kisses. They stood there kissing wildly and then he drew back, his chest heaving and pulled the negligee over her head. She was naked. Then, his hands and lips were all over her, making her head swim as ripples of indescribable pleasure spread through her body. Then, he was backing her over to the bed until she was lying on top. His heated gaze ran over her as he ripped off his pajama pants. She reached eagerly for him and their lips met as their bodies merged.
In between kisses, he murmured, “I love you.”
When he buried his face in her neck, she whispered, “I love you.”
Before they went to Seoul in July, they got engaged and in the spring of following year they got married when his parents visited New York for the first time. In June, at the age of 40, Phyllis gave birth to their first child, a healthy boy whom they named after her father who passed away just a couple of weeks before. The second boy was named after Josiah’s father.
Two different worlds collided and became one.
The New Guy – Track #writephoto
August 2, 2018 August 2, 2018 notestowomen13 Comments
She had been through here hundreds of times but today, for some reason, it gave her the creeps. Served her right for watching that British murder mystery last night. She had sworn off watching those types of shows because they were dark and made her uneasy. But, she didn’t want to come across as a Scaredy cat. Plus, she wanted to impress Roland, the new guy in school.
Everyone seemed to think he liked her but she wasn’t as sure. He looked at her a lot, though and was always singling her out when she was with her friends. Still, she didn’t want to get her hopes up just yet. She’d been burned before by another guy who she thought checked for her but it turned out that he was only interested in one thing and when she didn’t give it to him, he dropped her like a hot potato. It took weeks for her to get over him although her friends kept telling her that he was a jerk, not worth pining over. And they were right, of course. The last she heard of him was that he had gotten a cheerleader pregnant and had to drop out of school to support her and the child. That could have been her although, she would like to think that she was a lot smarter than that.
Roland was a lot different from all the other guys. He was quiet but engaging once you got to know him. He was very smart too. They talked about all sorts of things and had similar interests. He didn’t talk much about his family, though. He was an only child who lived with his mother. His father died when he was twelve under very mysterious circumstances. Many people thought that his death was suspicious but there wasn’t any evidence to prove that. Some even intimated that it was his wife who had done him in.
Roland’s mother was a tall, thin and pale woman who hardly smiled. For some inexplicable reason, she got the chills whenever she saw her. Her pale blond hair didn’t go with her dark eyes which seemed to see through a person. She shivered now and her steps quickened. Roland was nothing like his mother. She felt comfortable around him.
As she watched the sunlight flitter among the trees, she realized that she didn’t start feeling uneasy coming through these woods until after Roland and his mother moved into town. Tomorrow, she would walk the longer way.
Strange, the track seemed much longer today. Did it always take this long to get to her house? Hunching her shoulders, head down, she continued on, her heartbeat increasing with each step, trying to ignore the sensation that she was being watched. In a few minutes, she would be home, quarreling with her tiresome brother and enjoying Mom’s delicious meat loaf.
From behind the trees, a figure moved. He watched her retreating back. Beads of perspiration stood on his forehead and he dabbed them with his handkerchief. When he was done, he tucked it back into his breast pocket, so that the edge with the monogrammed letter R was sticking out. This girl was different from the other girls. He really liked her and was thinking of going steady with her but that would only upset Mother and…he tried not to think of what would happen. He didn’t want this girl to end up like the others…or like Father…
This was written in response to the Thursday Photo Prompt – Track at Sue Vincent’s Daily Echo.
The Autograph
March 14, 2018 March 14, 2018 notestowomenLeave a comment
He was walking down a busy street in downtown Manhattan, heading back to his hotel room when he saw her. She was coming toward him–a very pretty girl in a white jacket over a black top and blue jeans. He wasn’t looking for anything because he was already in a relationship which he was having serious misgivings about, especially now that Claudia was pressuring him to get married. The last thing he wanted was to be distracted by another woman.
Yet, as they approached each other, he couldn’t look away. She was staring at him too and that thrilled him. Since Claudia and he began dating four years ago, he had never once looked at another woman until now…His heart thudded as they got closer to each other and as they passed each other, she looked right up at him. He was tempted to look back but continued walking.
“Excuse me,” she called and he stopped. When he turned around, she went closer, her eyes searching his face. “Aren’t you Bernard Forbes, the British stage and independent film actor?”
He nodded. “Yes, I am.”
She smiled broadly, her eyes bright with excitement. “I’m a big fan of yours,” she told him. “I have seen all of your films. And last month when I was in London, I went to see you in the latest stage production of Macbeth. It was the only reason I visited England. I wanted to go backstage and get your autograph but my aunt was in a hurry to leave.”
“I’m flattered that you went all the way to London just to see me in a play. The least I can do is to give you my autograph for your trouble.”
“It just so happens, I have the program with me. This is the handbag I had with me when I went to see the play. I just never got around to taking it out and I’m happy I didn’t.” She took it out along with a pen and handed them to him, her heart racing. He was even more handsome in person and gracious too. She couldn’t wait to call her aunt in London and tell her.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Kimani Jones.”
“Kimani. What an unusual name,” he commented. “What does it mean?”
“’Beautiful’ and ‘sweet’”, she replied. “My mother saw it somewhere and decided that she would call me that.”
“It suits you,” he said, his eyes meeting hers in a steady gaze before he turned his attention to signing his autograph. He wrote: To: Kimani, my warmest regards and my very best to you always. Bernard Forbes. He handed the program back to her.
She read what he wrote. “Thank you,” she gushed, beaming at him. “I really appreciate this.
“It was my pleasure,” he said quietly. “How come you’re not in school?”
“I’m on March break,” she said. “And I’m in my third year at New York University.”
“Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?”
She shook her head. “I was just window shopping. Spring is around the corner so I was thinking of buying some new clothes.”
They were standing close to a café. “Let’s move our conversation from the sidewalk to in there,” he suggested. There wasn’t any harm in talking to one of his fans, was there? She was a welcome change from the movie and theatre crowd and the people he usually associated with. Besides, this was better than going back to his hotel room to brood over his relationship with Claudia.
She readily acquiesced and they went into the café. He found a table at the back and by the window. It was after ten o’clock so the place was almost empty save for a few people and aside from curious stares in his direction, no one bothered them. After they ordered two hot chocolates, he leaned forward in his chair, arms on table and studied her. “You mentioned that you’re in your third year in university. What is your area of study?”
I can’t believe I’m sitting here having a conversation with Bernard Forbes. “I’m studying Psychology.”
“Why Psychology?”
“I want to help people.”
“That’s commendable,” he said. “I have a feeling that you will do very well in the field.”
“Have you always lived in New York?”
“Yes. And I can’t imagine living anywhere else.”
He asked her all sorts of questions about herself and in no time an hour had passed. “Spend the rest of the day with me, Kimani,” he heard himself say.
“All right,” she said, thrilled. And after he paid for the hot chocolates, they left the cafe and walked up the road where he hailed a cab.
They went to Central Park where they spent a fun afternoon. They went up to the Belevdere Castle to check the temperature and to enjoy the panoramic view around them. Afterwards, they visited the Conservatory Garden and watched people sail their boats at Conservatory Water before they grabbed lunch. After lunch they went to see a puppet show at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre. They ended the day at Bethesda Fountain where they each made a wish.
The sun was setting as they walked to the exit of the park. He hailed a cab and she gave the driver her address.
“Thank you for an incredible day,” he told her when they were outside of her apartment building. “I haven’t enjoyed myself so much in a very long time.”
She smiled. “I had a wonderful time too. I never knew there were so many fun things to do in Central Park.” I hope we can see each other again.
“Kimani, I want to see you again.” This was madness but he couldn’t seem to get enough of her. He had to see her again. “Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
“I’d like that,” she said.
“Good. I’ll pick you up at seven.” He took her hand and raised it to his lips, making her tremble. “Have a good evening.” He reluctantly released her hand and climbed back into the back of the cab.
Her flesh tingled. “You too,” she replied breathlessly. She wave at him before she turned and walked to the entrance of her building on rather shaky legs, her mind spinning. She hoped this wasn’t all a dream.
Dinner was at the Empire State Building. As soon as they walked in they were greeted with a smile before being shown to a table with a magnificent view. Over Burrata and Shave Kale salads, Scottish Salmon and Roasted Farm Chicken and non-alcoholic wine, they talked about many different things. She learned that Bernard began acting on stage when he was eleven at the encouragement of his father who used to be renown theatre actor himself. His mother was an opera singer. Both parents were still alive and living in the South of France. They recently celebrated their sixtieth wedding anniversary. He flew out for the occasion. He was an only child like her.
“Do you ever wish that you had brothers or sisters?” she asked.
“Sometimes. It would have been nice to have an older brother whom I could go to for relationship advice and the one I’d call instead of one of my parents when I got into trouble. And of course, be each other’s best man at our weddings.”
“Yes, I wish I had an older sister that I could share secrets with whose closet I could raid when I didn’t have anything to wear and someone to hang out with whenever we are forced to attend a family get together and go shopping with.”
He smiled. “And what would happen if you both ended up liking the same guy?” he teased.
“I would like to think that if the guy liked her instead of me, I would bow out gracefully.”
His expression grew serious. “If I were that guy you would be the sister I liked.”
She smiled shyly at him. “And if you had a brother, I would like you instead of him.”
“Kimani, I’m here in New York for a week. Can I see you everyday until it’s time for me to fly back to London?”
She nodded. “Yes. I just have to figure where we can go that you haven’t already been. I read on line that you have been to New York many times because it’s one of your favorite cities in the world after London and Paris.”
He looked intrigued. “What else have you read about me?”
“That you like going to museums, for long walks, traveling, cooking, volunteering, you prefer theatre acting to film acting and prefer dating actresses.”
“I’m guilty of all of those things except the bit about my preference for actresses. You’re not an actress, are you?”
She laughed. “I was in drama class once in high school and I managed to get through it but I knew then and there that acting was not for me.”
“I love it,” he said simply. “I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
“What about when the opposite sex throw themselves at you?”
“Yes, that ‘s the part of my career which I truly dislike,” he agreed. “but it has brought us together.”
“I never imagined that I would bump into you in the street or that when I asked you for your autograph we would end up spending the day together or having dinner. I still can’t believe that this is really happening. I’m afraid that this is all a very long and wonderful dream.”
He reached over and grasped her hand. “This is no dream, Kimani,” he assured her, gently squeezing her fingers to make his point. “I’m real, you’re real and what is happening between us is very real.”
She blinked, finding it hard to think with him holding her hand. Just then, a couple approached their table. They smiled apologetically before the woman said hesitantly, “I’m so sorry to disturb your dinner but know that my husband nor I wouldn’t be able to forgive me if I passed up this opportunity to get your autograph. We saw you in Macbeth, Hamlet, Absent Night and Secrets in the Dream, your latest independent film. We are huge fans. Do you mind signing the front of this photo of my husband and me?” she handed it to him with a pen. She smiled at Kimani. “Sorry for the interruption.”
Kimani smiled. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. One of the things she had to get used to when being with him was having interruptions like this.
“What are your names?” Bernard asked the woman who was pretty and looked to be in her late thirties.
“Kevin and Angela.”
He scribbled something on the photo and gave it back to her with the pen. “Have a good evening,” he said with a smile.
“Thank you so much,” she said, looking at the signed photo in appreciation before she put it in her bag. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.” She turned and walked away.
“Do you ever get used to people coming up to you wherever you go for your autograph?” she asked.
“Actually, I have gotten used to it but not tired of it. I will always be happy to sign autographs long after I’ve retired from acting which wouldn’t be for a very long while. I hope you didn’t mind.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t. She’s a fan just like me. I can relate.”
He glanced at his watch. “The night is still young. Would you like to go for a carriage ride in Central Park?”
Her eyes brightened. “Yes!”
His lips twitched and he signaled to the waitress. Ten minutes later, they were on their way to Central Park.
The carriage ride was a remarkable and romantic experience. The Park was transformed at night, a perfect escape from the bustle and noise of the city, making it easy for them to enjoy the spectacular views of the city skyline. It was the perfect end to a perfect evening. He took her home and they saw each other for the rest of the week going to the museum, the theatre, the movies, a gondola ride in Central Park, Atlantic City and Coney Island.
On Sunday afternoon, she went with him to the airport, sorry to see him go. They faced each other general area before he went to the terminal where he would catch his plane. He took her hands in his. “I will be back in a week,” he promised.
She nodded and then reached up and hugged him tightly. “I’ll see you in a week.”
He bent his head and kissed her. It lasted for a few minutes and when they broke apart, his face was flushed. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he said before he turned and walked away. She watched him until he was out of sight before she left the airport, her heart heavy.
The day after he returned from New York, Bernard went to see Claudia. She was expecting him. She opened the door, dressed in a long black negligee leaning and her mouth raised for a kiss but after a light brush of his lips against her cheek, he walked past her and into the living-room. There was a time, not so long ago, when he would have dragged that negligee off. It was amazing how a man could look at the same woman who used to drive him wild with desire and feel nothing.
Frowning, she closed the door. “Is something wrong?” she asked when she joined him and noted the expression on his face.
“Please sit down,” he said. When she did, he sat beside her. He took a deep breath. “Claudia, I can’t marry you.”
She stared at him, her face going pale. “Why not?” she asked.
He hesitated for a moment and then he confessed, “I don’t love you.”
“So, for the four years we have been together you never once loved me?”
He nodded, feeling awful. “I cared about you, but I wasn’t in love with you.”
“Is that why every time I broached the subject of marriage you shut down?”
He nodded again. “Yes. When it comes to marriage, a person has to be very sure before taking that step. And since I wasn’t sure about us, I couldn’t take that risk. I went to New York to sort things out and I realized that what was troubling me from the very beginning were my feelings for you. You loved me but I had to admit to myself that I didn’t love you. Claudia, you deserve to be with a man who will love you back. I’m not that man. I’m sorry…”
She got up from the sofa and began to pace, her arms folded tightly as the enormity of what he was saying hit her. Tears sprang in her eyes but she blinked them back. “You came to this conclusion when you were in New York?”
“Did you meet someone else while you were there, Bernard?”
He sighed, “Yes, but—”
“Is she the reason why you have now decided that you don’t want to be in a relationship with me anymore?”
“Before I met her, I was filled with so many doubts about you and me which I couldn’t shake off. And being with her helped me to realize that it wouldn’t be fair to either you or me to continue our relationship when it would not lead to what you want—marriage.”
“So, who is she? Another actress or one of your adoring fans?”
He didn’t answer. “Claudia, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you but I have to be true to myself and I cannot in all honesty and good conscience, continue to be with you when I can’t give you what you want. Marriage between us will not work. I’m sorry. I hope that in time you will see that I’m right.” He got up from the sofa and would have gone over to her but the expression on her face deterred him. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
“So, what are you going to do now that you’re no longer tied to me?” she demanded. “Go back to New York to be with her? Well, I hope for your sake that it works out but if it doesn’t don’t think you can come crawling back to me. I won’t take you back even if you begged me—” her voice broke into a sob.
Contrite, he took a step toward her, “Claudia—”
She held up her hand, glaring at him. “Bastardo. Don’t come near me,” she cried. “I want you to leave.”
He hesitated for a moment and then he turned and walked out of the room. The last sound he heard was her crying before he closed the door behind him.
Kimani was relaxing on the sofa, reading a book when the doorbell rang. Putting down her book, she quickly got up and went to answer the door. Her heart somersaulted when she saw who it was. Eagerly, she unlocked the door and flung it open, a big smile on her face.
“Do you have room for a weary traveler?”
“Yes, one in particular,” she said as she reached out and grasped by the hand to pull him inside before locking the door. After he set his luggage down on the floor, she hugged him tightly, closing her eyes as she felt his arms go about her waist, holding her close against him. “I’ve missed you like crazy. One week seemed like a year.”
“I’ve missed you too,” he muttered thickly. “I couldn’t wait to come back to you.” As soon as she drew back to look up at him, he kissed her. They stood there for several minutes kissing passionately, happy to be together again and determined never to be apart again. At length, he drew back to gaze down into her face. “I have to talk to you about something,” he said quietly.
Frowning, she took his hand and led him over to the sofa. She curled up on the cushion beside him, with one arm resting along the back of the chair and the other on his thigh. “What’s on your mind?”
“When you and I met, I was already in a relationship. When I came to New York, my only intention was to clear my head—figure out what I was going to do about my relationship because I was having so many doubts about it. And then, I met you. I tried so hard to fight my attraction for you but it was hopeless. I had to get to know you better and that’s why I suggested we talk more in the café. And that time we spent together wasn’t enough so I suggested that we spend the rest of the day together. By the time we left Central Park, I knew that I was hooked. I had to see you again. Being with you made what could have been a complicated situation worse made it bearable. Those hours I spent with you were the happiest and most relaxed I’ve ever had and it helped me to make up my mind about what I was going to do about my relationship.”
“I knew that you were dating someone,” she said. “Remember, I’m a fan so I have read every article there is about you. She’s Claudia Riaz, the beautiful Venezuelan actress who co-starred with you in The Stone of the Predator. Everyone kept going on about what an attractive couple you made but I didn’t think so–for obvious reasons. You dated her the longest–four years but there was no news about any engagement which I dreaded because I had developed such a crush on you. No woman would have been suitable for you.”
“Is it still just a crush that you have on me?”
She shook her head. “No, by the time I saw you in Macbeth, I had fallen madly in love with you.”
“I never believed in love at first sight until that morning when you stopped me on the sidewalk.”
“I’m glad I asked you for it.”
He reached out and caressed her cheek with his knuckles. “And do you still think no woman would be suitable for me?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I’m the exception,” she said huskily. “I think I’m very suitable for you.”
“Yes, you are,” he groaned and cupping her face between his hands, he kissed her. As she kissed him back, she thought of what Walt Disney said, all our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.
Sources: City Parks Foundation; NYC Carriages; Ruggenberg; Very Well Mind
Love in the Office
November 18, 2017 November 22, 2017 notestowomen3 Comments
When she went to the kitchenette to fill her bottle with water, Anton was there telling a couple of people about his camping trip with his friends. She couldn’t help but smile. He was such a droll when it came to telling stories. She filled her bottle and turned so that she was facing the group.
“Sounds like you had a lot of fun on your camping trip,” she said a few minutes later, when they were alone.
He went over to where she was. “I did,” he said, his eyes riveted to her face.
She wondered if he knew how much his closeness affected her. “Good,” she said, sounding a little breathless. “Where did you go camping?”
“Wild Boar Wood in West Sussex.”
“So, were there any women on your camping trip?” She had to ask.
He shook his head. “No, just the guys.”
She couldn’t hide her relief and she saw his expression change.
“Even if women were there, I wouldn’t have been interested in any of them,” he said quietly. “You must know by now, Tina, that I’m deeply attracted to you.”
Her chest began to rise and fall quickly and she seemed to have trouble breathing. “I’m your supervisor,” she reminded him.
“Yes, I know that we have a working relationship but we can’t deny how we feel about each other. I know that you’re attracted to me. I saw the look on your face when I told you that there weren’t any women on the camping trip. You don’t want me to be with another woman any more than I want you to be with another man. You can’t deny that you have feelings for me, Tina. I can see it on your face.”
Her resolve was beginning to weaken. “I’m older than you,” she said.
“Age is just a number,” he said dismissively. “Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
“All right,” she acquiesced. “You win.” She was no match for the emotions that raged within her or his power of persuasion.
He smiled. “Good. I’ll pick you at seven-thirty.”
“I think we should get back to work now,” she said.
“Right,” he agreed. “I’ll get started on the report you asked me for.” He excused himself and quickly walked away.
For several minutes, she stood there, wondering if she had acted wisely. She couldn’t get past the fact that she was his supervisor and that there was a considerable age difference between them. Yet, try as she did, she couldn’t deny her feelings for Anton.
From the moment she first saw him, she knew that she was in trouble. His good looks, charm and friendly disposition made him irresistible. Working with him was a challenge. Many times, she found herself watching him and wondering if he had a girlfriend. She couldn’t imagine that someone like him would be unattached. It bothered her to see him talking to other women in the department, especially the younger ones.
Just yesterday, she had walked by the photocopier on her way to the boardroom for a meeting when she saw him standing there talking to Wendy, a pretty redhead. He had his back turned to her so he didn’t notice her. Her steps faltered and as she watched them talking, red, hot jealousy raged inside her. She was tempted to go over there and interrupt them but she came to her senses and hurried away before he saw her. When she was in the meeting, she had to literally force herself to focus on the business at hand and put the sight of Anton and Wendy out of her mind. Later when they were alone in her office going over some files, she said, “Wendy’s pretty, isn’t she?”
He glanced up at her. “I suppose so,” he said.
“I saw the two of you at the photocopier earlier today. I think she likes you.”
“Are you trying to set me up with her?” he asked, startling her.
“No,” she protested. “I—I was just making an observation.”
“Wendy’s a very nice girl but I’m not attracted to her.” He was staring at her now and the expression on his face made her heart palpitate. That was the first time she became aware of his attraction for her.
“Tina, Mr. Foster is waiting for you in your office.” Annette’s voice brought her back to the present.
“Thanks, Annette,” she said and followed her out of the kitchenette.
Several hours later when it was time to leave, Anton stopped by her office. She was straightening her desk. He went over to her. “Normally, I would tell you to have a good weekend,” he said. “But, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”
“Yes,” she said. She handed him a slip of paper with her address on it. When he took it, their fingers touched and her breath caught in her throat. Her skin seemed to burn. Their eyes met and held for a long time before she turned away to remove her jacket from the back of her chair. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Tina.” She heard him leave and turned round when he closed the door behind him.
Her skin still tingled where his fingers had touched it. She traced the area, her heart pounding when she remembered the expression on his face as they stared at each other. The desire she saw there was unmistakable. She wondered what would have happened if she hadn’t turned away. On the drive home, she mulled over it and nervous excitement rose in her whenever she thought of seeing Anton the following evening. What on earth am I going to wear? She wondered, racking her brains to see if there was an outfit that would be suitable. It had been ages since she had been on a date and it felt very strange going on one with someone she worked closely with.
As soon as she got home, she searched for something to wear and settled on a dress she had bought a month ago and had worn only once. It was a black slash neck dress with a flare skirt. On Saturday evening, she put it on and was satisfied with how it looked. She wore her hair in a chignon, allowing a few tendrils to frame her face. The strappy black and silver heels completed the outfit. The doorbell rang just as she took one last look at herself in the mirror. When she opened the door and saw Anton standing there, her heart leapt. He looked gorgeous in the charcoal grey suit with the black dress shirt and black tie. His eyes slid over her and when they returned to her face, admiration and desire shone in their depths. “You look amazing,” he said quietly.
“So do you.” As they walked to the lift, she could feel him watching her and she smiled, flattered.
The restaurant, set in a snug 18th century townhouse, was atmospheric in that the tables candle lit. Over dinner, he told her about himself. His father was British and his mother French. He had an older brother and a younger sister. He asked many questions about her and her family.
When they were having dessert, he said with a serious expression on his face, “I want to have a relationship with you, Tina. I know that you are hesitant because we work together and the age difference but we can’t deny how we feel about each other. It’s so hard for me to be around you and not want to touch you or kiss you. Quite a few people in our department are dating each other. At least, let’s give it a try and see what happens. What do you say?”
She toyed with her Black Currant Sorbet for a moment and then, looking up at him, she nodded. “Yes, let’s give it a try.” He was right. There was nothing to prevent them from having a relationship except her own misgivings which she knew had to do with her fear of getting hurt. She still couldn’t believe that he was attracted to her instead of someone closer to his age.
He smiled and reaching over, he caressed her hand, making her pulse race. They spent the rest of the night talking about all sorts of things and made plans to see each other the following day. When he took her home, he leaned down and was about to kiss her on the cheek when, heart thudding, she turned her head so that their lips touched.
Groaning, he deepened the kiss while backing her into the flat. Once they were inside, he kicked the door shut, his mouth moving feverishly over hers. She clung to him, kissing him back while her hands removed his jacket. His tie and shirt soon followed and then, she broke off the kiss, panting and grabbing him by the hand, she took him to her room.
The following day at the office, they smiled and kept exchanging knowing looks. She felt like a lovesick schoolgirl. When other people were around, they acted professionally around each other as before. They spent every evening together, either at her flat or his. Over the weekends, they went for drives, to the cinema, dinner, the theatre, concerts and nightclubs or for walks along the Quay. Tina knew that she was falling in love with him and hoped that he was with her. Once when he was taking a shower, she joined him and as he gazed down into her face, the water beating on his back, she saw the look in his eyes before he kissed her. There was no doubt in her mind that he cared for her.
One afternoon, she was on her way home to visit her sister, Vivien when she spotted Anton in front of a café. He was not alone. There was a traffic signal right there and she stopped as the light turned to red, craning her neck to see him and the girl he was with. She watched as he leaned over and said something to the pretty brunette, making her throw back her head and laugh. Then, she saw the girl reach up and put her arms around his neck, hugging him closely. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel as jealousy ripped through her.
The honk of a car horn behind her startled her. Dragging her eyes from the two figures on the sidewalk, she glanced up and saw that the light had changed to green. She pressed her foot on the gas and drove off. All sorts of thoughts were running through her mind. Who was the girl and what was he doing with her? And what about me? Is he getting bored of me? But he couldn’t be—not after the way he made love to me last night. She trembled at the memory. Is he seeing the both of us at the same time? Is he sleeping with her too? The pain and jealousy almost suffocated her.
How she managed to get to Vivien’s home without getting into an accident, she had no idea. As soon as her sister opened the door, she broke down. Concerned, Vivien hugged her for a moment until she had calmed down, then she put her arm around her shoulder and led her over to the sofa. “Tell me what’s got you so upset,” she encouraged her gently. She handed her the box of tissues that was on the coffee table and waited patiently while she dried her eyes and wiped her nose. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”
Taking her time, Tina told her everything. “I love him, Vivien. It really hurt to see him with her.”
“Does he love you?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. He hasn’t said so as yet.”
“Based on what you have told me, it’s obvious that he has feelings for you. There might not be anything going on between him and the girl. It may all turn out to be innocent. When you see him tomorrow, ask him about her.”
“And what if he’s seeing her?”
“Then, you must end your relationship with him.” She reached out and covered her hands. “I hope it all works out for you, Tina.”
Tina didn’t answer. At that moment, her world was in an upheaval and she didn’t know what she was going to do if it turned out that Anton was two-timing her.
She drove to work the next day, feeling awful. She hadn’t slept a wink at all last night. Anton wasn’t at his desk when she got in and she went into her office and closed the door. She knew she couldn’t avoid him but she dreaded the moment when she would have to talk to him. Once when he knocked on the door and poked his head in, she pretended that she was on the phone. He didn’t disturb her after that.
It was after twelve when she came out of her office and stopped short when she saw the same girl she had seen Anton with sitting in a chair next to his desk. What is she doing here, she wondered, resentfully. The girl didn’t see her. She was sitting with her back turned to her and was on her cell phone texting.
She was tempted to walk over to her and find out who she was. As she stood there, trying to figure out what to do, Anton came up behind her. She felt him caress her arm and she swung round to face him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked when he saw the expression on her face.
“Who’s the girl over there at your desk?” she demanded in a low, angry voice. She couldn’t hide her jealousy.
He looked over her shoulder and then back at her. “You mean my sister?” he asked, raising his eyebrows quizzically.
She gaped at him. “Your sister?” she repeated, wondering if she had heard correctly.
“Yes, my sister. Come, let me introduce you.” He took her by the arm and led her over to the brunette who glanced up at them. “This is my sister, Louise. Louise, this is Tina.”
Louise smiled and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Tina. Anton has told me so much about you.”
Tina shook her hand, dazed and feeling like a complete fool. “It’s nice to meet you too,” she murmured.
Anton turned to her, “Louise and I are going to have lunch. Would you like to join us?”
She shook her head. “Thank you, but I already had my lunch and I have a meeting in about fifteen minutes.”
Anton grabbed his jacket and pulled it on. “I’ll see you when I get back.”
Louise stood up. She was a tall girl. “I hope to see you again, Tina,” she said.
Tina managed a smile. “Me too.” She watched them as they walked away and then went back into her office. She sat down at her desk and leaned her head against the leather upholstery, her mind whirling. The heaviness which had been on her heart was gone. She went to her meeting in better spirits. When it was over, she went back to her office and waited for Anton to return from lunch.
When he did, she called him on his extension, asking him to go in and see her. He went in right away and walked over to her desk. “You’ve been avoiding me all morning,” he said, “and I’d like to know why.”
She got up from the desk and went up to him. “I have a confession to make,” she said quietly, wringing her hands nervously. “Yesterday I saw you with Louise, only I didn’t know at the time that she was your sister and I thought…”
“And you thought that I was seeing another woman behind your back. Oh, Tina,” he groaned, raking his fingers through his hair in frustration. “How could you think such a thing? Can’t you tell by now that I love you?”
Her heart stopped. “You love me?”
“Yes! I love you so much that I ache inside.”
“I love you too. I’m sorry for being such a jealous fool. When I saw you with her, I was so hurt, so jealous. I—I was going to talk to you about it today but I couldn’t seem to work up the courage to do so.”
He reached for her and pulled her into his arms. “There’s no reason for you to be jealous of other women,” he told her huskily. “I love you. I want to be with you. I want to marry you.”
She stared at him. “Marry me?”
“Yes. That’s why you saw me with Louise yesterday. She went with me to De Beers to help me to choose a ring for you. I was planning to propose to you tonight over dinner at my place. Afterwards, we went to a cafe. You must have seen us just before we parted company.”
She began to cry and he hugged her tightly. “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.
He drew back to look down at her. “What are you sorry about?” he asked.
“I’m sorry for ruining your surprise and for doubting you…”
“Don’t cry,” he said. “You haven’t ruined anything and I would have reacted the same way if I had seen you hugging a strange man.
She smiled at him through her tears. “I’m so lucky to have you,” she cried.
He cupped her face between his hands and rubbed the tears away with his thumbs. “I’m the lucky one,” he muttered thickly before he lowered his head and kissed her. Wrapping her arms tightly around his waist, she kissed him back.
Sources: Time Out;Ali Express; Andrew Edmunds; De Beers
June 12, 2017 June 12, 2017 notestowomenLeave a comment
As she read the two volume autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, she was reminded of how fortunate she was. She was a black, educated woman who was able to go to the university of her choice and become what she had always dreamed of. She and her parents left the West Indies for a better life in America.
Her world was so different from Olaudah’s. He had been kidnapped from his home in the West Indies and taken to Virginia where he was bought by a sea captain, Michael Henry Pascal, with whom he traveled widely. Olaudah received some education before he bought his freedom in 1766. He became an abolitionist, speaking out against the cruelty of British slave owners in Jamaica.
Slavery is something she was never going to experience, but she knew what it was like to be treated differently because of the colour of her skin. She learned that being educated, living in a stylish condo and driving an expensive car didn’t matter to those who didn’t see past her colour. She still had to deal with being watched or ignored or followed when in certain stores or co-workers looking away as she passed them.
Yes, she had her own issues to deal with but they paled in comparison to Olaudah who suffered cruelty and indignity at the hands of those who wanted to keep him and the other slaves in emotional and intellectual shackles. She was grateful to Olaudah for writing about the horrors of slavery. It made her more determined to work harder and achieve more. It was what drove her to pursue her Masters. Like Olaudah, there were times when she questioned her faith but she has since learned that it is during those tough, challenging times that God has proven that she has the mettle to overcome them.
Yes, she had come a long way with God’s help but there was still a long way to go. Little by little she was going to break free from the racist mentalities that would like to keep blacks shackled to the painful past of slavery.
“After all, what makes any event important, unless by its observation we become better and wiser, and learn ‘to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God?'” – Olaudah Equiano
Sources: Wikipedia; Britannica; Daily Kos
Dame Angela Lansbury
December 5, 2015 November 21, 2018 notestowomen2 Comments
I still watch Murder, She Wrote because I like the show and the character Jessica Fletcher played by the great Angela Lansbury. My 7 year old son is also a fan of Jessica Fletcher’s. Before taking on the role of a mystery writer in one of the longest running detective drama series in television history, Angela was a silver screen movie star. My husband thought she was hot then.
Angela is a versatile actress, easily portraying an unlikable and cheeky maid in Gaslight opposite Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer to the music hall singer who, unfortunately and tragically, falls in love with the protagonist, Dorian Gray in the movie, The Picture of Dorian Gray to the frightening and domineering mother in The Manchurian Candidate. Her performance as Mrs. John Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate is ranked #21 in the American Film Institute’s 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains for villains.
Angela was born to an upper middle class family on October 16, 1925 in Regent’s Park, central London. Her mother, Moyna Macgill, was a Belfast born Irish actress and her father was the wealthy English timber merchant and politician Edgar Lansbury. He was a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain and former mayor of the Metropolitan Borough of Poplar. Her paternal grandfather was the Labour Party leader and anti-war activist George Lansbury. Angela was in awe of him and to her, he was “a giant in my youth”. Angela had an older half-sister, Isolde from her mother’s previous marriage. When Angela was four, her mother gave birth to twin boys, Bruce and Edgar, prompting the Lansburys to move from their Poplar flat to a house in Mill Hill, North London. In the weekends, they went to a rural farm in Berrick Salome, Oxfordshire.
She was nine years old when her father died from stomach cancer. To cope with her loss, she played characters, describing the event as “the defining moment of my life. Nothing before or since has affected me so deeply.” Faced with financial difficulty, her mother got engaged to a Scottish colonel and moved into his house in Hampstead. Angela attended South Hampstead High School from 1934 to 1939. She considered herself to be largely self-educated, learning from books, theatre and cinema. She became a “complete movie maniac”, going regularly to the cinema and imagining herself as certain characters.
Angela’s grandfather died in 1940 and with the onset of the Blitz, her mother, Moyna took her and her brothers to the United States. Her half-sister, Isolde remained in Britain with her new husband, actor Peter Ustinov. Angela’s mother got a job supervising sixty British children who were evacuated to North America aboard the Duchess of Athol, arriving with them in Montreal, Canada in mid-August. From Montreal they went by train to New York City where Moyna was sponsored financially by a Wall Street businessman and moved in with his family at their home in Mahopac, New York. Angela got a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing which allowed her to study at the Feagin School of Drama and Radio. There she appeared in performances of William Congreve’s The Way of the World and Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan. By the time she graduated, she and her family had moved to a flat in Morton Street, Greenwich Village.
Moyna got work in a Canadian touring production of Tonight at 8:30. Angela joined her mother who got her first theatrical job as a nightclub act at the Samovar Club in Montreal. She lied about her age to get the job and earned $60 a week. She returned to New York city but her mother had moved to Hollywood to revive her cinematic career. Angela and her brothers joined her. After moving into a bungalow in Laurel Canyon, Angela and her mother got Christmas jobs at the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles but unfortunately, Moyna got fired for incompetence. The family had to live on Angela’s wages of $28 at week.
Angela met John van Druten at a party hosted by her mother. He recently co-authored a script for Gaslight. He suggested that Angela would be perfect for the role of Nancy Oliver, a conniving cockney maid and she accepted the part although at the time she was only 17. A social worker had to accompany her on the set. She got an agent and was signed to a seven-year contract with MGM, earning $500 a week. She used her real name as her professional name. The movie received mixed reviews although Angela’s role was widely praised. It received six Academy Award nominations, one of which was for Best Supporting Actress for Angela.
Following Gaslight, Angela starred in a supporting character in National Velvet which was a major commercial hit. Angela developed a lifelong friendship with co-star Elizabeth Taylor. I remember that the two friends appeared together in Agatha Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d with Angela in the role of the endearing Miss Marple.
Angela next starred in The Picture of Dorian Gray with Hurd Hatfield, George Sanders, Donna Reed and Peter Lawford. Surprisingly, at least to me, the film was not a financial success. However, it garnered Angela her second Best Supporting Actress nomination. She lost to her National Velvet co-star Anne Revere.
Angela married Richard Cromwell, an artist and a decorator. When I saw a photo of him, I recognized him as the brother of Henry Fonda’s character in the marvelous movie, Jezebel. Angela’s marriage to Richard was a trouble one. She would later disclose that he was gay, something she was not aware of until after their separation. The marriage ended in less than a year and Angela filed for a divorce. They remained friends, however, until his death.
Angela met her second husband, Peter Pullen Shaw at a party held by her former co-star Hurd Hatfield. Hurd would later be a guest star on Murder She Wrote. Peter was an aspiring actor also signed with MGM and had recently left a relationship with Joan Crawford. He and Angela became a couple, living together before she proposed marriage. They wanted to get married in Britain but the Church of England refused to marry two divorcees. So, they wed at St. Columba’s Church which was under the jurisdiction of the Church of Scotland in Knightsbridge, London. They had their honeymoon in France. They returned to the United States and settled in Angela’s home in Rustic Canyon, Malibu, each becoming naturalised U.S. citizens with dual British citizenship.
Angela’s contract with MGM ended in 1952. She was miscast, playing older and often villainous women. Earlier in her career, MGM loaned her to United Artists for The Private Affairs of Bel Ami in 1947 and then to Paramount for Samson and Delilah (1949). Unhappy with the roles MGM was giving her, Angela instructed her manager to terminate her contract. At the time she was pregnant with her first child, Anthony whom she gave birth to that year. Soon after he was born, she joined the East Coast touring productions of two former Broadway plays, Remains to be Seen and Affairs of the State. In 1953, Angela gave birth to her daughter, Deidre Angela. Angela’s husband, Peter had a son by a previous marriage and had legal custody of him. He brought the boy to California to live with the family. They moved to a larger house in Santa Monica.
In the mid-fifties Angela entered the world of Broadway theatre. In 1957 she debuted in Hotel Paradiso, a French burlesque set in Paris, at the Henry Miller Theatre. Although the play ran for only 15 weeks, earning her good reviews, she later stated that had she not appeared in the play, her “whole would have fizzled out”. Next she appeared in A Taste of Honey, playing Helen, a boorish and verbally abusive absentee mother of Josephine played by Joan Plowright who was only four years younger. Angela became friends with Joan and Laurence Olivier, Joan’s lover. It was from Angela’s rented apartment on East 97th Street that Joan and Laurence eloped to get married.
Angela didn’t feel comfortable in the Hollywood social scene. She chalked this up to her British roots. “In Hollywood, I always felt like a stranger in a strange land.” In 1959, the family moved to Malibu where they settled into a house on the Pacific Coast Highway where she and Peter were able to escape the Hollywood scene and send their children to state school.
In 1962, Angela starred opposite Lawrence Harvey in The Manchurian Candidate, playing his manipulative mother even though she was only three years older than him. The role earned her her third Best Supporting Actress Award nomination. It bothered her that she didn’t win. Angela starred in several movies in the 1960s but although her performances were well received, the kind of roles she wanted evaded her and she became dissatisfied with the minor roles she was getting, feeling that none of them allowed her to explore her potential as an actress.
I was a wife and a mother, and I was completely fulfilled. But my husband recognised the signals in me which said ‘I’ve been doing enough gardening, I’ve cooked enough good dinners, I’ve sat around the house and mooned about what more interior decoration I can get my fingers into.’ It’s a curious thing with actors and actresses, but suddenly the alarm goes off. My husband is a very sensitive person to my moods and he recognised the fact that I had to get on with something. Mame came along out of the blue just at this time. Now isn’t that a miracle? – Angela Lansbury
In 1966 Angela took on the title role of Mame Dennis in the musical Mame, the musical adapted from the novel, Auntie Mame. The director’s first choice for the role was Rosalind Russell who played Mame in the non-musical adaptation but she declined. Theatre critics were surprised that Angela was chosen for the role, believing that the role would go to a better known actress. Angela was forty-one at the time and this was her first starring role. She trained extensively for the role which involved over twenty costume changes throughout the play and ten songs and dance routines. Auntie Mame opened on Broadway in May 1996, gaining Angela rave reviews. She received her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Following her success as Mame, Angela appeared in Dear World, the musical adaptation of The Madwoman of Chailott, as a 75 year old Parisian eccentric. Angela found the experience “pretty depressing” but received positive reviews for her performance and her second Tony award. The show, however, received critical reviews and ended after 132 performances. After Dear World, Angela played the title role of the musical Prettybelle, based on Jean Arnold’s The Rape of Prettybelle, set in the Deep South. It was a controversial play because it dealt with issues of racism with Angela as a wealthy alcoholic who seeks sexual encounters with black men. It opened in Boston to poor reviews and was cancelled before it even reached Broadway. Angela would later say that the play was a “complete and utter fiasco.” She felt that her performance was awful.
In the early 1970s Angela turned down several cinematic roles, including the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest which went to Louise Fletcher who won the Oscar for Best Actress. In 1970 Angela appeared as the middle-aged English witch in the Disney film, Beadknobs and Broomsticks, her first lead in a screen musical. 1970 was a traumatic year for the Lansbury family. Peter underwent a hip replacement, their son Anthony suffered a heroin overdose and went into a coma and the family’s home in Malibu was destroyed in a bush fire. They bought a farmhouse constructed in the 1820s located near the village of Conna in rural County Cork. It was there Anthony was taken to receover from his drug addiction after he quit using cocaine and heroin. He enrolled in the Webber-Douglas School, his mother’s alma mater and became a professional actor before becoming a television director. Angela and her husband did not return to California, instead, they divided their time between Cork and New York City. They lived opposite the Lincoln Centre.
Angela returned to theatre in 1972, performing in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s theatrical production of Edward Albee’s All Over in London’s West End. Although reviews of the play were mixed, her performance was widely praised. She did a revival of Mame which was touring the United States at the time. She returned to the West End to play Rose in the musical Gypsy. Initially, she turned down the role because she didn’t want to be in Ethel Merman’s shadow. Ethel had portrayed the character in the original Broadway production. Eventually, Angela accepted the role and she received a standing ovation and rave reviews. Not at all in anyone’s shadow, she was in demand among the London society, having dinners in her honour. When Gypsy went to Broadway, it was a critical success, earning Angela her third Tony Award.
Eager to move on from musicals, Angela decided to tackle a production of one of William Shakespeare’s plays and landed the role of Gertrude in The National Theatre Company’s production of Hamlet. The play received mixed reviews. Angela later admitted that she hated the role because it was too restrained. To make matters worse, she learned that her mother had died in California. Angela had her mother’s body cremated and her ashes scattered near to her own County Cork home.
Angela appeared in Edward Albee’s Counting the Ways and Listening. Her performance was praised. She followed this with another revival tour of Gypsy. She appeared in the revival of The King and I musical at Broadway’s Uris Theatre. After seven years, she starred in her first cinematic role in Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, opposite her brother-in-law Peter Ustinov and Bette Davis who became a close friend. Of Bette, she had this to say, “She is an original. There has never been anyone, before or since, who could touch her.”
In 1979 she earned her fourth Tony Award playing Nellie Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. In 1982 she played an upper middle class housewife in A Little Family Business which also starred her son, Anthony. The movie was panned and accused of racism by the Japanese-American community. She co-starred with friend Bette Davis in the film made for television, Little Gloria…Happy at Last. She appeared in other television movies, one of which was BBC’s A Talent for Murder which she jumped at the chance to take in order to work with co-star Laurence Olivier.
Then in 1983, Angela was offered two television roles–one was in a sitcom and the other was in a detective series. She was unable to do both so her agents advised her to accept the sitcom role but she decided to accept the other role. And we are thrilled that she did! Angela described her character Jessica Fletcher as “an American Miss Marple”. It’s interesting that she said that because she played Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack’d. She played the sleuth the way Agatha Christie described the her unlike Margaret Rutherford who made the role famous. The role of Jessica Fletcher had been offered to Jean Stapleton first but she turned it down. I must say that I am happy that she did because I can’t imagine anyone else playing the part. Angela was the perfect choice.
Angela took her role as Jessica Fletcher very seriously and had creative input over the character’s costumes, makeup and hair. Network executives wanted to put the character in a relationship which Angela strongly rejected, believing that the character should remain a strong single female. She changed any script which did not fit Jessica’s personality. She saw Jessica as a role model for older female viewers and praised her “enormous, universal appeal” and admitted that, “It was an accomplishment I never expected in my entire life.” Murder, She Wrote was described as a television landmark in the U.S. for having an older female character as the protagonist, paving the way for series like The Golden Girls, another show I enjoyed tremendously. “I think it’s the first time a show has really been aimed at the middle aged audience,” Angela said. It was the most popular show among senior citizens but it gradually gained a younger audience. By 1991, a third of the viewers were under fifty. It gained high ratings throughout most of its run.
I know why [Murder, She Wrote was a success]. There was never any blood, never any violence. And there was always a satisfying conclusion to a whodunit. The jigsaw was complete. And I loved Jessica’s everywoman character. I think that’s what made her so acceptable to an across-the-board audience – Angela Lansbury, 2014.
As the show went on Angela assumed a larger role behind the scenes with her own company, Corymore co-producing the show with Universal. After a while, though she began to get tired of the series, especially of the long working hours and said that the 1990-1991 would be the show’s last season. However, she changed her mind after she was appointed executive producer for the 1992-1993 season, which made it far more interesting for her. For the seventh season, the show’s setting moved to New York where Jessica had taken a job teaching criminology at Manhattan University in an attempt to attract younger viewers. Angela encouraged this move. The show aired on Sunday where its ratings improved in the early 1990s. People had gotten used to tuning in every Sunday night to see what murder mystery Jessica Fletcher would be solving so it was unfortunate when CBS executives got the bright idea to move it to Thursdays opposite NBCs new sitcom, Friends with the hope of drawing a larger audience. Not surprisingly, Angela was angry at this move, believing that it ignored the show’s core audience. The show’s final episode aired in May 1996 and ended with Angela voicing a “Goodbye from Jessica” message. The role of Jessica Fletcher would prove to be the most successful and prominent of Angela’s career. It must have been hard saying goodbye to Jessica Fletcher for Angela and the faithful viewers. All good things must come to an end. Sigh.
After the end of Murder, She Wrote, Angela returned to the theatre. Fast forward to March to June 2014 when Angela reprised her 2009 Tony winning Broadway performance as Madame Arcati in Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Theatre in London’s West End, marking her first London stage appearance in nearly 40 years. She picked up her first Olivier award, Britain’s most prestigious prize a the age of 89 for Blithe Spirit. It’s worth mentioning that Angela received an Academy Honorary Award for her lifetime achievement at the Governors Awards on November 16, 2013 and received the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre on November 16, 2015.
I read a few interesting things about Angela. I will just mention a few. In the late 1940s, MGM planned to cast her as the female lead in a film entitled “Angel’s Flight” with Clark Gable but the project never came through because Mr. Gable disliked the storyline, so the studio had to squash the entire project. She was considered for the role of Miss Caswell in All About Eve (1950), but Marilyn Monroe was cast in the role instead. Frank Sinatra wanted Lucille Ball for the role of Mrs. Iselin, the manipulative mother in The Manchurian Candidate but Angela got the part and played it convincingly. I don’t know if Lucille Ball would have pulled it off. Angela is a staunch Democrat and a solid supporter of Barack Obama. She was very close friends with Bob Hope. She gave a speech at his memorial service on August 27, 2003. Her nephew David Lansbury was married to actress Ally Sheedy, The Breakfast Club.
Angela was self-professed homebody who preferred spending quiet evenings inside with friends to the Hollywood night live. She is a supporter of the United States Democratic Party and the British Labour Party. Notes to Women celebrate this remarkable woman who is a staunch supporter of charities such as Abused Wives in Crisis which combated domestic abuse and those who worked toward rehabilitating drug users. She supported charities dedicated to fighting against HIV/AIDs. She was a chain smoker early in life but gave up the addiction cold turkey in the mid-1960s. We congratulate her on her promotion to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to drama and to charitable work and philanthropy. Last year she was made a Dame by the Queen at Windsor Castle. This honour couldn’t have happened to a more deserving lady. Dame Angela, we applaud you for the work you have done in movies and in theatre and most importantly, your charitable deeds.
The older I get, the more I realize how much I have missed because I was so busy entertaining that audience and so busy pursuing a career.
I just went along for the ride. It was a God-given gift. It is. So you can’t say well, you wasted your life because you spent all of it acting, but I think gosh, I’ve never been to China, I’ve never been to Japan. I’ve never been to Yellowstone Park.
I had no idea that such a thing could happen. It never occurred to me.My son told me. He called me and said, “Darling, I just wanted you to know that you have been chosen to receive an honorary Academy Award.” I was in the back of this car, and I said, “Oh,” and burst into tears, of course, because it was so unexpected and quite wonderful. I thought it’s been worth hanging around all these years.
I honestly consider that the greatest gift to me, is the reaction that I get from my work. That is a given which I never, ever take for granted. But to be given that by audiences, individuals, on the street, in the theater, is an extraordinary feeling.
My mother was one of the most beautiful women, I have to say, of her generation. She was absolutely lovely. She was a very, extremely sensitive, Irish actress. She came from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and she came to London, and she was sort of discovered by several people.
~Angela Lansbury~
Sources: azquotes; Wikipedia; IMDB; Hollywood Reporter; Deadline Presents
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line970
|
__label__wiki
| 0.876328
| 0.876328
|
HomeSanta Clara countyDeputy sheriffs union president resigns over racist, sexist texts
Deputy sheriffs union president resigns over racist, sexist texts
Don Morrissey, former Deputy Sheriff's Association President
The president of the Santa Clara County Deputy Sheriff’s Association has resigned following allegations that he sent racist and sexist text messages to other law enforcement officials over the last several years.
Don Morrissey announced his resignation in a letter to members of the union on Thursday (July 26). He said several police associations, including the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office, have been embroiled in issues of bias, racism and harassment in recent months, but their leaders need to be held accountable.
“That accountability must start with me,” Morrissey said in the statement, adding that he hoped the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office would continue pushing to end harassment and discrimination.
Morrissey said “shameful conduct at our jail” also prompted him to make way for new leadership, referring to three correctional officers who were convicted of second-degree murder in the death of an inmate at Santa Clara County jail in 2015. The county medical examiner ruled Michael Tyree’s death a homicide by blunt force trauma.
Responding to Morrissey’s statement, Sheriff Laurie Smith said his words only served to “distort and distract from his complicity with racist, homophobic, and sexually assaultive text messages.”
She called his allegations of institutional bias “reckless and unfounded,” and said his attempts to regain the trust of the community on behalf of the department was unbelievable, considering he had engaged in the misconduct that broke their trust.
“Give me a break — the public is a hell of a lot smarter than Mr. Morrissey gives them credit for and they will see right through his latest smoke screen,” Smith said in the statement.
Vice President Roger Winslow will take over Morrissey’s position until an election for a new president later this year. Morrissey is still serving as a deputy in the department after being disciplined for sending the text messages, according to Winslow.
“While the process of transitioning to new leadership is just beginning, it will be guided by a steadfast commitment to the safety and security of our members, accountability across our department, and responsive engagement with the diverse community we are privileged to serve,” Winslow said in a statement.
The local NAACP President Jethroe Moore II demanded on Wednesday (July 25) that Morrissey be fired, calling him “unfit” for the job.
“Removing Mr. Morrissey from his leadership role is the only way to begin the process of rehabilitating both the DSA’s reputation and the relationship between members of law enforcement and the community,” Moore said in a statement.
— Bay City News
Baristas in bikinis and lingerie to serve customers at new coffee shop
City aims to quash sex harassment suit against police chief
Cordell, opponent say Sheriff Smith should resign
Retired judge LaDoris Cordell and a candidate for Santa Clara County sheriff, former Undersheriff John Hirokawa, called for Sheriff Laurie Smith to resign yesterday (April 3) over her actions in […]
Council hears about lawsuit accusing police of excessive force and mocking a gay man
BY EMILY MIBACH Daily Post Staff Writer Palo Alto City Council met in closed session last night (June 17) to discuss a lawsuit filed by a man who claims that […]
Candidate debate goes on without sheriff, who wanted to read a statement but not take questions
BY ALLISON LEVITSKY Daily Post Staff Writer Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith was barred from reading a statement before a candidate forum in Mountain View last night (April 24) […]
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line975
|
__label__cc
| 0.531848
| 0.468152
|
What Type of People Are Generally More Likely to File for Bankruptcy?
Jan,31,2018
What Type of People Are More Likely to File For Bankruptcy?
A five-year study of the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform Act conducted by The Institute For Financial Literacy paints a picture of who files bankruptcy, and why.
The older you are, the more likely you will file for bankruptcy. Almost 56 percent of filers were between the ages of 35 and 54. More people older than 54 file bankruptcy than people younger than 35.
While over 36 percent of bankruptcy filers attained a High School diploma or GED, the number with College degrees and Graduate Level degrees steadily increased over the years. In fact, college-level attendees and higher make up over 57 per cent of filers, while less than 6 percent of filers did not attain a High School diploma or GED.
People earning less than $30,000 annually make up the bulk of filers, at 38 percent, but that number is declining. The next higher group, at 21 percent, is the $30,000-40,000 income level, also a declining number. Likewise, the third highest filing group earned $40,000-$50,000 and also shows a decreasing percent of overall filers. Remarkable, the highest income category of those making over $60,000 almost doubled to 9 percent over the five years studied.
Almost 70 percent were employed and less than 17 percent were unemployed, with the rest out of the job market as being retired, homemakers or students.
Over 64 percent were married and less than 15 percent of unmarried filers were divorced.
Just what causes people to file for bankruptcy? People who work in the field commonly see cases filed due to job loss, divorce, illness, foreclosure, eviction, substance abuse, gambling, taxes, and medical bills. This study asked debtors to identify factors that affected their situation, and most people chose being overextended on credit, a loss of income, unexpected expenses, job loss, illness, and divorce, in that declining order.
Cibik & Cataldo P.C has been providing superior debt-relief legal services to clients throughout the state of Pennsylvania for over 35 years. Michael A. Cibik, Esquire is a partner in the firm and one of the few attorneys in the Philadelphia area certified by the American Bankruptcy Board. Please contact us at 215-735-1060 for a free consultation today!
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line981
|
__label__cc
| 0.734501
| 0.265499
|
Mitsubishi Triton Absolute Concept Revealed
27th March 2019 Mitsubishi, NewsLeave a Comment
Especially for the 40th Bangkok International Motor Show, Mitsubishi have debuted the Triton Absolute – a rugged and rowdy take on the recently face-lifted L200.
Triton, of course, is the name that the L200 goes by in markets outside of Europe, and the concept appears to have the Ford Ranger Raptor in its sights. It’s bolstered by protective body panelling, more defined tough styling and additional lighting systems, all of which help it live up to the strap line “ABSOLUTELY Beyond Tough”.
There are also front and rear skid plates, plus the tailgate has been redesigned. It sits on a wider track and off-road biased wheels and tyres, and an uprated suspension system offers improved travel and also raises ride height by 50mm.
Like the new facelift model, the Triton Absolute makes its debut in Thailand, where the new L200 is already on the market, albeit under its pseudonym. The new L200 is expected to hit UK showroom later on in the year.
We don’t know about you, but we’d love it if there was a production version – just imagine turning up to work in that!
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line983
|
__label__wiki
| 0.881924
| 0.881924
|
Funder helps soldiers’ kids go to college
January 5, 2009 | Sandra Cyr
Wesley and Maj. Larry Bauguess, 2006
Julia Vail
PINEHURST, N.C. – Six-year-old Ellie Bauguess is the only one in her class with a college scholarship.
Both Ellie and her 8-year-old sister, Ryann, received partial scholarships to attend the universities of their choice when they graduate from high school.
The Pinehurst, N.C.-based Patriot Foundation awarded the scholarships in memory of the girls’ father, Maj. Larry Bauguess of the 82nd Airborne Division, who was killed in May 2007 in Pakistan.
Maj. Bauguess, who was stationed in Afghanistan at the time, had been participating in a peace meeting when Pakistani security forces opened fire, says his wife, Wesley Bauguess of Fort Bragg.
“The Patriot Foundation hasn’t forgotten,” she says. “They have such a genuine interest in our fallen soldiers and the families that are left behind.”
The foundation provides scholarships for the children of current, retired and former Army Special Operations soldiers, as well as children of soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division who were killed while serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Since its inception in 2003, the foundation has provided a total of $220,000 to about 175 children.
In 2008, the foundation was able to donate $100,000, which it divided equally between the Unit Scholarship Fund, for children of army special operations soldiers, and the All American Strategic Response Force, for children whose fathers died in Iraq or Afghanistan while serving in the 82nd Airborne Division.
This year, the foundation hopes to double this gift with the help of its corporate sponsors, including BB&T, Wal-Mart, Restaurant Management Group, Shell Oil and Prism Medical Ltd.
Little Caesar’s, Boddie Noell and TD Ameritrade are expected to come on board in 2009.
Chuck Deleot, executive director of the Patriot Foundation and a retired Naval Reserve captain, launched the effort five years ago with several friends to pay tribute to the men and women serving in the armed forces.
“When the country has a problem, these are the guys that end up being tasked to take care of it,” he says. “This is the least we can do.”
More than 200 children a year are eligible to receive scholarships from the foundation.
However, only half of these children are able to get assistance.
Ultimately, Deleot says, the foundation aims to provide enough money to send all eligible children to North Carolina public universities, or the equivalent in their state, for four years.
“I liken this to getting a flywheel moving,” Deleot says. “It takes a while to get it going, but once you do, you can take advantage of the momentum.”
Though the foundation was able to start an endowment of more than $18,000, it devotes nearly all of the funds it raises to the children of service members.
“Current need is so compelling that we’re driven to put most of what we bring in into the scholarships,” Deleot says.
Every year in October, the foundation holds the National Patriot Senior Invitational Charity Pro-Am, a golf tournament attended by many professional senior players.
In 2008, the event raised nearly $13,000 for college scholarships.
On the first day of each tournament, the foundation holds a dinner honoring troops and Gold Star mothers, whose children receive the scholarships.
The foundation currently has Gold Star mothers in 23 states and one U.S. territory.
At the 2008 dinner, Wesley Bauguess received the Patriot honoree award for her work with the Wounded Warrior Committee, which she founded in September 2007 to deliver comfort items to wounded soldiers in several army medical centers throughout the U.S.
Every fleece, rain jacket and pair of shorts the committee gives to a wounded soldier is emblazoned with the logo of the 82nd Airborne Division.
“Sometimes they feel disconnected, and we try to make them feel like they’re not forgotten,” she says.
The Patriot Foundation has done the same for her by honoring her husband, whom she met while they served in ROTC at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.
“Just to remember is the greatest gift that anyone can give,” she says.
Though she says Ryann and Ellie might not fully grasp the magnitude of the gift they received from the foundation, they love college football and are starting to talk about their futures in college.
“They are stronger than I give them credit for sometimes,” Bauguess says. “And they are so proud of their daddy.”
Education, Features, Philanthropy Journal
82nd Airborne Division, All American Strategic Response Force, BB&T, Chuck Deleot, education, Fundraising/giving, Little Caesar’s, Maj. Larry Bauguess, Patriot Foundation, Prism Medical Ltd., Restaurant Management Group, Shell Oil, Unit Scholarship Fund, Wal-Mart, Wesley Bauguess
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line985
|
__label__wiki
| 0.724632
| 0.724632
|
Major giving: Adapting to tough times
January 19, 2011 | Sandra Cyr
Ret Boney and Todd Cohen
The market volatility of the last few years has meant shrinking portfolios for wealthy donors, while ever-changing estate-tax laws have created a high degree of uncertainty about wealth.
So it is not surprising that the American Diabetes Association is focusing new energy on major giving this year.
“We’re seeing a lot of people putting decisions off,” says Vaneeda Bennett, executive vice president for development for the association. “They’re being more cautious. They’re saying ‘the answer’s not no, just not now.'”
Donor adjustment
The jolt donors have received during the recession is causing them to have to relearn how to give, and how much to give, Bennett says.
To make that transition easier, and to keep the Diabetes Association in the forefront of donors’ minds, the case statement is more important than ever, she says.
“Your case for support must be clear and tested so it resonates with your prospects,” she says.
The case statement this year is different, taking the organization’s broad mission and turning it into a succinct and focused pitch for major-gift donors, an approach Bennett says is testing well so far.
The primary pitfall to avoid is rolling out an underdeveloped, untested approach, she says.
“What doesn’t work well is to ask for a gift too soon if there hasn’t been enough of a relationship or cultivation,” says Bennett.
And for those large-gift requests, it’s also important to have involvement from volunteers who themselves have made a significant gift to the organization and who can speak to the particulars of the case statement.
“Where in the past you may have a donor give to several organizations, they now may give a larger gift to one organization,” says Bennett. “We want to be that organization.”
The Diabetes Association also is undertaking what it calls a “mid-level” strategy, with the goal of moving higher-than-average annual donors above the $10,000 major-gift threshold by shifting to more personalized forms of communication.
With that new approach, coupled with the revamped case statement, Bennett is projecting an increase in major-gift income for 2011.
Longevity counts
For the 95-year old Chicago Community Trust, its sheer longevity, bolstered by a positive reputation in the community, is an asset in soliciting major gifts.
“We talk about our history and some of the families who have used us as their vehicle for philanthropy,” says Jaime Phillippe, vice president of development and donor services for the Trust. “That credentials us. And then we talk about our grantmaking in the community and the impact gifts to the Trust have had.”
That strategy has worked well during the recession, landing a $20 million gift to a donor-advised fund at the foundation, plus a few gifts in the $1 million to $3 million range.
And the foundation currently is working with an anonymous donor who is considering a nine-figure gift.
For wealthy donors desiring that type of anonymity, donor-advised funds can be a better option than a family foundation because gifts to family foundations are public information, says Philllippe.
“Sometimes you run across someone who is interested in being philanthropic but they don’t want others to know how much money they have,” she says.
Stewarding major donors
At Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region in Charlotte, N.C., “major” gifts, which total $1,000 or more and are treated as part of the organization’s annual-giving effort, grew 12 percent in 2010 over the previous year.
Key factors in the growth, says Cindy Clark, vice president for development, were increased communication, more involvement by the board of directors, and efforts to build relationships with donors.
The organization, for example, has focused on stewardship in recent years, with the organization acknowledging all gifts within 72 hours, staff members phoning any donor who gives at least $250, and board members either phoning or writing personal notes to anyone who gives $1,000 or more.
And in addition to written and email communications, Hospice looks for opportunities to have “touch points” with donors, whether by phone or personal visits, to share information with them and keep them up to date on the organization.
Moving up donors
At Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, each member of the leadership-gifts staff has a caseload of donors and prospects to visit each year.
The eventual goal is to secure larger gifts from “leadership” donors who already have given $5,000, or to secure first-time gifts at that level from prospective donors.
Still, in the face of the troubled economy and in the wake of a campaign that ended in 2009 and raised $293.57 million, staff members are prepared to ask existing leadership donors simply to maintain their level of annual giving.
But the visits are just as important, if not more so, because they provide a chance to cultivate relationships with donors.
“It’s an opportunity for them to talk to us and for us to tell them about our situation and what’s happening at the college,” says Randy Shaw, Bowdoin’s vice president for development and alumni relations. “That’s valuable input, so in the next campaign, we know what’s on people’s minds.”
Other articles in this special report:
Annual giving: Focus on relationships
Campaign giving: Period of adjustment
Planned giving: Providing an option
Renewing focus on donor engagement
Fundraising and Giving, News, Philanthropy Journal, Special Reports
American Diabetes Association, Bowdoin College, Chicago Community Trust, Cindy Clark, Fundraising/giving, Hospice & Palliative Care Charlotte Region, Jamie Phillippe, Randy Shaw, Vaneeda Bennett
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line986
|
__label__cc
| 0.557538
| 0.442462
|
Hank Lazer
N18P6
January 15, 2012 Lazer Hank
the shape doesn’t
matter half as much
as you think it would really it’s
more like the way you go about seeing
the pleiades making out that cloudy
set by looking a bit to the side
shape being a way to keep looking to the side
Author: Hank Lazer
Hank Lazer has published twenty-seven books of poetry, including Evidence of Being Here: Beginning in Havana (N27) (2018), Thinking in Jewish (N20) (2017), Poems Hidden in Plain View (2016, in English and in French), Brush Mind: At Hand (2016), N24 (2014) and N18 (2012), Portions (2009), and The New Spirit (2005). Forthcoming later this year and in early 2019: Slowly Becoming Awake (N32), Poems that Look Just Like Poems (in English and in French), and Brush Mind: Second Hand. In 2015, Lazer received Alabama’s most prestigious literary prize, the Harper Lee Award, for lifetime achievement in literature.
Plume: Issue #7 January 2012
The Beautiful Hand
By Kasischke Laura in Poems, Issue #7 January 2012
A Toy Airplane
By Prufer Kevin in Poems, Issue #7 January 2012
N27P23 (2/2/14) | N27P26 (2/7/14) | N27P29 (2/9/14)
suddenly here
N33P14 and N33P29
N32P28
Do not treasure or belittle,
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line988
|
__label__cc
| 0.61972
| 0.38028
|
Gridlock at the NLRB: One Step Back, Two Steps Further Back
A recent court ruling puts in jeopardy a year’s worth of NLRB actions across the country.
February 6, 2013 By Michael J. Goldberg Labor Notes
Connecticut nursing home workers may see justice delayed and denied once again as their scofflaw employer, HealthBridge, seeks one more legal run-around. A recent court ruling puts in jeopardy a year’s worth of NLRB actions across the country., Photo: Belinda Gallegos
Two developments in 24 hours last month in Washington, D.C. seem to guarantee near-paralysis at the NLRB for the foreseeable future—at least when it comes to doing anything an employer objects to.
The first, on January 24, was the disappointing deal struck by leading Democrats in the Senate with their Republican counterparts: to put off any meaningful reform of the Senate’s filibuster rules for at least two years.
That means Senate Republicans, even though in the minority, can continue to block confirmation of President Obama’s nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and other agencies the Republicans despise, like the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for as long as they have the political will to do so.
Then on January 25, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned a routine NLRB unfair labor practice decision on the grounds that three members of the Board who participated in that decision had been unlawfully appointed by President Obama a year earlier, by way of invalid “recess appointments.”
Recess appointments, which are authorized by the U.S. Constitution, permit a president to make temporary appointments—which can last up to two years—to federal positions that ordinarily require Senate confirmation, if the appointments are made when the Senate is in recess.
Recess appointments have been regularly used by presidents of both parties, particularly when the opposition party blocks their nominees by filibustering. President George W. Bush, for example, made seven recess appointments to fill NLRB vacancies during his presidency.
The recent court decision, Noel Canning, started out as a fairly routine ruling by the NLRB. The Board said the company, a division of a Pepsi bottling franchise in Washington state, had committed an unfair labor practice when it reneged on its verbal agreement to terms for a new collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters, and refused to sign the written agreement.
The decision throws two big monkey wrenches into the traditional role recess appointments play in the “checks and balances” between the White House and the Senate. First, the three judges unanimously interpreted the term “recess” narrowly, to mean only those periods that occur at the end of an official “session” of Congress, when the Senate breaks near the end of the calendar year. The traditional view has been that recess appointments can also be made during vacations and other “recesses” during the session.
Second, two members of the Court defined very narrowly the nature of the vacancies that can be filled by recess appointments, regardless of how the term “recess” is defined. They held that vacancies subject to recess appointments are only those that happen to open up during a recess, not vacancies that open up at any time but are still vacant at the time of a recess. This is a completely new reading of the term.
The upshot was that if the three members of the NLRB were not lawfully appointed, they could not be part of the three-member quorum required for the NLRB to conduct official business, like deciding unfair labor practice cases.
The three recess appointments, made in early January 2012, were Sharon Block, a Democrat, Terrence F. Flynn, a Republican, and Richard F. Griffin, a Democrat. Before last month's decision, Flynn had resigned from the Board, and that vacancy has not been filled. If the recess appointments of Block and Griffin were in fact unlawful, the NLRB would be left with only one member, Chairman Mark Gaston Pearce.
If the Democratic leadership in the Senate had stuck to their guns a day earlier and pushed through real filibuster reform, the fallout from the recent Court decision, while creating problems in the short run, could be overcome in the long run. The Senate could have confirmed President Obama’s NLRB nominees, so he would have little need to rely on recess appointments in the future.
Unfortunately, significant filibuster reform didn’t happen, so the NLRB will either be left powerless, without the quorum it needs to function for the foreseeable future, or President Obama will have to restrict his nominees to wishy-washy candidates acceptable to those very few Senate Republicans who might be willing to play ball with him. Or Senate Republicans might choose to block any nominations, no matter how moderate or even conservative they might be, in order to effectively shut down an agency they have no use for anyway.
On Its Way to the Supreme Court
Not all courts, however, agree with the D.C. Circuit’s very narrow interpretation of the President’s power to make recess appointments, and these disagreements among the lower courts are destined to be resolved by the Supreme Court. How the Supreme Court might come down on these issues is anybody’s guess.
In the meantime, something close to chaos may ensue in areas of labor relations traditionally regulated by the NLRB. While the D.C. Circuit’s decision is binding only in D.C., and the NLRB so far has vowed to continue its business as usual, employers unhappy with NLRB rulings against them always have the opportunity to appeal those cases to the D.C. Circuit, even if the unfair labor practice occurred somewhere else.
So far, only one employer, Noel Canning, has benefited from this recent court decision, but other employers are already racing to court. They are claiming that everything the NLRB has done in the last year, since President Obama made his three recess appointments, should be nullified.
For example, HealthBridge Management, an operator of nursing homes, has already requested the Supreme Court to temporarily block a preliminary injunction obtained by the NLRB. The injunction would require HealthBridge to reinstate employees who were allegedly fired for engaging in protected union activity in connection with a strike [4] at several nursing homes in Connecticut. HealthBridge wants the NLRB's injunction to be blocked until the Supreme Court can rule on the recess appointments issue.
HealthBridge employees who were expecting to go back to work this week may have to wait.
No New Rules
Another type of NLRB activity the recess appointments issue can stop in its tracks is rule-making. This is not a policy-making tool the NLRB uses often, but it has become more common in recent years. For example, in 2011, the Board issued rules requiring all employers covered by the National Labor Relations Act to post in their workplaces official notices informing their employees of their right to join unions and engage in other forms of concerted activity. (Employer challenges to these rules are still pending in various courts on other legal grounds, successfully blocking their implementation so far.)
At the time those notice rules were adopted, the NLRB happened to have three members who had been confirmed by the Senate, so there was no recess-appointment problem. But no future rules can be issued by the Board, under Noel Canning's reasoning, until at least three members of the Board are confirmed by the Senate.
The NLRB can continue to carry out some of its functions even without a legitimate quorum. For example, it can continue to investigate and try unfair labor practices cases before administrative law judges, and it can continue to conduct most representation elections.
But if employers don't like the outcomes of those unfair labor cases or the results of those representation elections, they have no worries. All they need to do is refuse to voluntarily comply, and then seek judicial review in the D.C. Circuit. Under Noel Canning, the NLRB will be powerless to compel compliance until the Board has a quorum of Senate-confirmed members.
Michael J. Goldberg is a professor at the Widener University School of Law in Wilmington, Delaware.
Even if It Enrages Your Boss, Social Net Speech Is Protected
Obama NLRB Recess Appointments Unlawful, Court Says
Court Ruling on Labor Board Harms Workers
Labor Board and Union Reach a Deal for a 60 Day Moratorium on Walmart Pickets
Labor Law Loses Its Watchdog
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line989
|
__label__wiki
| 0.856615
| 0.856615
|
Labor Activist Urges “Innovation” in Workers' Rights Organizing
Fletcher told the Guardian he believes the national labor movement is witnessing a “final offensive” from big business and right-wing interests, and “an attempt to destroy unions altogether.” He also criticized a reluctance among national labor leaders to openly recognize the gravity of the situation.
March 12, 2013 Rebecca Bowe Guardian
Bill Fletcher Jr. spoke at "Labor at the Crossroads" on March 7., Guardian photo by Rebecca Bowe
Even as renowned labor activist Bill Fletcher Jr. geared up for a talk last Thursday to describe the dire situation he believes the labor movement is facing, local organizers had victories to celebrate.
Fletcher joined organizers from the Filipino Community Center, OUR Walmart, PODER and POWER for a March 7 forum hosted by San Francisco Jobs With Justice, called “Labor at the Crossroads.”
Prior to the discussion, Fletcher told the Guardian he believes the national labor movement is witnessing a “final offensive” from big business and right-wing interests, and “an attempt to destroy unions altogether.” He also criticized a reluctance among national labor leaders to openly recognize the gravity of the situation. Fletcher’s latest book, published last August, is titled They’re Bankrupting Us, and 20 Other Myths About Unions.
Fletcher said he believes labor should place less emphasis on “being invited to this or that social occasion,” and more on reaching out to community-based organizations to foster movement building. He said he thought there was a need for “innovation” by organized labor, such as forging alliances with the unemployed, or reaching out to under-employed workers earning low wages in retail positions. “The labor movement grew by being audacious … by making the comfortable uncomfortable,” he said.
Despite Fletcher’s bleak portrait and the generally discouraging trends of the day, such as the impacts of the sequester, an international move toward austerity and stubbornly high unemployment in the United States, representatives from San Francisco Jobs with Justice nevertheless were able to point to some recent worker victories.
Many San Franciscans who gathered for “Labor at the Crossroads” were encouraged by successful negotiations that resulted in what they viewed as a much-improved deal for the San Francisco CPMC hospital project, which included stronger local hiring requirements and other items labor and community organizers had fought for.
Organizers also applauded last month’s Chinese Progressive Association victory against Dick Lee Pastry on behalf of workers subjected to wage-theft violations. The San Francisco Chinatown restaurant was forced to pay a whopping $525,000 in back wages and penalties.
At the state level, the California Domestic Workers’ Coalition kicked off its mobilization last week in Los Angeles urging passage of the Domestic Workers’ Bill of Rights, authored by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano. The legislation would extend basic labor protections to housekeepers, childcare workers and caregivers, who collectively represent a primarily immigrant workforce. At the national level, momentum is starting to build around the Fair Minimum Wage Act, with supporters calling on lawmakers to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
“The union movement should be helping unemployed workers get organized, fight back and fight for jobs,” Fletcher said. “There is no significant organization of the unemployed – no significant force that has taken up this issue and said, we need to build a mass movement around jobs.”
He urged local organizers to identify priorities. “We have to go forward with, what is the vision?” he said. “What do the people of Oakland and San Francisco need?”
Bill Fletcher
worker's rights organizing
Jobs with Justice
Ways to Juice Up the Labor Movement; Labor Once Again Becomes Part of the National Conversation
Amazon's Labor Relations Under Scrutiny in Germany
Is It Time For Just Cause?
Claiming the 1963 March on Washington
Now What? Labor Unions and the Inevitability of Class Struggle
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line990
|
__label__cc
| 0.57693
| 0.42307
|
Here’s The Full List Of UPlay+ Launch Games
Here’s 16 Minutes Of Glorious Middle-earth Shadow of War Gameplay
In Playstation News
Just a few weeks ago, we got our first look at Middle-earth: Shadow of War, which is surprisingly hitting later...
Shadow Of War’s $399 Collector’s Edition Is Exclusive To EB Games
It’s just been confirmed Middle-Earth: Shadow of War will be getting a Collector’s Edition worth $399. It’s called the Mithril...
Middle-earth: Shadow of War Confirmed Alongside Trailer and Release Date
Following the leak earlier this week, Warner Bros. and Monolith have officially gone ahead and announced their follow-up to 2014’s...
Target Canada Accidentally Leaked Heaps About A New Middle-Earth Game
#awkward In what must be an awkward situation for all those involved, Target Canada has accidentally published listings for a brand...
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor Trailer Reveals Stellar Cast
In NewsPC/MacPlaystation NewsXbox News
Warner Bros. today released a brand new trailer for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. It revealed more about the talent that...
Rumor: Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor Gets A Release Date
According to GameStop UK’s store page Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor is due to be released on the 29th of...
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line998
|
__label__wiki
| 0.642537
| 0.642537
|
PEPPERS’ NEWMAN SIGNS OPAL WITH MAYO CLINIC HEALTH SYSTEM
Aussie Peppers, Featured, OPAL
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (June 20, 2019) – Aussie Peppers rookie pitcher, Nicole Newman, and Mayo Clinic Health System, are partnering in an On Player Ad Location (OPAL) for the 2019 National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) season.
Newman, the 13th overall selection in the 2019 NPF College Draft, by the Aussie Peppers, became the first professional softball draftee in history, from Drake University. The two-time All American (First Team-2019), three-time Missouri Valley Conference Pitcher of the Year, and four-time MVC First Team All-Conference player, made NCAA Division I Softball history in 2019 by setting an eye popping single season record in throwing five perfect games.
“I’m really looking forward to this partnership with Mayo Clinic Health System and being associated with the Mayo Clinic name, which is known throughout the world,” commented Newman. “I’m honored they want to be a part of my journey and for their support of women’s athletics. After going through what could have been a career ending injury my junior year of college, I know how important it is to have the best care. I’m amazed by what Mayo Clinic Health System continues to do and the new research they continue to develop for illnesses and diseases. I cannot thank them enough for their investment.”
Mayo Clinic Health System consists of clinics, hospitals and other health care facilities that serve the health care needs of people in more than 60 communities in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The community-based providers, paired with the resources and expertise of Mayo Clinic, enable patients in the region to receive the highest-quality health care close to home.
One of the ongoing initiatives of Mayo Clinic Health System is to identify unique ways to connect and engage with organizations in the communities served. The partnership with the Aussie Peppers of Minnesota allows Mayo Clinic Health System to provide high-quality and convenient care to members of the local sports community while enhancing overall support of Mankato-based activities.
Learn more about the Mayo Clinic Health System at mayoclinichealthsystem.org .
“We are excited for the opportunity Mayo Clinic Health System has to partner with Nicole Newman and the Aussie Peppers of Minnesota,” said James R. Hebl, M.D., Regional Vice President, Mayo Clinic Health System. “Nicole is an outstanding player, helping to inspire the next generation of young athletes, boys and girls alike — this truly is a win for our community.”
Newman and her Aussie Peppers teammates opened their 2019 season on June 9 against the Beijing Shougang Eagles at their home in North Mankato, Minnesota, Caswell Park. The North Mankato based NPF Team doubles as the Australian National Team with a few American player additions for NPF action, that include Newman. Following the NPF season, the majority of the team will depart for Shanghai, China to take part in the Asia/Oceania Softball Olympic Qualifier, where they will vie for a single qualifying berth to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan. The Qualifier takes place September 24-29.
National Pro Fastpitch took the field for its 16th season in 2019 when opening day took place on May 28th in Daytona Beach, FL at Jackie Robinson Park, between the Beijing Shougang Eagles and the Canadian Wild of Southern Illinois. The 138 game season will culminate on August 11, followed by the Championship Series August 15-19, which will feature a best-of-five series between the league’s top two teams. The complete regular season will be streamed live in its entirety domestically, exclusively on Flo Softball. Fans can follow the live stream by subscribing to Flo Softball at FloSoftball.com. Internationally, the live stream and VOD are available through the league’s website at www.profastpitch.com on NPFTV, with select games also featured on the Canadian Broadcast Corporation digital channel, and the Olympic Channel.
About National Pro Fastpitch (NPF)
National Pro Fastpitch (NPF), an Official Development Partner of Major League Baseball since 2004, provides elite female athletes with an opportunity to pursue a professional career in fastpitch softball beyond their collegiate and amateur success. The NPF affiliate teams consist of the Aussie Peppers of Minnesota, Beijing Shougang Eagles, Canadian Wild of Southern Illinois, Chicago Bandits, Cleveland Comets, and USSSA Pride. National Pro Fastpitch players hail from the United States, Australia, Canada, China, and Mexico, and represent the most accomplished and talented athletes in the sport of women’s softball.
June 20, 2019 /0 Comments/by Julie Walton
Tags: All-American, Aussie Peppers, Caswell Park, Drake Softball, Drake University, Fastpitch, James R. Hebl, M.D., Mankato, Mayo Clinic, Mayo Clinic Health System, Minnesota, Missouri Valley Conference, national pro fastpitch, Nicole Newman, North Mankato, npf, NPF 2019, OPAL, Pitcher, Pitcher of the Year, pro athletes, pro softball, profastpitch, softball, Softball Australia, women in sports
https://profastpitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/slider-845x321-OPAL-Newman-Mayo-Clinic.jpg 321 845 Julie Walton https://profastpitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/national-pro-fastpitch-logo.png Julie Walton2019-06-20 10:23:352019-06-20 10:23:35PEPPERS’ NEWMAN SIGNS OPAL WITH MAYO CLINIC HEALTH SYSTEM
Bandits Sign Chicago Native Ramirez to One-Year Extension
Denise Davis - Planet Fastpitch - Bridging Worlds Together!
NPF Launches Official Developmental Partnership Program
Rawlings Gold Glove Ceremony in NYC
Pride Win Home Opener with a 2-0 Victory Comets and Eagles Split Doubleheader
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1000
|
__label__cc
| 0.705517
| 0.294483
|
Punx In Solidarity
Hardcore Punk Rock Blog
Straight Edge Punk Legends Minor Threat
Posted on 08/22/2017 by P.I.S. Blogging
Looking At Minor Threat
Minor Threat was the straight edge, hardcore punk band from Washington, D.C. Led by vocalist Ian MacKaye, the band was staunchly independent and fiercely sober. Through their songs, the group rejected drugs and alcohol, espoused anti-establishment politics, and led a call for self-awareness. Every song was fast and sharp, with song a minute or shorter. Over a three year period, Minor Threat released two EPs, one album, and several singles, all of which were popular in the American punk rock underground. Their records and concerts helped spawn straight-edge, an American punk rock lifestyle based on the group’s intense, clean-living ideology. Following the disbandment of Minor Threat, MacKaye formed Fugazi, a popular hardcore post punk band.
MacKaye formed the Teen Idles while he was attending Wilson High School in Washington, D.C., and after he graduated in 1980, he founded the Dischord record label with the intent of putting out his group’s records through the label. The Teen Idles broke up and MacKaye had formed Minor Threat with former Idles drummer Jeff Nelson, former Government Issue bassist Brian Baker, and guitarist Lyle Preslar. By the end of the year, Minor Threat had released the singles “Minor Threat” and “Straight Edge,” and had played many concerts along the East Coast. Throughout 1981, they followed this same pattern, playing a lot of concerts and releasing 7″ singles.
This entry was posted in Articles, Blog Post and tagged band, hardcore punk, Ian MacKaye, live, MINOR THREAT, music, punk, punk band, punk rock, punk rock band, punk rock music, punk rock show, rock and roll, skate, skateboarding, straight edge, underground, washington dc by P.I.S. Blogging. Bookmark the permalink.
About P.I.S. Blogging
We are freelancers, living as artists, writers, publishers, skateboarders, surfers, anarchists, musicians, radicals and d.i.y. punk rockers. We come together bringing our talents to a collective platform at Punx In Solidarity. P.I.S. Blogging
View all posts by P.I.S. Blogging →
Please Leave A Reply. Your Opinion Means Nothing! Cancel reply
Black Flag Gallery
Sex Pistols Gallery
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1001
|
__label__wiki
| 0.928925
| 0.928925
|
Joyce Dunn
5 Mar 1924 - 5 Mar 2004
Grave site information of Joyce Dunn (5 Mar 1924 - 5 Mar 2004) at Victoria Lawn Cemetery in St Catharines, Niagara Regional Municipality, Ontario, Canada from BillionGraves
Register to get full access to the grave site record of Joyce Dunn
Nasceu: 5 Mar 1924
Morreu: 5 Mar 2004
Victoria Lawn Cemetery
480 Queenston St
St Catharines, Niagara Regional Municipality, Ontario
Epitáfio
In Loving Memory Forever In Our Hearts
DdraigGoch
MrsGenealogy
Find more about JOYCE...
We found more records about Joyce Dunn.
Maurice Solomon
15 Aug 1923 - 8 Jun 2004
Grave Site of JOYCE
Joyce Dunn is buried in the Victoria Lawn Cemetery at the location displayed on the map below. This GPS information is ONLY available at BillionGraves. Our technology can help you find the gravesite and other family members buried nearby.
Cemetery Website
https://www.stcatharines.ca/en/livein/VictoriaLawnCemetery.asp
St Catharines,Niagara Regional Municipality,Ontario
Life timeline of Joyce Dunn
Joyce Dunn was born on 5 Mar 1924
Joyce Dunn was 7 years old when Great Depression: In a State of the Union message, U.S. President Herbert Hoover proposes a $150 million (equivalent to $2,197,000,000 in 2017) public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy. The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place mostly during the 1930s, beginning in the United States. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations; in most countries it started in 1929 and lasted until the late-1930s. It was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the world's economy can decline.
Joyce Dunn was 16 years old when The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz. The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, was a genocide during World War II in which Nazi Germany, aided by its collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews, around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, between 1941 and 1945. Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event involving the persecution and murder of other groups, including in particular the Roma and "incurably sick", as well as ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens, Soviet prisoners of war, political opponents, gay men and Jehovah's Witnesses, resulting in up to 17 million deaths overall.
Joyce Dunn was 34 years old when Space Race: Launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth. The Space Race refers to the 20th-century competition between two Cold War rivals, the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (US), for dominance in spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the missile-based nuclear arms race between the two nations that occurred following World War II, aided by captured German missile technology and personnel from the Aggregat program. The technological superiority required for such dominance was seen as necessary for national security, and symbolic of ideological superiority. The Space Race spawned pioneering efforts to launch artificial satellites, uncrewed space probes of the Moon, Venus, and Mars, and human spaceflight in low Earth orbit and to the Moon.
Joyce Dunn was 41 years old when Martin Luther King Jr. received the Nobel Peace Prize for combating racial inequality through nonviolence. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister and activist who became the most visible spokesperson and leader in the civil rights movement from 1954 until his death in 1968. Born in Atlanta, King is best known for advancing civil rights through nonviolence and civil disobedience, tactics his Christian beliefs and the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi helped inspire.
Joyce Dunn was 49 years old when Munich massacre: Nine Israeli athletes die (along with a German policeman) at the hands of the Palestinian "Black September" terrorist group after being taken hostage at the Munich Olympic Games. Two other Israeli athletes were slain in the initial attack the previous day. The Munich massacre was an attack during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, in which the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took eleven Israeli Olympic team members hostage and killed them along with a West German police officer.
Joyce Dunn was 65 years old when The tanker Exxon Valdez spilled 10.8 million US gallons (260,000 bbl; 41,000 m3) of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing one of the most devastating man-made maritime environmental disasters. A tanker is a ship designed to transport or store liquids or gases in bulk. Major types of tankship include the oil tanker, the chemical tanker, and gas carrier. Tankers also carry commodities such as vegetable oils, molasses and wine. In the United States Navy and Military Sealift Command, a tanker used to refuel other ships is called an oiler but many other navies use the terms tanker and replenishment tanker.
Joyce Dunn was 68 years old when The World Wide Web is opened to the public. The World Wide Web (WWW), also called the Web, is an information space where documents and other web resources are identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), interlinked by hypertext links, and accessible via the Internet. English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web browser in 1990 while employed at CERN in Switzerland. The browser was released outside CERN in 1991, first to other research institutions starting in January 1991 and to the general public on the Internet in August 1991.
Joyce Dunn died on 5 Mar 2004 at the age of 80
Browse > Canada > Ontario > Victoria Lawn Cemetery > Joyce Dunn
Grave record for Joyce Dunn (5 Mar 1924 - 5 Mar 2004), BillionGraves Record 5105678 St Catharines, Niagara Regional Municipality, Ontario, Canada
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1009
|
__label__wiki
| 0.865306
| 0.865306
|
M Valdean Aalgaard
7 May 1938 - 1 Sep 1962
Grave site information of M Valdean Aalgaard (7 May 1938 - 1 Sep 1962) at Archmount Cemetery in Lethbridge, Division No. 2, Alberta, Canada from BillionGraves
Register to get full access to the grave site record of M Valdean Aalgaard
Nasceu: 7 May 1938
Morreu: 1 Sep 1962
Archmount Cemetery
2682-2720 Westside Dr W
Lethbridge, Division No. 2, Alberta
dgmurray
Find more about M Valdean...
We found more records about M Valdean Aalgaard.
Grave Site of M Valdean
M Valdean Aalgaard is buried in the Archmount Cemetery at the location displayed on the map below. This GPS information is ONLY available at BillionGraves. Our technology can help you find the gravesite and other family members buried nearby.
Lethbridge,Division No. 2,Alberta
Life timeline of M Valdean Aalgaard
M Valdean Aalgaard was born on 7 May 1938
M Valdean Aalgaard was 7 years old when World War II: German forces in the west agree to an unconditional surrender. The German Instrument of Surrender ended World War II in Europe. The definitive text was signed in Karlshorst, Berlin, on the night of 8 May 1945 by representatives of the three armed services of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) and the Allied Expeditionary Force together with the Supreme High Command of the Red Army, with further French and US representatives signing as witnesses. The signing took place 9 May 1945 at 00:16 local time.
M Valdean Aalgaard was 17 years old when Disneyland Hotel opens to the public in Anaheim, California. The Disneyland Hotel is a resort hotel located at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, owned by the Walt Disney Company and operated through its Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products division. Opened on October 5, 1955, as a motor inn owned and operated by Jack Wrather under an agreement with Walt Disney, the hotel was the first to officially bear the Disney name. Under Wrather's ownership, the hotel underwent several expansions and renovations over the years before being acquired by Disney in 1988. The hotel was downsized to its present capacity in 1999 as part of the Disneyland Resort expansion.
M Valdean Aalgaard died on 1 Sep 1962 at the age of 24
Browse > Canada > Alberta > Archmount Cemetery > M Valdean Aalgaard
Grave record for M Valdean Aalgaard (7 May 1938 - 1 Sep 1962), BillionGraves Record 4980143 Lethbridge, Division No. 2, Alberta, Canada
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1010
|
__label__wiki
| 0.607547
| 0.607547
|
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg backs this Indian-origin scientist’s ‘data recycling’ work
Published on December 7, 2017
Name of the company: Institute for Computational Health Sciences (ICHS) at the University of California, San Francisco & NuMedi
Director: Dr Atul Butte
City: San Francisco, CA
Revenue: NA
Headcount: 41 faculty members, another 100 staff, post-doctoral research fellows, and graduate students
Investors and amount raised: A $10 million philanthropic gift from Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg
Industry: Biomedical informatics research, computational biology, and big data analyticsWhat if it is possible to treat lung cancer with an antidepressant? What if drugs originally used to kill parasites can actually cure liver cancer too? Can you solve your hair growth problem with a cardiac drug? And can pulmonary hypertension in babies be cured using the same molecule present in Viagra? What if there was Tinder or a Match.com for medicines too? Or maybe there is, if Dr Atul Butte is to be believed!
All the above examples are true, but the problem with each of them is that people stumbled across different uses of medicines by accident. Butte, an MD and the Director of UC San Francisco, is also the Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg Distinguished Professor at UCSF. With a $10 million gift from the Zuckerbergs to support his work, Butte is spearheading a method of research that he calls “data recycling.”
In simple terms, instead of finding these drugs accidentally, how about we find them on purpose using publicly available data?
Butte, who also leads the UCSF’s Institute for Computational Health Sciences (IHCS), believes that the “trillion points of data” available in public can lead humankind to find a solution for all healthcare-related factors such as repurposing FDA-approved drugs for new diseases or to find better ways to keep patients healthy and safe.
Butte has authored over 200 publications and was recognised by the Obama Administration as an Open Science Champion of Change for promoting science through publicly available data. However, Butte has a clear objective – researchers have to get out of the mould of publishing papers and actually develop solutions to treat diseases.
A miracle in making?
Public data is already said to be of extremely high quality, but what we have is a deluge. Butte cites the example of NASA. The space agency takes so many photographs in a year that they do not have enough astronomers to look at them. Another problem with scientific data is that it sits in silos and is only meant for a specific-use case. Data to treat cancer is always looked through the prism of cancer medication, while the same data could be used to treat something absolutely unrelated.
ICHS seeks to collect and integrate vast and dissimilar datasets to advance understanding of biological processes. It wants to determine mechanisms of disease, and inform diagnosis, prevention and treatment. Butte says that the $10 million gift from Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg is being used to launch this institute. He says that the funds would be used to support faculty recruitment to UCSF, and for building a software and data infrastructure within the institute, and across the state-wide University of California system, including five major academic medical centres.
“I saw that many of the best scientists now have to release their raw measurement data to the public, as part of the process of getting a manuscript peer-reviewed and accepted into top journals. I realised that we could “connect” the data on drugs and diseases to computationally predict drugs that could potentially reverse the effect of diseases, and thus those drugs could serve as a therapeutic for those diseases,” he says.
At UCSF, electronic health records (EHRs) were referred to for three years. Work is already underway. For example, browsing through data from the medical record system, the physicians were able to find a virtual glucose-monitoring system that reduced the proportion of patients who were hyperglycemic by nearly 40%.
New ways
What Butte aims to do in simple terms is drug re-positioning – can an old medicine treat a new or another disease? It is not about getting a new drug out in the market, but finding a new use for an old drug that we already have. This is significant because big pharma spends billions of dollars and decades of research to come up with new drugs. Patients, sadly, do not have the luxury of time.
Butte and his team has ensured they make a meaningful impact by forming startups that can carry on their hypothesis, once they arrive at it. “If you want to change lives, you cannot keep writing papers about it. It should not be a taboo to talk about companies if that is the way it is going to happen. Science needs to continue outside academia,” says Butte.
A startup, NuMedii, has been spun off and is in charge of commercialising drugs discovered in this manner. Led by Tarangini Deshpande, NuMedii has partnered with several well-known pharmaceutical companies, including Allergan and Astellas. “With the right partnerships and successful further stage clinical trials, drugs could be ready for patients in 3-5 years,” says Butte.
Butte says that several of the drug candidates are going through the patent process at present. He explains, “With the right partnerships and successful further stage clinical trials, drugs could be ready for patients in three to five years. UCSF receives funding for academic research from the US Government, especially from the National Institutes of Health. The commercial work in NuMedii has been funded by venture capitalists and investors, initially including Lightspeed Venture Partners and Claremont Creek Ventures.”
Unfortunately, he says that the drugs may be available in India only after a while. He explains, “Right now, the cost of newly approved drugs is getting higher, and this has been attributed to the growing costs of drug development. We have drugs costing as high as $750,000 for one year of treatment. I do not believe these newer drugs are going to be affordable in India, which is a real tragedy.” Although Butte believes that if the cost to develop drugs drops, he and his team can get to lower priced drugs.
“In October 2013, I received an email from a 48-year-old patient in Europe who wanted to join the clinical trial at Stanford testing the effect of an anti-depressant for small cell lung cancer. Reading his story was particularly poignant to me, as I realized that if academics, data scientists, and startup company founders did not start to develop drugs for his condition, likely no one was going to have a drug for him. We must find more efficient ways to discover drugs,” says Butte.
For the latest news, tech news, breaking news headlines and live updates checkout rishireviews.com
Founder and Chief Editor of RishiReviews. Rishi likes to keep on top of technology !
Please note, this Aadhaar linking deadline is not changing
Digital Ocean Review: Why I choose it for My Server
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1011
|
__label__wiki
| 0.920656
| 0.920656
|
An Evening with Min Jin Lee
Sydney Writers’ Festival presents
Min Jin Lee is a writer of profound, exquisite power.
Her luminous novels explore “the power of ordinary people”, whose “plain, unimportant stories” tell us the story of the whole world. Her bestselling, magisterial epic Pachinko follows four generations of a poor, proud, immigrant Korean family as they fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a homeland they never knew.
Since its publication in 2017, Pachinko has been translated into 29 languages, appeared on 75 best books of the year lists, including the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2017, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. Barack Obama called it “a powerful story about resilience and compassion” and earlier this year, Apple ordered a television adaptation of the book.
Min Jin returns to Sydney to talk to Anton Enus about her acclaimed novels (Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires), her literary career and her own immigrant experience as a Korean–American.
Join this brilliant storyteller and Festival favourite at Riverside Theatres on Monday 5 August.
Monday 5 August 2019 at 7pm
Supported by City of Parramatta Council
Photo by Elena Seibert
Min Jin Lee is a recipient of fellowships in Fiction from the Guggenheim Foundation (2018), the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study at Harvard (2018-2019), and the New York Foundation for the Arts (2000). Her novel Pachinko (2017) was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction, a runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and a New York Times 10 Best Books of 2017. A New York Times Bestseller, Pachinko was also a Top 10 Books of the Year for BBC, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and the New York Public Library. Pachinko was a selection for “Now Read This,” the joint book club of PBS NewsHour and The New York Times. It was on over 75 best books of the year lists, including NPR, PBS, and CNN. Pachinko will be translated into 29 languages. In 2019, Apple ordered to series a television adaptation of Pachinko, and President Barack Obama selected Pachinko for his recommended reading list, calling it, “a powerful story about resilience and compassion.” Lee’s debut novel Free Food for Millionaires (2007) was a Top 10 Books of the Year for The Times of London, NPR’s Fresh Air, USA Today, and a national bestseller. In 2019, Free Food for Millionaires was a finalist for One Book, One New York, a city-wide reading program. Her writings have appeared in The New Yorker, NPR’s Selected Shorts, One Story, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian, Conde Nast Traveler, The Times of London, and Wall Street Journal. She served three consecutive seasons as a Morning Forum columnist of the Chosun Ilbo of South Korea. In 2018, Lee was named as an Adweek Creative 100 for being one of the “10 Writers and Editors Who are Changing the National Conversation” and a Frederick Douglass 200. In 2019, Lee was inducted in the New York Foundation for the Arts Hall of Fame. She received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Monmouth College. She will be a Writer-in-Residence at Amherst College from 2019-2022. She serves as a trustee of PEN America and as a director of the Authors Guild.
Transaction fees apply
Phone $4.60
Web $3.60
Counter $2.60
1 hour (No interval)
Ticket Sellers
Riverside Theatres
Riverside Membership
Dining at Novotel
Explore more Riverside shows
Hitler’s Daughter
The multi award-winning production of Jackie French's popular book, told through the eyes of four Australian children, returns to the stage due to popular demand.
John Waters: Dylan Revisited
Join us for an unforgettable night of Bob Dylan's classic hits performed live on stage by one of Australia’s leading actors/singers, John Waters (Lennon: Through A Glass Onion).
Featuring hit after hit from the incredible songs of ABBA, Packemin Productions burst onto stage in a brand new production of the World’s favourite feel-good musical... MAMMA MIA!
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1012
|
__label__wiki
| 0.682343
| 0.682343
|
The uncertain fate of the Salt River horses
By R.T. Fitch on April 27, 2016 • ( 5 Comments )
By Rebecca Brisley as published on The State Press
““We never gave up on the horses and we never will, either…”
On a sweltering afternoon, Simone Netherlands stood on the rocky shore of the Salt River. A tall woman with blonde hair, she wore a T-shirt that said: PROTECT AND RESPECT WILD HORSES AND BURROS.
photo courtesy of Salt River Wild Horse Management Group
She was very familiar with this stretch of the Salt River, at the Coon Bluff recreation site in the Tonto National Forest near the outskirts of the Phoenix metro area. The landscape resembled a Western movie set – the river, cacti, brush, beige-pink soaring cliffs and, for those lucky enough to visit the place at the right time, approximately 100 free-roaming horses that rely on the river for water and forage.
To Netherlands, they’re beloved. She calls them the Salt River Wild Horses, and spent much of the last year battling authorities and environmentalists who wanted the horses removed from the land.
Netherlands is a leader of the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group, which has monitored the herd for years. She said removing the horses from the land would destroy the herd—a herd she said is a living link to the historic Wild West.
She said removing the herd could result in the purchase of some of the horses by “kill buyers,” who would sell the animals to Mexican slaughterhouses.
“Whenever there are wild horses for cheap, kill buyers are there and they stuff them in their trucks and drive them to Mexico,” she said. “Who else but a kill buyer would want a truckload of wild horses that are not tamed?”
In October 2015, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management reported that a Colorado rancher, who bought 1,700 wild horses from the Bureau of Land Management
Wild Horse and Burro Program and resold them to kill buyers who sent the horses to Mexican slaughterhouses.
“It is absolutely our worst nightmare,” Netherlands said. “It is so awful to think about.”
She has rescued horses for years, she said. When she was 10, she took horse-training lessons at a military base in Holland. If the horses misbehaved, the instructors would tell their pupils to whip the horses after the lessons, she said. She realized she didn’t need to be cruel to the animals in order to work with them, and that compassionate, patient training was the route that horses would respond to. When she was 20, she started humane horse training, she said, and she now runs a horse-rescue organization, Respect 4 Horses, and has a sanctuary in Prescott where several rescue horses reside.
“I used to myself purchase horses from the kill buyer that lived close to me and I would retrain them and adopt them out for free,” she said.
About 12 years ago, she began to devote much of her time to what is now the Salt River Wild Horse Management Group. Netherlands helped document and monitor the herd with others who were also interested in the animals, like photographers along the banks. She said the group studies the horses and advocates for their safety. Netherlands blamed humans, not horses, for causing the most ecological damage to the river, saying damage from the horses is minimal. She noted pollution from littering, old barbed-wire fencing and even the controlled flow of the river in the winter are factors that damage the river’s ecology.
Because of their closeness to the city, the Salt River horses are well-known and controversial. The horses have tens of thousands of fans on Facebook. They often stand quietly in the river while tourists, just a few feet away, snap photos with their phones.
One winter afternoon, three horses grazed in the river next to two cattle. They were protected by tangles of cattails and thorny bushes on the bank. Down the road, a band of six horses had gathered underneath a mesquite tree at a picnic area that was closed for repair work. A colt clung to its mother’s side. Its face was adorned with a white stripe, just like the mare’s. A filly with a caramel-colored coat pranced around playfully and was not afraid to break away from the others—though she never strayed too far away from her family. After about 20 minutes, the horses finished grazing and walked toward a brush-laden mountain.
The presence of the horses on the river has fired up disputes between public agencies, conservationists and animal advocates. For nearly a year, the animals have been the subject of protest marches, letter campaigns, visits to Arizona’s congressional delegation in Washington, two federal lawsuits, and two proposed laws in the Arizona Legislature.
But today, the fate of the horses remains undecided…(CONTINUED)
http://www.statepress.com/article/2016/04/salt-river-horses-endangered
Categories: Horse News, Wild Horses/Mustangs
Tagged as: Arizona, Horse, Public land, Salt River Wild Horses, Wild Horse
Welfare Ranchers Forced to Scale Back in Elko County NV
Mixed reaction to Sandoval threat to sue BLM over wild horses
Starry says:
An excellent, unbiased article. It’s a shame that the media as a whole generally isn’t as honest.
I have been following HB 2340 since February and I must say that a number of amendments have been added to it and so much blood, sweat and tears were shed in order to perfect it. What started as a piece of legislation that the advocacy community dreaded is now something that would be greatly beneficial for the Salt River wild horses. I can only hope and pray that this bill doesn’t die.
Tamela Dresow says:
Why can’t the wild horse be left alone they have lived for thousands of years with out people interrupting their lives why do we feel the need to destroy everything we see
Daniel Cordero says:
《”The frustration for the Audubon Society is that we’ve been really successful working with ranchers and implementing management practices for cattle grazing. The horses are going to have an unequal impact on this ecological system.”》
Sounds like payola to me…
By placing Arizona’s Wild Horses under state control, do they then lose Federal Protection?
As I see it, the REAL issue has not been addressed
Wild Horses & Burros are to be protected WHEREVER FOUND according to the LAW
U.S. Forest Service website
http://www.fs.fed.us/rangelands/ecology/wildhorseburro/whb_faqs.shtml
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That Congress finds and declares that wild free-roaming horses and burros are living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West; that they contribute to the diversity of life forms within the Nation and enrich the lives of the American people; and that these horses and burros are fast disappearing from the American scene. It is the policy of Congress that wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death; and to accomplish this they are to be considered in the area where presently found, as an integral part of the natural system of the public lands.” ~Public Law 92-195
ALWAYS…ALWAYS Remember
This is OUR Public Land…OUR Wild Horses…OUR Wild Burros.
It matters not whether Public Lands are under the custodial care of BLM, USFS, or the National Park Service…it is OUR Public Land and Wildlife
THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA
http://www.pbs.org/nationalparks
Over a montage of images of the country’s most spectacular landscapes — from the Grand Canyon to Yosemite — writer Dayton Duncan talks about the notion that is at the heart of the park idea: namely that the PEOPLE OWN THE LAND As discussed in Ken Burns’s newest film, THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA, the magnificent views of mountains, waterfalls and canyons belong NOT TO AN EXCLUSIVE FEW, but to everyone and this is what makes it a truly DEMOCRATIC idea.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1016
|
__label__cc
| 0.538817
| 0.461183
|
Guus van Dongen
Full Professor, Radiology and nuclear medicine
Full Professor, Amsterdam Neuroscience - Brain Imaging
Full Professor, CCA - Cancer biology and immunology
Full Professor, CCA - Imaging and biomarkers
Full Professor, I&I - Inflammatory diseases
2 Chapter
MAb U36, a Novel Monoclonal Antibody Successful in Immunotargeting of Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Head and Neck
Schryvers, A. H. G. J., Quak, J. J., Walsum, M. V., Snow, G. B. & van Dongen, G. A. M. S., 1 Jan 1993, In : Cancer Research. 53, 18, p. 4383-4390 8 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
Perspectives of monoclonal antibodies for detection and treatment of head and neck tumours
Quak, J., Gerretsen, M., De Bree, R., Brakenhof, R., Van Dongen, G. & Snow, G., 1 Dec 1993, In : Anticancer Research. 13, 6 B, p. 2533-2539 7 p.
Expression and characterization of two differentiation antigens in human stratified squamous epithelia and carcinomas
Quak, J. J., Schrijvers, A. H. G. J., Brakkee, J. G. P., Davis, H. D., Scheper, R. J., Meijer, C. J. L. M., Snow, G. B. & van Donoen, G. A. M. S., 1 Jan 1992, In : International Journal of Cancer. 50, 4, p. 507-513 7 p.
Growth of xenografted squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck ‐ possible correlation with patient survival
ZÄTTERSTRÖM, U. K., BRAAKHUIS, B. J. M., WENNERBERG, J., VAN DONGEN, G. A. M. S., ATTEWELL, R., NAUTA, J. J. P., LAARMAN, D. A. W. & ASK, A., 1 Jan 1992, In : APMIS. 100, 7-12, p. 976-980 5 p.
Potential for targeting head and neck squamous cell carcinoma with monoclonal antibody K984
Schrijvers, A. H. G. J., Gerretsen, M., van Walsum, M., Braakhuis, B. J. M., Quak, J. J., Snow, G. B. & van Dongen, G. A. M. S., 1 Jul 1992, In : Cancer Immunology Immunotherapy. 34, 4, p. 252-258 7 p.
Radioimmunoscintigraphy of Head and Neck Cancer Using 99mTc-labeled Monoclonal Antibody E48 F(ab')2
van Dongen, G. A. M. S., Leverstein, H., Quak, J. J., van den Brekel, M. W. M. & Snow, G. B., 1 Jan 1992, In : Cancer Research. 52, 9, p. 2569-2574 6 p.
Radioimmunotherapy of human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma xenografts with131i-labelled monoclonal antibody e48 igg
Gerretsen, M., Schrijvers, A. H. G. J., Van Walsum, M., Braakhuis, B. J. M., Quak, J. J., Meijer, C., Snow, G. B. & Van Dongen, G. A. M. S., 1 Jan 1992, In : British Journal of Cancer. 66, 3, p. 496-502 7 p.
Detection of Squamous Cell Carcinoma Xenografts in Nude Mice by Radiolabeled Monoclonal Antibody E48
Quak, J. J., Gerretsen, M., Schrijvers, A. H. G. J., Meijer, C. J. L. M., Van Dongen, G. A. M. S. & Snow, G. B., 1 Jan 1991, In : Archives of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery. 117, 11, p. 1287-1291 5 p.
Evidence for a role of the monoclonal antibody E48 defined antigen in cell-cell adhesion in squamous epithelia and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
Schrijvers, A. H. G. J., Gerretsen, M., Fritz, J. M., van Walsum, M., Quak, J. J., Snow, G. B. & van Dongen, G. A. M. S., 1 Jan 1991, In : Experimental Cell Research. 196, 2, p. 264-269 6 p.
Preclinical in Vivo Activity of 2',2'-Difluorodeoxycytidine (Gemcitabine) against Human Head and Neck Cancer
Braakhuis, B. J. M., van Dongen, G. A. M. S. & Snow, G. B., 1 Jan 1991, In : Cancer Research. 51, 1, p. 211-214 4 p.
Superior localisation and imaging of radiolabelled monoclonal antibody e48 f(ab')2 fragment in xenografts of human squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck and of the vulva as compared to monoclonal antibody e48 igg
Gerretsen, M., Quak, J. J., Suh, J. S., Van Walsum, M., Meijer, C. J. L. M., Snow, G. B. & Van Dongen, G. A. M. S., 1 Jan 1991, In : British Journal of Cancer. 63, 1, p. 37-44 8 p.
A 22-kd surface antigen detected by monoclonal antibody E 48 is exclusively expressed in stratified squamous and transitional epithelia
Quak, J. J., Balm, A. J. M., Van Dongen, G. A. M. S., Brakkee, J. G. P., Scheper, R. J., Snow, G. B. & Meijer, C. J. L. M., 1 Jan 1990, In : American Journal of Pathology. 136, 1, p. 191-197 7 p.
Antitumor activity of brequinar sodium (Dup-785) against human head and neck squanmous cell carcinoma xenografts
Braakhuis, B. J. M., van Dongen, G. A. M. S., Peters, G. J., van Walsum, M. & Snow, G. B., 1 Jan 1990, In : Cancer Letters. 49, 2, p. 133-137 5 p.
Comparative study of the sensitivity of head and neck cell lines to methotrexate (MTX) and the analog 10-ethyl, 10-deazaaminopterin (10-EdAM)
Brown, D. H., Braakhuis, B. J. M., Van Dongen, G. A. M. S. & Snow, G. B., 1 Jan 1990, In : Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. 102, 1, p. 20-25 6 p.
Identification of a 43‐kda nuclear antigen associated with proliferation by monoclonal antibody k 112
Quak, J. J., Dongen, G. V., Koken, M. A. E., Brakkee, J. G. P., Scheper, R. J., Balm, A. J. M., Jong, L. D., Snow, G. B. & Meijer, C. J. L. M., 1 Jan 1990, In : International Journal of Cancer. 46, 1, p. 50-55 6 p.
Mechanisms underlying methotrexate inactivity in human head and neck cancer xenografts
Braakhuis, BJM., van Dongen, G., Snow, G. B., Peters, GJ., Leyva, A. & Jansen, G., 1990, In: "Chemistry and Biology of Pteridines". Curtius, H. C., Ghisla, S. & Blau, N. (eds.). Walter de Gruyter, p. 1119-1122 4 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Professional
Production of a monoclonal antibody (K 931) to a squamous cell carcinoma associated antigen identified as the 17-1A antigen
Quak, J. J., Van Dongen, G., Brakkee, J. G. P., Hayashida, D. J., Balm, A. J. M., Snow, G. B. & Meijer, C. J. L. M., 1 Jan 1990, In : Hybridoma. 9, 4, p. 377-387 11 p.
Activity of the folate analog 10-ethyl, 10-deaza-aminopterin (10-EdAM) against human head and neck cancer xenografts
Brown, D. H., Braakhuis, B. J. M., Van Dongen, G. A. M. S., Van Walsum, M., Bagnay, M. & Snow, G. B., 1 Dec 1989, In : Anticancer Research. 9, 6, p. 1549-1552 4 p.
Anti‐tumor and differentiation‐inducing activity of n,n‐dimethylformamide (dmf) in head‐and‐neck cancer xenografts
Van Dongen, G. A. M. S., Braakhuis, B. J. M., Leyva, A., Hendriks, H. R., Kipp, B. B. A., Bagnay, M. & Snow, G. B., 1 Jan 1989, In : International Journal of Cancer. 43, 2, p. 285-292 8 p.
Preclinical chemotherapy on human head and neck cancer xenografts grown in athymic nude mice
Braakhuis, B. J. M., Van Dongen, G. A. M. S., Bagnay, M., Van Walsum, M. & Snow, G. B., 1 Jan 1989, In : Head & Neck. 11, 6, p. 511-515 5 p.
Transplantability of Human Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas in Athymic Nude Mice
Braakhuis, B. J. M., Laarman, D. A. W., Nauta, J. J. P., Van Walsum, M., Van Dongen, G. A. M. S. & Snow, G. B., 1 Jan 1989, In : Archives of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery. 115, 9, p. 1076-1078 3 p.
Evidence for a role of heat-shock proteins in proliferation after heat treatment of synchronized mouse neuroblastoma cells
Van Dongen, G. & Van Wijk, R., 1 Jan 1988, In : Radiation Research. 113, 2, p. 252-267 16 p.
Preclinical antitumor activity of 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine agains human head and neck cancer xenografts
Braakhuis, B. J. M., van Dongen, G. A. M. S., van Walsum, M., Leyva, A. & Snow, G. B., 1 Dec 1988, In : Investigational New Drugs. 6, 4, p. 299-304 6 p.
Stress-induced Thermotolerance of the Cytoskeleton of Mouse Neuroblastoma N2A Cells and Rat Reuber H35 Hepatoma Cells
Wiegant, F. A. C., Van Bergen En Henegouwen, P. M. P., Van Dongen, G. & Linnemans, W. A. M., 15 Mar 1987, In : Cancer Research. 47, 6, p. 1674-1680 7 p.
Effect of serum on heat response of synchronized mouse neuroblastoma cells: Protection of cell cycle progression, protein synthesis and survival
Van Dongen, G. & Van Wijk, R., 1 Jan 1986, In : International Journal of Radiation Biology. 50, 1, p. 77-91 15 p.
Increase of thermoresistance after growth stimulation of resting Reuber H35 hepatoma cells. Alteration of nuclear characteristics, non-histone chromosomal protein phosphorylation and basal heat shock protein synthesis
Van Dongen, G., Geilenkirchen, W. L. M., Van Rijn, J. & Van Wijk, R., 1 Jan 1986, In : Experimental Cell Research. 166, 2, p. 427-441 15 p.
Cell Killing and Sensitization to Heat Shock by Hypothermic Incubation of Asynchronous and Synchronized Mouse Neuroblastoma Cells
van Dongen, G., Zoutewelle, G., van Rijn, J. & van Wijk, R., 1 Sep 1985, In : Cancer Research. 45, 9, p. 4132-4137 6 p.
Studies on a possible relationship between alterations in the cytoskeleton and induction of heat shock protein synthesis in mammalian cells
Van Bergen En Henegouwen, P. M. P., Jordi, W. J. R. M., Dongen, G. V., Ramaekers, F. C. S., Amesz, H. & Linnemans, W. A. M., 1 Jan 1985, In : International journal of hyperthermia. 1, 1, p. 69-83 15 p.
Comparative studies on the heat-induced thermotolerance of protein synthesis and cell division in synchronized mouse neuroblastoma cells
Van Dongen, G., Van De Zande, L., Schamhart, D. & Van Wijk, R., 1 Jan 1984, In : International Journal of Radiation Biology. 46, 6, p. 759-769 11 p.
Destruction of murine lymphoma cells by allogeneic peritoneal macrophages in vitro: Influence of antiserum
Dingemans, K. P., Pels, E., Van Dongen, G. & Den Otter, W., 1 Jan 1983, In : Journal of the National Cancer Institute. 70, 1, p. 181-192 12 p.
‹ Previous12345
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1019
|
__label__wiki
| 0.585189
| 0.585189
|
Kill the curmudgeon: Buzzkill
Pondering half a decade of legalized weed
M. John Fayhee
Updated: March 14, 2019, 2 a.m.
On Jan. 1 of this year, we passed the fifth anniversary of the implementation of Colorado’s Amendment 64, which was writ into law by the overwhelming Will Of The People in 2012 and which legalized the recreational possession, use and sale of marijuana, with a long list of regulatory caveats, to say nothing of what amounts to carte blanche on the part of governmental entities to tax the living snot out of the pot industry, which, at that point, would have enthusiastically acceded to eating a big pile of dog dung if that’s what it took to get the weed ban lifted.
That anniversary coincided more-or-less with Michigan becoming the 10th state to legalize recreational marijuana — though, because legislative processes typically move as though heavily dosed by a combination of Everclear and Quaaludes, it will be a year or two before folks in the Wolverine State can rip into a bag of Detroit Diesel or Flint Poison or whatever names the various varieties of weed will have bestowed upon them by entrepreneurial Michiganders.
The main thing that bothered me, and has continued to bother me, since Jan. 1, 2014, when those first dispensaries opened in Colorado, was the predictable way legalization — which I fully supported and take advantage of on a near-daily basis — was greeted by the munchied masses. There is no defensible reason why those memories still make me squirm these 1,900-some-odd days later. But they do.
First of all, I should point out that I was not in Colorado on Jan. 1, 2014. But I watched the spectacle unfold on TV and within the past few weeks I have scrolled through the visual historic record. Plus, having lived in the High Country for the bulk of my adult life, I pretty much knew how the script would play out: A lot of people in line outside the few dispensaries that opened on Day One, all of which were overwhelmed … queued up like you see outside Apple Stores when the latest iPhone is released. And a lot of people, mostly young, many wearing tie-dyed shirts, acting silly, as young people should, especially when they’re stoned. Off in the corner stood a few stragglers, of my generation, half in the shadows, half in the wan winter sunlight, looking stunned, like they were afraid to actually smile, in case the end to the long nightmare turned out to be nothing more than a pipedream. They looked like they expected at any minute to have the feds swoop down in black helicopters with automatic weapons drawn.
The closest vice-liberation comparison I had personally witnessed occurred 23 years prior. On Oct. 1, 1991, gambling became legal in Colorado in three mountain towns — Cripple Creek, Blackhawk and Central City. The switch was to be thrown at exactly 7 a.m. Photographer Mark Fox, with whom I was then working at the Summit Daily News, and I had driven over to Central City to observe the mayhem. We were not disappointed.
Mark and I stood in front of a brand-new casino located in an historic saloon. There was a big countdown orchestrated by a couple of semi-sadistic Denver radio station DJs who were ensconced on the roof of a two-story building located directly on the other side of Main Street. A sizeable crowd had gathered. As the countdown wound its way backwards 3-2-1, the DJs poured a large sack of quarters from the rooftop onto the sidewalk below. It was like a hail storm of currency. The crowd surged forward in a Black Friday-at-Walmart-like frenzy. Middle Americans lunged toward that pile of coins and dove headfirst into the mound of silver. People were pushing each other out of the way. Invectives were hurled. Fights ensued.
It was horrific watching every iota of human dignity flowing without apparent lament into Central City’s newly upgraded sewage system.
I mean, if you had hands the size of an NBA center, what’s the maximum number of quarters you could possibly hold? I’m guessing you could maybe come out of that writhing pile of ignominy-made-manifest with $40 in quarters, tops. Those people were willing to debase themselves with TV cameras rolling for a few bucks that would soon be lost to the slot machines beeping, pinging, blinking and beckoning on the other side of the swinging faux saloon doors that had been recently installed by the vanguard of organized crime that was already setting up shop within view of the Continental Divide.
The difference between that day and the day five years ago when pot became legalized in Colorado was, on Oct. 1, 1991, there were not scores of people locked up for minor gambling transgressions. Such could not be said about marijuana.
I do not blame people for acting goofy the day weed became legal in Colorado. There have not been a lot of things that were once illegal that have become legal — that’s not usually how America works. It’s usually the other way around. So people can be forgiven for acting a bit weird when the legislative tables are turned. Look back at photographic images of the U.S. on Dec. 5, 1933 — the day the 21st Amendment was passed. There was no somber reflection of the national harm caused by those 13 years of Prohibition insanity. People exclaimed, “Let’s party! In public! Till we puke!” And they did. (I would have, too.)
But, from afar, I was hoping, even as those first legal joints were being lit, for a unified nod to the grievous harm perpetrated on our population over the course of the previous 77 years and especially since June 18, 1971, when soon-to-be-disgraced President Richard Nixon brought the loathsome term “war on drugs” into the mainstream at a press conference. Between 2001 and 2010 alone, the ACLU estimates that, of the 8.2 million people arrested on marijuana-related charges, 7.2 million of those were for simple possession. Even as those tie-dyed revelers were legally toking up on Jan. 1, 2014, thousands of brothers and sisters remained behind bars for doing nothing more than some variation on the exact same damned thing.
I had an admittedly loosely related image in my mind on Jan. 1, 2014. Many years ago, I was joined by a couple of my more ne’er-do-well compadres for an on-foot journey into the depths of Mexico’s Barrancas del Cobre that resulted in my first cover story for Backpacker magazine. We took a bus from Ciudad Juarez to Chihuahua City, from where we were to catch a train to the Sierra Madre the next morning. Our cab driver took us to an unlicensed after-hours establishment that served only one type of beverage: Presidente “brandy.” Over the course of the next few hours, we drank prodigious quantities of that vile liquid.
At 4, okay, maybe 5 a.m., we staggered to the train station in hopes of catching some shut-eye before our departure. The station was so brightly lit that sleep, even in our inebriated state, would be impossible, so we hoisted our packs and followed a back street, eventually finding a dark alley. We spread our pads and sleeping bags out on a crumbling, litter-lined sidewalk that smelled of urine in a neighborhood populated primarily by snarling dogs.
As our eyes adjusted to the gloom, we realized we were facing a mammoth wall that was several blocks wide and at least 50 feet tall. It was featureless save one small window way up high. In the window, we could make out the silhouette of a man looking down on us. Turns out we were bivouacking adjacent to the Chihuahua State Penitentiary, a travel destination that has not yet been publicized in any Lonely Planet guidebooks.
There he was in a facility that, judging from its exterior, must have been as horrible as a place can be, eyeballing a trio of drunk, filthy gringos lying atop multi-hundred-dollar sleeping bags in a broken-glass-strewn alley bordering a Third World prison. He probably wondered what convoluted circumstances had led us there. And he probably thought that he would trade his soul to be in our shoes. The look on his face was like “Why am I here while they are there?”
That’s how I envisioned the thousands of people incarcerated for minor drug-related offenses while aging Baby Boomers and young nouveau hippies frolicked in the park with newly procured weed that cost almost as much as cocaine used to. I pictured them staring forlornly out toward Denver, Boulder and Durango, wondering, “Why am I here and they are there?”
What I really wanted to see, but did not really expect to see, on Jan. 1, 2014, was a procession of people, perhaps led by the walking wounded — those who had their lives ruined because of petty possession convictions — making their way to the State Capitol. All dressed in black and carrying photographs of comrades still in jail and prison, on parole and probation. I envisioned something akin to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War March on Washington, D.C., in July 1974. I envisioned some small nod of the head, even if that head housed bloodshot eyeballs and cotton-mouthed tongues, to the victims of crimes that, at least in Colorado on that day, suddenly were no longer crimes.
When I really let my imagination roam unfettered, I fantasized about a massive storming of the Bastille by thousands of irate stoners shouting, “Let my people go!”
Alas, no such thing occurred on the fifth anniversary of the implementation of Amendment 64.
Thankfully, there is hope. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a supporter of legalization who was sworn in with the new year, has indicated, according to an article in Rolling Stone, that she will take steps to release people who are currently behind bars for minor infractions that are now legal, and to clear criminal records of convictions for acts that are no longer criminal. That same dialogue is transpiring in most other states where pot in now legal, though, of course, it is still illegal in many places, mostly where people speak with a drawl, as well as on the federal level.
I guess the storming of our figurative Bastille will come in small steps and those steps will often be disjointed, which is par for this particular course. Not fair, but in a nation wherein incarceration is a well-funded industry that hires scores of lobbyists, wherein people who used to work for the DEA are now taking up executive positions in the burgeoning pot industry as though their previous sins are automatically absolved by a change in career trajectory, where the fledgling pot industry is increasingly controlled by bureaucrats and corporate profiteers, maybe that’s the best we can hope for.
Right up until that day when the torches finally get lit and even people holding bongs and wearing tie-dyed T-shirts gather to rain fire down upon every form of corrupt injustice.
Then the real party will begin.
RFWJ Editor M. John Fayhee is the author of 10 books, two of which were Colorado Book Awards finalists. “Kill the Curmudgeon” appears whenever Fayhee is miffed enough about something to pound his keyboard.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1021
|
__label__wiki
| 0.956824
| 0.956824
|
End Run
How coaches, players and families are working to restore the Roaring Fork Rams’ varsity football program by 2020
Roaring Fork High School’s football field hasn’t seen optimal usage since the 2017 season. An effort to reboot the once prestigious varsity football program is underway and could be realized in 2020. - photo by Jim Williams
Roaring Fork High’s football field, with its view of Mount Sopris looming majestically to the south, is mostly quiet these days, which has been the status quo since the Rams dropped varsity football after a winless 2017 campaign.
But seeds have been planted in anticipation of “Rams 2.0” and a return of this hallowed program by the fall of 2020. Because most schools, no matter how grim a season their team has, don’t just have a team go away, even after no wins and nine losses.
While there were unique circumstances that conspired to topple the program, including concussion awareness, the pull of other sports and a dearth of feeder programs, a core group of varsity football loyalists, including a coach willing to commute more than four hours round-trip per practice, are working hard on its resurrection.
The ‘long, slow slide'
After going 3-6 and being fairly competitive in 2016, the Rams could have been poised for a return to success. They had a first-year coach come in with solid credentials – Matt Phelan was an all-Pac 12 offensive linemen at UCLA, and the kind of guy high schoolers would salivate to learn from and hang on his every word.
But there weren’t enough varsity Rams around to hear his words of wisdom and see them implemented. On the 2017 roster, Phelan had 14 Rams to play a game that requires 11 on the field. The young athletes on that club, most of whom had to play every down on both sides of the ball, made an effort but simply got worn out and became easy cannon fodder for each opponent.
It wasn’t just 2016 and 2017 that cleared the field of Rams for the next two seasons. It was a long, slow slide, according to Athletic Director and Rams girls’ basketball coach, Jade Bath.
“Those two seasons we had the numbers, barely, but we had the numbers. It was just a season of winning, and then to a season of losing, so there’s successful to unsuccessful, but in my mind it’s been more than those two seasons. You could even go back to almost a decade ago where we’ve started to see kind of a decline in numbers and in town.” Bath said.
The last three Rams teams with records above .500 were even earlier. In 2004, Roaring Fork went 8-3, then a stellar 10-1 in 2005, and 8-2 the next season. Since 2007’s drop to a 3-6 mark, the best year was 5-5 in 2008.
The last big group of football athletes to come into the school, as Bath remembers it, arrived in the fall of her senior year, 2007. It came after players like the quarterback of those previous few seasons, Kade Gianinetti, had graduated that spring.
Gianinetti’s 2005 Rams were so good that they even defeated Glenwood Springs by a score of 25-7 in the season opener. After that, Roaring Fork didn’t score fewer than 32 points and were usually in the 40s on their way to an undefeated regular season, a first-round 21-12 playoff win over Lamar, then that lone loss in the quarterfinals, 20-12 to Faith Christian.
Fork football has slid all the way to rock bottom after glory days like that year, and state championships in 1973, 1977 and 1985, a game fans can relive through its grainy KSPN TV2 video on YouTube.
As far as the decline in player numbers, Bath had several thoughts as to why that’s occurred, one of which is that there’s competition for other fall sports, including soccer.
“I don’t think it’s because our soccer team’s a lot more successful. I just think it’s that we don’t have the feeder programs anymore. We don’t have a pee-wee league. Even our middle school, they’ve had to combine 7th and 8th grade because of low numbers,” Bath said.
“I truly believe that at a young age, whether that’s pee-wee league, or one year of middle school, that’s when you find what sport you want to be involved in. So by the time the kids get here, they’ve already decided soccer over football or vice versa,” she added.
It’s also true that there hasn’t been a football program for the youngest potential football players, 3rd through 6th graders, the last couple seasons. In that age group, interest has lagged too, according to former Ram Eric Bollock, who is now a coach.
Roaring Fork High School's wall of fame. - photo by Jim Williams
Bollock is the Carbondale coach for Mountain West Youth Football, as well as other positions.
“I’ve actually been working with youth football starting back in 1999 up in Aspen. I did five years up there, and a year down in Carbondale, and then I’ve been in Glenwood as well,” he said.
“And then back up here in Carbondale this past year, at the end of this last football season, I decided I would represent the town of Carbondale for Mountain West Youth Football because they hadn’t had a program. I think it’s at least two years, maybe three, that they haven’t even had a pee-wee football program here, 3rd through 6th grade.”
Bollock explained how, “The numbers have just been so low that they just haven’t been able to put a team together, so any kids that were in town here would either go to Basalt, or they would go to Glenwood, which is how I ended up there. My kids played in Glenwood.”
He agreed with Bath that the youth program’s slippage has affected the high school but that the issue isn’t insurmountable: “Well, I think it starts with obviously getting the word out, and encouraging the community to I guess embrace the game of football again.”
That sounds simple enough. But there’s also a health concern many parents have about the game these days that Bath and Bollock agree is cutting into football.
“There’s no doubt that this whole awareness of concussions in football has had an impact on football from the ground up, from 3rd grade all the way through the high school, especially here in Carbondale,” Bollock said. He noted that while concern over concussions is legitimate, it also can be blown out of proportion.
“So I think it starts with just awareness, education about concussions, and then just getting out in the community, to be honest with you.” Bollock allowed that the football program competes for student-athletes against soccer and lacrosse, “both of which are huge in Carbondale now.”
Yet he finds reasons to be optimistic regarding potential future concussions.
“I’m not making light of concussions – both my kids have had them, ironically in lacrosse, not football – it’s nothing to downplay, but I think it’s really being aware of the whole spectrum of studies that are out there, and these are long-term NFL veterans that are showing signs of or have CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy), that have been banging heads for a decade and a half or more,” he said.
“It’s important to note that “our kids are not playing at that level, for one” and that also helmet technology has changed “drastically in 10 years.” That evolution of the helmet includes exterior features like “bump caps” that are proven to reduce impact by 33 percent, he maintained.
He also pointed to a recent study that reported nationwide emergency room visits for concussions from youth athletes. In it, football was number four on that list, behind number one girls soccer, girls basketball and “riding a bike.”
“Now those are obviously concussions and not long-term effects from pounding heads, but that’s something that’s got to be looked at and taken into consideration as well,” Bollock said.
Rams rising
Bollock at work. Courtesy Bollock Family
The man tasked with restoring varsity Rams to the field commutes from Buena Vista, which is easily a four-hour round trip this time of year.
Dave Close, a 47-year coaching veteran who spent a decade heading the Rams program from 1987–1996, has mentored a variety of teams around Colorado. Close initially left Roaring Fork for an opportunity in Idaho, and since has coached at Pagosa Springs, Bayfield and Buena Vista, which won the 1A state championship in 2015.
When asked why he decided last year to return to Roaring Fork to resurrect the Rams, Close said he just didn’t want to see them go away.
Close had run into his old friend and assistant, just-retired Rams boys’ basketball coach Larry Williams, who told him the school was just going to drop this program completely.
“I said ‘whaaat?’ That was a couple years ago. So then they had that 2017 season where they went 0 and 9 and scored 18 points, where the opposition scored 480. It was just horrible, so they said, ‘Well, that’s enough, we’re just gonna drop it.’ So I said, ‘Nah, let me come over.,’” Close said.
AD Bath believes if her football program can be saved, Close is the man to save it.
“It’s gonna take a guy like Dave Close, who’s coached here, understands Roaring Fork, understands this valley, to bring it back,” Bath said.
“Just his immediate passion, and wanting to bring it back, there’s no way that I couldn’t hire him. He lives in Buena Vista – last year he taught in the morning, then drove over here to coach at night. I don’t know if he’s going to do that this next season, but just the drive itself shows me his dedication.”
Bollock, who played for Close in his first stint in Carbondale, agreed.
“He doesn’t lack in passion, that’s for sure. Or energy. I think that obviously kind of spills over into his athletes. I think he did a great job this past year, working with what he had, which wasn’t much. Those kids really seemed to come together as a group,” Bollock said. “He believes in them, and I think that goes a long way with those kids.”
Still believing in Coach Close are not only Bollock, but a staff that’ll also include Jeff Carter, Larry Black, Ray Cooney, Cesar Bencomo, Mike Conklin, and Dave Cardiff.
The 2018 version of the Rams that Bollock referred to played the eight-man version of the game at the junior varsity level, due to the numbers situation. Bath said that was the only alternative to just packing it in.
“We didn’t have enough kids come out to field an 11-man JV. So myself and Dave, we started reaching out to other coaches and other AD’s, saying ‘hey, here’s our situation, would you play us in eight-man?’ And I’d say probably nine out of those 10 AD’s that we called, said, ‘Absolutely.’ They know our situation, they wanted to help out, and they didn’t want to see us lose the program. So we did eight-man last year, and in my opinion, it was actually very successful. It was fun to see those kids go out there and be able to compete, and also win.”
Coach Eric Bollock, surrounded by his middle school aged athletes. - photo by Jim Williams
In 2019, the plan is to get back to an 11-man JV team. Numbers remain an issue, but Close, Bollock and their whole crew are beating the bushes for young people who want to play. Earlier this spring, Close visited all the other schools around Carbondale that don’t offer football at all, but whose students would be eligible to play for Roaring Fork.
Those included students at Carbondale Middle School, plus the Community School, Ross Montessori, The Waldorf School, Marble Charter School, Bridges and Colorado Rocky Mountain School. From that effort he landed 26 sign-ups and plans to visit again before the end of the school year to drum up more.
Bollock says it’s a challenge, but it’s working.
As to the third job Coach Bullock has, well, he’s going to be busy: “I started last year coaching at the Carbondale Middle School, so I’m the head coach there for the 7th and 8th grade team, and that program has obviously been affected, because of not having a feeder program below them. I’m on a mission to turn that middle school program around. I’m going to treat it just like it’s a varsity program, the kids are just smaller. They just don’t run quite as fast, the skill set isn’t quite there, but that’s the foundation of the varsity program.
“Until people start recognizing that, and supporting that, the varsity program will kind of flounder. It seems like common sense to me. It starts way younger. We’ll just go from there, really getting in there and talking to the kids, and making people aware that Carbondale football was once really strong, and there’s a lot of us who believe that as coaches, we can help get it back there,” he said.
- photo by Jim Williams
When all this comes together, the 2020 Rams will be shifted down to the 1A Western Slope League and their football rivals won’t be Basalt and Aspen anymore, but Cedaredge, Grand Valley, Gunnison, Hotchkiss, Meeker, Olathe and Paonia. All the other Rams sports will remain in 3A.
Athletic director Bath is excited about the possibilities.
“The football parents we have right now, they’re 100 percent behind us, supporting us – and they’re even helping. Y’know, I had moms making signs this year, for a JV, eight-man football game, with not very many people there. That’s what it takes, it takes a ‘team effort’ to really bring this thing back,” Bath said.
“I mean, there’s nothing I want more for Roaring Fork High School than to have ‘Friday Night Lights’ back on, and have those bleachers packed like they used to be, and for that matter, have the track packed because there’s no more space for people to sit. A lot of people, a lot of schools, a lot of AD’s, truly believe how your football season goes really sets the pace for your school year.”
Once and future head coach Close said, “What I tell the parents is when they ask what can football do for you, you’re giving me your kid for four years. You give him for four years, and all I can promise you is I will teach them some lifelong lessons, some lifelong skills, that will make them a better individual, and will make them a contributing member of society until they die.
“If I can do that for their kids and they become solid citizens, the wins and losses will take care of themselves. I think football is something you can do it in, because there’s ups and downs, and a kid gets knocked down, he’s gotta get up. That’s life. Life is getting knocked down, and getting up. That’s the way it is. That’s why football is unique over all these other sports,” he added.
His one-time player, now assistant coach, middle school head coach and pee-wee coach Eric Bollock described what it’s like to run out on that field, looking up at Sopris and ready to play on a Friday evening.
“Oh, wow… it’s got to be the best setting in the country, I’d think. The feeling is — gee. I don’t know. I get emotional just thinking about it,” Bollock said.
“Without a doubt, it’s about more than the wins and losses, it’s being part of it, it’s indescribable,” he said.
“We all played together. And I think we’re fighting so hard for this because we experienced that feeling, and the pride in that, when we were in school, a strong rich tradition of football in the town of Carbondale, and it’s really, really sad to see this next generation coming up, not having that opportunity, to experience it.
“That’s why you have guys like Coach Close who are driving two hours one way just to coach every night of the week. Because we’re not gonna let it go. We want this next generation to experience that – what we got to experience at one point in time,” Bollock said.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1022
|
__label__wiki
| 0.855329
| 0.855329
|
Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor wows in his O.C. debut
May 4, 2017 Written by Paper Shredding
Grosvenor was a childhood sensation in England, winning his first major competition as a child in 2004. (Arts Management Group)
British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor tends to attract hyperbolic headlines wherever he performs. After his New York debut in 2015, the Times’ David Allen dubbed him “Boy Lord of the Piano.”
Grosvenor’s Orange County debut on Wednesday at Segerstrom Concert Hall showed what all the fuss and fawning was about.
Now 24, Grosvenor may still look like a dewy teen not yet familiar with a razor, but he has been on piano lovers’ radar for well over a decade. He made his first splash when he won the keyboard category of the BBC Young Musicians of the Year competition in 2004.
Grosvenor brought a widely varied program to Costa Mesa for this Philharmonic Society concert: Schumann’s Arabesque, Op. 18; Mozart’s Sonata in B-flat major, K. 333; Beethoven’s Sonata in C-sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2 (the “Moonlight”); Scriabin’s Sonata No. 2 in G-sharp minor, Op. 19; Book 1 from Granados’” Goyescas,” Op. 11; and Liszt’s Rhapsodie espagnole.
It’s a line-up that allowed Grosvenor to roll out all the weapons in his virtuosic arsenal, and he has quite a collection.
There’s technique aplenty, of course – that much was never in doubt. All of these works demand absolute mastery of bravura playing: machine-gun double octaves, whirlwind hand crossing and hair-raising rapid-note passages.
But Grosvenor offers something that most young piano soloists, including many we’ve seen this season in Orange County, too often lack: a connection to the history of the art form.
With the exception of the Mozart sonata, all the works on Wednesday’s program were drawn from the golden age of the classical soloist, which spanned most of the 19th century into the early 20th. It was an era when the personality of the performer was allowed to come to the fore, meld with the music and make it an intensely personal statement.
That’s what Grosvenor does. He’s reminiscent of a generation of pianists that are long gone, European men who were only a generation or so removed from Liszt and his high-octane histrionics: Josef Hofmann, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Artur Schnabel, Alfred Cortot, Arthur Rubenstein. Grosvenor’s performances aren’t mere interpretations; sometimes his playing is so personal, quirky and full of conviction it seems like an act of co-composing.
Beethoven’s “Moonlight” sonata is a good example of this kind of pianism. It’s cheeky to program such an overplayed chestnut unless you’re going to completely rethink it, which is exactly what Grosvenor did. The first movement, the most remarkable of the three on Wednesday, contained none of the self-important ponderousness that so often undermines it. Grosvenor transformed it into an expression of poetic understatement, and the deliberately muted approach to familiar and hyper-emotive moments made the movement a revelation.
Grosvenor performed the same magic on Schumann’s only slightly less overplayed Arabesque. Again, we heard an over-familiar work freshly defined.
British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor made his Orange County debut on Wednesday night. (Sophie Wright, Decca)
For those who like even meatier pleasures, the second half of the concert brought the works of Scriabin, Granados and Liszt, whose Rhapsodie espagnole was the Arabian stallion of the evening.
Even here, though, Grosvenor wasn’t content merely to wow us with his prodigious technique. It served a higher purpose, which was to capture the larger-than-life composer behind the music. Liszt was a showman’s showman, and this was his gaudy calling card. He played it to dazzle and overwhelm (and, of course, to woo the ladies). The work is a pianist’s Iron Man event, and when performed as Grosvenor did (and undoubtedly Liszt, in his time) it’s more than just a tour de force – it’s a celebration of the capabilities of the human mind and body.
The encore, Moritz Moszkowski’s Etude in A flat, Op. 72, No. 11, was pure Grosvenor – personal, hypnotic, scintillating.
I hope Grosvenor has a long and illustrious career, but if I were you I’d see him as soon as you can. Even the greatest pianists can’t sustain this level of technique and performance energy forever. Right now, though, this young man is in his prime.
Benjamin Grosvenor
Where: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall
When: Wednesday, May 3
Read more about Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor wows in his O.C. debut This post was shared via Orange County Register’s RSS Feed. Irvine Shredding Service
classical music, Irvine, Orange, Theater + Arts, Things To Do, UCI
On how to see your true self
Tustin Lighting firm joins industry giant Leviton
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1028
|
__label__wiki
| 0.676681
| 0.676681
|
Archive for the ‘Taiwan’ Category
China: Would Machiavelli be proud?
Chinese President Hu Jintao reviews army troops. Source: CCTV
Machiavelli, more than any thinker in history, made his name synonymous with a type of human behavior — self-interested, cunning, ruthless. He wrote about ancient Rome as well as Italy and the Mediterranean world of the 15th-16th centuries, extolling such leaders as Ferdinand of Aragon, the successful king of Spain who oversaw his empire’s aggrandizement, as well as the expulsion of alien elements from the Iberian peninsula.
The extent to which a truly Machiavellian leader must be cruel has been exaggerated. If you read his treatises closely, the Florentine statesman was no fan of cruelty if it failed to strengthen the state. Orgies of killing usually engender hatred in a state’s subjects, and Machiavelli argues that being hated is worse than being feared. Being feared is better than being loved, he says, if one cannot be both. According to Machiavelli, leaders must imitate both the lion and the fox — employing both military power and diplomacy — in order to outwit the wolves.
I have argued for some time in this blog that the West, led by the United States, has done a fairly good job of anchoring China into international institutions wrought after the Second World War (see my post “Anchoring the Dragon,” of October 2009). Privileges and power must be matched in international relations in order to avoid instability and conflict. Machiavelli, were he around today, might not criticize Western diplomacy on the China question.
Since 1979, China too has managed its foreign relations relatively well. Deng Xiaoping, who led China after 1978, opened his isolated nation to the world, culminating in 2001 in China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, which this giant nation has used as a platform to become the greatest manufacturing juggernaut the world has known. Likewise during the Cold War, China and the U.S. deftly used each other in classic Machiavellian fashion to balance against their mutual enemy, the Soviet Union, a quasi-alliance that deserves some credit for burying the Soviet empire late last century.
China’s exchange rate policy can be called Machiavellian. The currency is kept low to promote exports in order to avoid the dependence on foreign capital that drove China’s Asian brethren — Korea, Thailand and Indonesia — to the brink of bankruptcy during the 1998 Asian financial crisis. Still, China periodically revalues its currency in baby steps in order to blunt the anger of its trading partners, whose external borrowing expands to finance nagging trade deficits.
A NYTimes article today discussed how China is currently seeking to mend fences with the Obama administration over its exchange rate policy, as well as over tensions related to the Korean peninsula, the South China Sea and Taiwan. Things are not as cozy with the United States these days because the US government is run by Democrats. Democrats are more prone to grandstand against China on currency manipulation, human rights, and the environment than Republicans were. The Chinese will compete this century with the U.S. for hegemony in Asia, not to mention globally, yet today they wish to do so quietly. Surpassing Japan as the world’s second largest economy this year with GDP in excess of $5 trillion, the Chinese economy still falls well short of US GDP of over $14 trillion. Hence, the need to be both a lion and a fox.
Do not doubt that China intends to take over its renegade province of Taiwan one day, or to become the dominant power in East Asia. China does not yet have the actualized military capability to obtain these prizes, so it bides its time and makes nice with the global hegemon as necessary. On the other hand, China builds strong economic and diplomatic links globally to secure sources of raw materials and moral support, and continues to pump money into its military. It plays a cute game on the Korean peninsula (see The Economist article below), alternately prodding and bolstering the tottering regime in Pyongyang, in order to show the Americans it is a player to be reckoned with on all things Asian. Machiavelli would be proud.
(From a Sept. 9, 2010 post.)
From The Economist, September 2:
What lies behind the Dear Leader’s latest trip to China?
Sep 2nd 2010 | Beijing
NORTH KOREA’S leader, Kim Jong Il, must have been on an urgent mission when he boarded his bulletproof train and headed to China for the second time in less than four months on August 26th. With America’s former president Jimmy Carter in town, devastating floods in the north and a rare conclave of his ruling party only days away, Mr Kim had much to keep him at home. But buttering up China appears to be a new priority.
Both China and North Korea, as is their wont, kept quiet about the visit until after Mr Kim’s return on August 30th. By then Mr Carter had left with an American, Aijalon Gomes, who had been serving eight years’ hard labour for entering the country illegally in January. Mr Gomes’s release was a rare gesture of conciliation to America after months of heightened tension caused by the sinking in March of a South Korean naval vessel.
America responded, however, by giving details of sanctions on several North Korean individuals and entities suspected of “illicit activities”, such as dealing in weapons or drugs, or procuring luxury goods for Mr Kim or others. The decision to impose them had been announced in July.
China has complained loudly about America’s recent muscle-flexing, particularly its joint military exercises with South Korea. These are due to resume on September 5th with drills in the Yellow Sea, which China regards as uncomfortably close to its own shore. China began its own naval exercises in the Yellow Sea on September 1st. The official news agency, Xinhua, called them “routine”, but a decision to draw attention to them could be intended to show resolve in the face of the American and South Korean manoeuvres. The results of an international investigation into the sinking of the South Korean ship, which blamed it on North Korea, were released after Mr Kim’s last trip (his first foray abroad in four years). China has refused to accept the findings. By rolling out the red carpet again, it showed it has no plans to reconsider.
Less clear is why Mr Kim wanted to go back so soon. Much speculation has suggested that it could be related to the forthcoming party conclave, the first on such a scale since 1980. North Korea says it will be held early in September. One popular theory is that Mr Kim wants the gathering to endorse the appointment of his son, Kim Jong Un, to a senior party post. The idea would be to groom him to succeed his father, whose health has not been robust. The younger Mr Kim is in his late twenties and is believed to be jobless. Rumours of his rise as heir apparent have long been circulating, and it is plausible that his father would want to inform China if confirmation of this is imminent.
No mention was made of Kim Jong Un or the succession issue in official Chinese and North Korean reports. It is not even known if he went on the trip. But Kim Jong Il did spend some time inspecting sites related to the revolutionary days in China of his own late father, Kim Il Sung. Mr Kim spoke of the need to “hand over to the rising generation the baton of the traditional friendship” between the two countries.
China’s president, Hu Jintao (pictured with the Dear Leader), wished the party meeting in Pyongyang a “signal success”. The Chinese media played up Mr Kim’s reported agreement with his hosts on the need for an “early resumption” of multinational talks on North Korea’s nuclear programme. Prospects for this remain dim, but some analysts believe that North Korea might try to get negotiations restarted as a way of relieving economic pressure. For the moment, China is North Korea’s lifeline. Diplomats say trade between the two countries has picked up in recent months. In return for food, North Korea has given China a new lease on harbour facilities in the north-eastern port of Rajin.
The prospect of a power transfer in Pyongyang worries China. Global Times, an English-language newspaper in Beijing, accused America and South Korea of wanting to “create turmoil” in North Korea and said a smooth transition there was “vital” for stability in north-east Asia. Victor Cha of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think-tank, says that Mr Kim’s mysterious visit at least made it clear that China would stick with its ally to “the bitter end”.
Posted in A) Scher's Favorites, American Politics, China, International Relations, Rising Powers, Taiwan | Leave a Comment »
Update: China imposes sanctions on US
“Canceling military discussions and calling in the American ambassador have been two standard Chinese measures in response to previous American arms sales to Taiwan. But the announcement of restrictions on the Chinese operations of American companies involved in the arms sales represents an unusual twist…” quoted from a NYTimes article today on the US-Taiwan arms deal.
Update on yesterday’s post on the US-Taiwan arms deal: China’s reaction is sanctions, a response which apparently goes beyond previous diplomatic action against the U.S. regarding Taiwan. This raises some questions: First, are the Chinese imposing Iran-style sanctions, that is, similar to sanctions the U.S. advocates to pressure the government of Iran? Is this therefore a diplomatic nose-thumbing at the United States? Second, do they think they can push President Obama around more than the average American president? While I am not seeking to question the president’s credibility, it is valid to ask the question — would they have imposed these sanctions on a McCain or a Hillary administration?
China: Obama continues to arm Taiwan
The Mainland looms over 23 mln Taiwanese Source: Google Images
The government of China has expressed indignation over the Obama administration’s decision to sell $6.4 billion in defensive weapons to Taiwan. Taiwan is part of China, Beijing argues, and the U.S. is meddling in a domestic dispute. See article on the arms deal.
Obama — with no “reset” button on China — is acting in accordance with the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, which was passed after Jimmy Carter chose the Mainland over Taiwan as the “one China” the U.S. would recognize. The Act nonetheless provided for a defensive arming of Taiwan. With Reagan in power in the 1980s, the opening to China was not reversed, but the U.S. government “assured” Taiwan it would not recognize Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan without negotiations, even though the U.S. position remained that there was only one China. When I was a US foreign service officer in the 1990s, I remember one of my colleagues having to “resign” temporarily from the foreign service in order to represent the US in its non-embassy in Taipei (called the “American Institute in Taiwan”). More diplomatic gymnastics than Nadia Comaneci.
The Obama administration, like previous American administrations, heard back from Beijing that this arms transfer would harm US-Chinese relations. The Chinese weren’t even impressed that President Obama decided not to sell F-16s to Taiwan. Perhaps these could be construed as offensive weapons. As crazy John Mearsheimer’s crazy Offensive Realism theory would have it, you can’t trust anyone out there because all weapons, even defensive ones, can be used offensively. Mearsheimer should be feted in Beijing for this reason, just as he is in Beirut and Ramallah. Well, F-16s can be deployed as offensive weapons, John, but the weapons going to Taiwan — helicopters, Patriot missiles, minehunters and communications equipment — are not exactly the basis of a blitzkrieg. One wonders if a President McCain would have sold Taiwan the F-16s.
The deal seems sizable, though I am no defense analyst, but only a modest economist/political analyst. Still, Taiwan is not among the largest purchasers of US weaponry. On an annual basis, the top ten acquirers of US arms in 2008 in descending order were: Israel (just as you suspected, John), Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Egypt, Poland, Canada, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and Pakistan, according to data compiled by the Federation of American Scientists. (Add up all the arms purchased by states Israel has shaky or no diplomatic relations with, John and Steve, and you may understand why the US supplies such a level of arms to Israel — but after all, this post is about Taiwan!)
According to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a purveyor of lots of defense-related data, the top ten arms exporters in 2007 in descending order were: the U.S., Russia, Germany, France, the Ukraine, the Netherlands, the UK, South Korea, Italy, and Sweden (found on Wikipedia). SIPRI also lists the top 10 defense budgets in 2008, spent predominantly on domestic forces: the US, China, France, the UK, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Saudia Arabia, and India. Here, the US dwarfs everyone, spending over 7 times as much as the number two largest defense spender, China, and over $80 billion more than the 9 next largest spenders combined. Does this mean Taiwan is safe? For now perhaps.
China is the 800-pound gorilla, so one understands why most nations see the gorilla as the one and only China. However, with such a fuss made by Wilsonian defenders of the self-determination of peoples — witness support for Kosovar, Palestinian, Georgian, and other minority rights — why has the world given the shaft to 23 million Taiwanese? They clearly do not want to become part of the one-party state that governs 1.3 billion people across the straits. I am no Barry Goldwater, but we should ask this question nonetheless. Henry Kissinger didn’t, but we should.
Posted in A) Scher's Favorites, American Politics, China, International Relations, Taiwan | Leave a Comment »
You are currently browsing the archives for the Taiwan category.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1032
|
__label__wiki
| 0.912326
| 0.912326
|
UN Security Council Reform Back On The Table Again
By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) – Foreign Minister Heiko Maas of Germany, which takes up its seat as a non-permanent member of the 15-nation United Nations Security Council on January 1, says the current composition of the Council is "outdated" and that it needs be reformed.
He told the German news agency DPA that "the balance of power in the world needs to be reflected much more adequately than is currently the case," and insisted that Germany should hold a permanent seat.
The Council currently has five permanent members, the U.S., the UK, France, China and Russia. Germany, along with Brazil, Japan and India has been pushing for an expansion of the UN body for years.
The reform of the Security Council, which is tasked with primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, has been on the world body's agenda since 1993 because there is a broad agreement that the Council's membership and working methods reflect a bygone era.
Though geopolitics have changed drastically, the Council has changed relatively little since 1945, when wartime victors crafted a Charter in their interest and awarded "permanent" veto-wielding Council seats for themselves.
The Council reform is part of the broader issue of UN Reform, to build a more effective and democratic global institution. This includes the reform of other bodies like the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, as well as improvement in the organization's management and finance.
When the issue came up for discussion yet again on November 20, 2018, the UN General Assembly heard that to meet emerging challenges of today’s increasingly complex international security and peace architecture, the Security Council must adapt, reform and expand its membership to include underrepresented regions, particularly Africa.
Assembly President María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés, opening a day‑long debate, stressed that the Council must adapt to new political realities, with increased representation boosting its legitimacy and the implementation of its decisions.
However, no consensus has been reached on how to reform the vital and crucial organ of the United Nations. She expressed gratitude to the co-facilitators of negotiations and said Member States are united in their conviction to reform the Council.
"At least 80 world leaders emphasized this need," she said, referring to discussions during the general debate of the 73d session of the General Assembly. The Council must adapt to new political realities, with increased representation boosting its legitimacy and the implementation of its decisions while strengthening the concept of multilateralism.
She said that as Assembly President, she commits her full support to Council reform, a process that must be driven by Member States. "We must seriously stick to a framework for dialogue," she noted, encouraging Member States to explore pragmatic approaches to advance progress.
The issue is complex and closely intertwined with efforts to ensure international peace and security. As such, Member States must do everything possible to answer calls for greater transparency, she said, reiterating her support for the shared aspiration to increase the Council’s accountability.
Delegates discussed a range of ideal solutions. Many called for broadening the number of permanent members beyond the current five (China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, United States) and abolishing the permanent membership’s use of veto power to overrule the adoption of draft resolutions.
Sierra Leone's Permanent Representative to the UN, Francis Mustapha Kai-Kai, speaking on behalf of the African Group, said the continent remains convinced that comprehensive reform of the Organization will significantly contribute to upholding the principles and ideals of the United Nations Charter.
He argued that most of the issues discussed in the Security Council are related to Africa. The continent must therefore be in a position to effectively participate in decision‑making processes. Africa demands no less than two permanent seats, including veto power, and five non‑permanent seats, he said. Although Africa is opposed in principle to the veto, as long as it exists, it should be made available to all permanent Council members, he added.
The common African position has garnered substantial support from Member States, he continued, reiterating a need to "redress the historical injustice of not being represented in the permanent category". However, divergence in the positions of Member States and interest groups on reform models continue to challenge progress on building consensus on all five clusters of the intergovernmental negotiations.
"We have a unique opportunity to keep the international system on the track of dynamic and effective democratic multilateralism," he said. Africa will continue to advocate for meaningful reform that will make the Security Council more responsive to present and emerging challenges.
Algeria's Assia Jazairy, associating herself with the African and the Arab Groups, reiterated the continent’s common position that it should be represented in both categories of the Security Council. The veto should be extended to all new permanent members unless it is abolished.
Despite having the largest number of Member States in the United Nations and being in three quarters of the agenda of the Security Council, Africa continues to be undermined. Africa has no representation in the permanent category, the core decision‑making unit of the Council, Algeria's representative stressed.
Africa demands its rightful place in the maintenance of peace in security. “We cannot afford to remain indifferent to the realities of our rapidly changing global circumstances,” she said.
Speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Guyana's Permanent Representative to the UN, Rudolph Michael Ten‑Pow said continuing Security Council imbalances include the exclusion of entire regions, specifically Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, from permanent membership.
This means that almost 50 per cent of the United Nations current membership is barred from permanency on one of its principal organs. The Council has failed to keep up with the membership evolution, he said, adding that its work continues to miss the benefit of important perspectives and experiences.
The Council must adapt to new political realities, he said, noting that the United Nations continues to affirm the value of multilateralism and equitable involvement in decision‑making. The Council must be restructured to provide opportunity for equitable involvement in peace and security questions, respecting the views of every Member State. Adding that every nation can contribute meaningfully to the dialogue on Council reform, he said maximum participation should be encouraged to enhance the legitimacy of the process.
Member States also highlighted the role of the Assembly in helping to achieve progress in the intergovernmental negotiations on Council reform.
Speaking on behalf of the Group of Four (Brazil, Germany, Japan and his India), Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, called for the expansion of both the permanent and non‑permanent categories of membership to enhance the Council’s legitimacy and effectiveness.
"We also desire the improvement of its working methods," he said, emphasizing that this sentiment is shared by a broad majority of Member States. After a decade of discussions, it is time to normalize the intergovernmental negotiations process. "We need not to reinvent the wheel this session," he continued, underlining a need to build on progress already made.
The paper on elements of commonalities and issues for further consideration can be the starting point of an open and transparent way to achieve progress this session, he added.
Akbaruddin welcomed more opportunity for dialogue and discussions, which should begin at an earlier time and should not be constrained by any artificial deadlines. Intergovernmental negotiations should operate under normal rules of procedure, as do all other General Assembly processes.
"Nay‑sayers" cannot be allowed to cast a dark shadow over the entire membership and hold the overwhelming majority back. The Group of Four, while having a common position, are also respectful of different perspectives in this process, he said. For negotiations to be meaningful, it is crucial to list the various aspects of different positions, which will be especially critical when working on a text for negotiations.
Cuba's Permanent Representative to the UN, Anayansi Rodríguez Camejo said the five clusters on Council reform must be analysed in a comprehensive manner and not separately. Expressing concern over the Council’s growing tendency to consider issues and assume functions outside its purview while increasingly usurping the role assigned by the Charter to other organs, she said "this trend must cease immediately."
The Council has been frequently and prematurely addressing issues that do not necessarily pose an immediate threat to international peace and security, she said. Closed Council meetings and informal consultations should be the exception and not the rule. To increase transparency and the level of accountability, a final text should be adopted to regulate the work of the Council.
"It is unbelievable that the Security Council rules remain provisional for 70 years," she added. The main objective of expanding the Council must be to rectify the underrepresentation of developing countries, namely from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's Permanent Representative to the UN, associating herself with the Uniting for Consensus Group, said the Assembly’s high‑level segment was characterized by calls for collective action. The United Nations must not only act on behalf of Member States, but it must also act for them, she said, adding that for the Organization to be credible it must represent and reflect the interests of all Member States.
That must be the point of departure for Council reform efforts, she said, referring to the reform process as "a true expression of our commitment to the fundamentals of multilateralism". She said consensus exists on the expansion of non‑permanent seats, while questions remain concerning the expansion of permanent ones.
"If the Council cannot reconcile the interests of its five permanent members, how will it cope with the interests of a bigger membership?" she asked, noting that non‑permanent members have traditionally championed inclusiveness and transparency. She said membership expansion must focus on the non‑permanent category to ensure equitable geographic representation, especially for African States.
Some of the Council’s five permanent members also joined the debate.
China's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ma Zhaoxu, recalling the candid negotiations in 2017 on Council reform, said a mutual understanding on priorities has been achieved. Council reform involves the vital interests of all Member States and the long‑term success of the United Nations.
Beijing supports necessary reforms and prioritizes an increase in the representation of developing countries, namely African States. The only way to achieve reform is to implement relevant General Assembly resolutions and to pursue consensus‑based solutions.
"Attempts to set artificial timelines and arbitrarily launch text‑based negotiations will undermine unity and have a negative impact on the contributions of small States," he warned. Member States must pursue frank and in‑depth negotiations to better understand each other’s positions, he said, calling for intergovernmental negotiations to remain a State‑driven endeavour.
U.S. representative Rodney M. Hunter said Washington supports a "modest expansion" of the Council in the permanent and non‑permanent categories. "Consideration of new permanent membership must consider candidates' ability and willingness to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security," he said, noting that the United States opposes any change to the veto.
He affirmed his Government’s openness to any form of intergovernmental negotiations — whether text‑based or otherwise — as long as the format allows for broad consensus. The United States seeks an effective and efficient Council and only supports reforms that work towards that end. Reform efforts must advance the Council’s core mandate of addressing challenges to international peace and security.
"A modernized Council must not only be representative of the twenty‑first century, it must also be capable of responding to new challenges," he said, concluding that thoughtful expansion of the organ can help maintain its long‑term effectiveness.
Russian representative Alexey R. Boguslavskiy said that while discussions have been ongoing, a universal decision is still not in sight. Approaches of major players in the reform field continue to be different or even diametrically opposed. The Russian Federation, as a permanent representative of the Council, agrees with the calls to make the Council more representative.
However, efforts in this area should not have an impact on the Council’s ability to effectively and efficiently react to challenges. In this regard, the Russian Federation is in favour of maintaining the Council’s compact nature, he said, adding that the maximum membership should not exceed the low twenties.
Turning to its working methods, he said that the use of the veto more than once has spared the United Nations from getting involved in dubious enterprises. The reform process should be owned by all Member States. Its outcome should enjoy maximum and broad support.
Reforms in the Council cannot occur only through an arithmetical manner alone. Progress cannot be achieved by imposing negotiating texts. Progress will depend on the political will of Member States and their willingness to reach consensus. Such painstaking work can be carried out in a transparent and calm manner without arbitrary guidelines or artificial deadlines, the Russian representative said. [IDN-InDepthNews – 29 December 2018]
Photo credit: UN Photo/Kim Haughton
IDN is flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate.
facebook.com/IDN.GoingDeeper - twitter.com/InDepthNews
Send your comment: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Subscribe to IDN Newsletter: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1034
|
__label__cc
| 0.699573
| 0.300427
|
Financial transactions and authorization: the finance-related information provided by passengers in their ticket or all kind of ancillary services purchase will be submitted to respective financial institution in the ticket purchase process (e.g. (ex: preorder, on-line shop or duty free) for credit card authorization or bank transfer) before completing a ticket purchase.
Approaching a new client can be a lot easier if you happen to be visiting that region, or if it’s where you are based. Start local and contact businesses who you regularly use or that have less than desirable images on their website…put together a proposal and they’ll more than likely say yes if it benefits them! If they’re just starting out on social media you can offer to create a library of social media images they can use over a 3-6month period to generate interest in their product/region.
On November 27, 2007, Hawaiian Airlines signed a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with Airbus for 24 long-range jets priced at $4.4 billion. The order included six Airbus A330-200s with a further six purchase rights and six Airbus A350-800s with a further six purchase rights - plans to fly to Paris and London were discussed. Deliveries for the A330s began in 2010 while the first A350 was to be delivered in 2017.[72]
All inter-island passengers on Hawaiian Airlines should check-in at least 90 minutes prior to scheduled departure. Passengers should plan to check-in for trans-pacific flights between Hawaii and US mainland cities two-and-a-half hours prior to departures and three hours prior to departure for international flights. Inter-island check-in closes 30 minutes before departure, and all other flight check-in options close 45 minutes before departure. Online check-in is available 24 hours before departure and closes 90 minute beforehand.
Heading into the 1990s, Hawaiian Airlines faced financial difficulties, racking up millions of dollars in losses throughout the previous three years. Due to the airline's increasingly unprofitable operations, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in September 1993. During this time, the company reduced many of its costs: reorganizing its debt, wrestling concessions from employees, cutting overcapacity, and streamlining its fleet by disposing many of the planes it had added to its fleet just a few years earlier.[24]
Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge Castle Ward Cliffs of Moher Croagh Patrick Crumlin Road Gaol Derrigimlagh Dingle Peninsula Downpatrick Head Dublin Castle Dursey Island Fanad Head Fermanagh Lakelands Giants Causeway Glendalough Guinness Storehouse Irish National Stud & Gardens Keem Strand Killary Harbour Loop Head Lough Gur Malin Head Mizen Head Mount Stewart Mullaghmore Head Old Head of Kinsale Powerscourt Ring of Kerry Rock of Cashel St George's Market Skellig Michael Slieve League Cliffs The Gobbins Trinity College
In March 2018, I traveled to Shanghai to give a lecture and a street workshop at Imaging Group, and recall doing some location scouting in Laoximen with Tamia Tang (my assistant). We met an elderly resident who had lived in her small rooms virtually all her life, and had been told that she would have to vacate them soon. She claimed satisfaction that the city would be offering residents alternative housing or monetary compensation as the weather in Shanghai was too cold for her.
Hawaiian also has frequent-flyer partnerships with several other airlines, allowing HawaiianMiles members to earn credit for flying partner airlines and/or members of partner airline frequent flyer programs to earn credit for Hawaiian flights. Some partnerships restrict credit to only certain flights, such as inter-island flights or to code-share flights booked through Hawaiian.
That's a terrible route. You should be able to fly to Heathrow and then it's only 12 hours to Cape Town. We don't spend 36 hours in the air. Hawaii to Atlanta is 9 hours and then 18 hours on one flight to Joburg. The best time I've ever had is 34 hours door to door total travel time from Kona to Joburg but it's not fun. I've met people on the Atlanta flight that do it every month. They normally work for some charity or in Oil & Gas. With that many miles they get business or first so that makes it a lot easier but I'm sure it still takes its toll. I enjoyed looking at your work. I need to spend more time on the road.
These two portraits are of elderly actors; the type that the cinematic world calls' "character actors" (these are generally defined as supporting actors who play unusual, interesting, or eccentric characters). I found these actors to be much more visually interesting than the glamorous divas; not because of their rugged and wrinkled physiognomies but because they had presence...and must've been part of these troupes for as long as they could remember.
Most computers and mobile devices browsers are typically set up to accept cookies. If you do not consent to our use of cookie and wish to disable the cookies which are set by EVA Air websites, or any other website, you can do this by changing your browser settings. You can find out how to amend your cookie preference in the help function of your browser. To assist you in this process, we provide links of some of the most popular web browsers:
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in internet that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. When you access our website and mobile services, we collect your IP address. We store this information to help us manage security, analyze how our website and mobile services interact with you and do the product marketing and advertisement. We also use IP address to block the visitor, who is unable to comply with the terms of service, from accessing to our website and mobile services.
"Back when we started Wanderlust, we would invite photographers in with their portfolios. Nowadays, although we do commission some work, we increasingly use online stock libraries to find images for this website and for our magazines. On the one hand, they libraries have a wide range and make it very easy to search. On the other hand, we can find ourselves wading through pages of very average shots that don't offer anything different or fresh. And, so often we struggle to find what we need due to poor tagging by the photographers."
Your non-personally identifiable data is shared by EVA AIR with Google, Knorex, Facebbok and Criteo in the strictest confidence, for the unique purpose of serving more relevant advertising. Standards have been defined to ensure appropriate advertising is served, and all served relevant advertisements offer the possibility for you to opt out of such selective advertising by Google, Knorex, Facebbok and Criteo.
Hawaiian provides complimentary and paid beverage service on all of its flights. Meals are not provided on interisland flights due to their short length (30–45 minutes). On its U.S. mainland flights, Hawaiian is one of the only major U.S. airlines to still provide complimentary meals in its main cabin (coach class); each meal is made with no preservatives, all-natural ingredients and packaged with recyclable materials.[94] In 2009, Hawaiian introduced premium meals in its main cabin, giving passengers the option of having the complimentary meal or paying to upgrade to a premium meal. The premium meals consisted of a variety of high end Asian cuisine, but were later discontinued.[94][95]
Tewfic El-Sawy is a New York based freelance photographer specializing in documenting endangered cultures and traditional life ways of Asia, Latin America and Africa. His images, articles and photo features have been published in various international magazines, and his travel photographs are published in guidebooks and adventure travel catalogs. He also organized and led non-traditional photo expeditions and workshops. He is passionate about documentary-travel photography and produces multimedia stories, merging still photography and ambient sound. He enjoys mixing Asian fashion, culture and history into “photo films”. He recently increased his focus on South East Asia and China. He produced a well received photo book Hau Dong: The Spirit Mediums of Viet Nam; documenting an indigenous religion now recognized by the UNESCO, and is currently working on a voluminous monograph tentatively titled ‘Chinese Opera of The Diaspora’. He is a faculty teaching member at the Foundry Photojournalism Workshop, and a jury member at The Travel Photographer Society’s Photo contests.
In accordance with Article L.237-7 of French Internal Security Code, please be informed that airlines may be required to communicate personal data to authorized booking, check-in and boarding data collected from their passengers (API/PNR) to the French authorities for the purposes and under conditions as defined in the Decret N° 2014-1095 dated 26/09/2014.
There's much more to becoming a travel photographer than exploring exotic destinations and clicking your shutter. Getting up at stupid-o-clock to catch the perfect sunrise, carrying a camera that’s heavier than four backpacks, skipping meals in the quest for perfect light, and missing out on the travel experience because you’re too busy taking photos, are just a few of the downsides.
Hawaiian Airlines is Hawaii’s largest airline, serving 20 domestic and international destinations around the Pacific. The airline flies daily to eight destinations on the islands and to Tahiti, American Samoa and Sydney, Australia. Its on-time record and baggage handling is exemplary. For Canadian flyers, Hawaiian Airlines flies from Seattle and Portland airports to Oahu, Honolulu.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1036
|
__label__cc
| 0.713276
| 0.286724
|
Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law
Emory University School of Law
mary.dudziak@emory.edu
http://law.emory.edu/faculty-and-scholarship/faculty-profiles/dudziak-profile.ht...
Individual rights and the U.S. global image, Cultural ideas about war and wartime, Presidential war power, History of declaring war
Mary L. Dudziak is a leading American legal historian and past-president of SHAFR. She writes and teaches about the history of war’s impact on American law and politics, civil rights history and constitutional law. Her books include War·Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences (2012); Exporting American Dreams: Thurgood Marshall’s African Journey (2008); Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (2000, 2nd ed. 2011); and two edited collections. Her op-eds have appeared in the New York Times and elsewhere. Her research has been supported by the Kluge Center, Library of Congress; John Simon Guggenheim Foundation; School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; American Council of Learned Societies and others.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1039
|
__label__wiki
| 0.78067
| 0.78067
|
Known as ‘London’s Global University’, University College London employs 4,078 academic research staff in over 50 departments and institutes. UCL has a global reputation for excellence in research and is committed to delivering impact and innovations that enhance the lives of people in the UK, across Europe and around the world.
UCL’s total competitively awarded research income annually stands at € 530 million, of which 10% is European funded research & innovation. UCL scientists received over 700 projects funded during the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) including over 100 European Research Council awards. UCL also receives the highest share of any UK university of the UK Government’s strategic investment fund, and has recently invested more than € 310 million into state-of-the-art infrastructure to facilitate cutting-edge research across a broad range of disciplines.
Chemical Engineering has a central role at UCL in tackling the global energy challenge by developing alternative and renewable energy technologies with EPSRC, TSB, ETI, EU and industrial funded projects.
UCL Earth Sciences has accumulated an arsenal of experimental capabilities for the high-pressure characterization of rock samples. This capability will be complementary to that provided by GFZ Potsdam, University of Manchester, and Halliburton, and it will secure success in the research activities proposed here. Learn more about UCL and research on Shale gas.
The UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (IRDR) leads cross-disciplinary research, knowledge exchange and advanced teaching across UCL, with engagement from over 70 academics across 12 departments and 7 faculties within UCL and a number of external partners in industrial and NGO sectors.
The UCL Team
UCL will lead this project. Prof. Alberto Striolo (UCL Chemical Engineering), Dr. Jones (UCL Earth Sciences) and one program manager from UCL European Research and Innovation Office (ERIO) will lead the ShaleXenvironmenT coordination and management activities.
Prof. Alberto Striolo (UCL Chemical Engineering)
Dr. Adrian Jones (UCL Earth Sciences)
Evghenia Scripnic (UCL European Office)
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1040
|
__label__cc
| 0.580773
| 0.419227
|
Beautiful words at the Academy Awards
Posted on February 23, 2015 February 23, 2015 by Samuel Snoek-Brown
Late last night, shortly after the Oscars wrapped up, I posted this on my Facebook page:
I want to believe it is significant that at the whitest, malest Oscars in recent years, the night’s most rousing, most meaningful speeches were by a woman demanding equal pay for women, two African-American men spreading hope and compassion while still keeping our awareness on the continuing struggle for racial justice, a suicide survivor speaking hope and strength to every kid who might feel “weird,” and a Mexican teaching us about equality in true art and calling for more compassionate treatment of the immigrants who built and are still building America.
I don’t want their words to get lost in the reporting of tonight’s Oscars. I want their speeches to mean something.
My writer friend Marie Marshall agreed and wondered if there were transcripts available, to preserve their words. There probably are, but it’s early hours and the best I’ve found are videos accompanied by pull-quotes, so I decided to transcribe the speeches myself (parentheses link to videos of the speeches):
Patricia Arquette (best supporting actress, Boyhood):
To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights. It’s our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America!
Common (best song, “Glory,” from Selma):
Recently, John and I got to go to Selma and perform ‘Glory’ on the same bridge that Dr. King and the people of the civil rights movement marched on fifty years ago. This bridge was once a landmark of a divided nation but now is a symbol for change. The spirit of this bridge transcends race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and social status. The spirit of this bridge connects the kid from the south side of Chicago, dreaming of a better life, to those in France standing up for their freedom of expression, to the people in Hong Kong protesting for democracy. This bridge was built on hope, welded with compassion and elevated by love for all human beings.
John Legend (best song, “Glory,” from Selma):
Nina Simone said it’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live. We wrote this song for a film that was based on events that were fifty years ago, but we say that Selma is now, because the struggle for justice is right now. We know that the Voting Rights Act that they fought for fifty years ago is being compromised right now in this country today. We know that right now, the struggle for freedom and justice is real. We live in the most incarcerated country in the world. There are more black men under correctional control today then were under slavery in 1850. When people are marching with our song, we want to tell you we are with you, we see you, we love you and march on.
Graham Moore (best adapted screenplay, The Imitation Game):
When I was sixteen years old, I tried to kill myself, because I felt weird, and I felt different, and I felt like I did not belong. And now I’m standing here. And, so, I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she’s weird, or she’s different, or she doesn’t fit in anywhere. Yes you do. I promise you do. Stay weird. Stay different, and then when it’s your turn and you are standing on this stage please pass the same message to the next person who comes along.
Alejandro Iñárritu (best director, Birdman)
Honestly, this is crazy, in a way, talking about that little prick called ego. Ego loves competition, because, for someone to win, someone has to lose. But the paradox is that true art, true individual expression, as all the work of these incredible fellow filmmakers, can’t be compared, cant be labeled, can’t be defeated, because they exist. And our work only will be judged, as always, by time.
Alejandro Iñárritu (best picture, Birdman)
I want to dedicated this award for my fellow Mexicans, the ones who live in Mexico. I pray that we can find and build the government that we deserve. And the ones that live in this country, who are part of the latest generation of immigrants in this country, I just pray that they can be treated with the same dignity and respect of the ones who came before and built this incredible immigrant nation.
Posted in moviesTagged Alejandro Iñárritu, Common, Graham Moore, John Legend, movies, Oscars 2015, Patricia Arquette
Nick Hornby and Cheryl Strayed and one of the coolest nights in my literary life
writing for money $$$$ confessions
4 thoughts on “Beautiful words at the Academy Awards”
Rebecca Meyer says:
Amazing and inspirational speeches this year at the Oscars! They were so uplifting. They were speeches that needed to be voiced to millions. Very significant and powerful.
I agree. There were actually a number of beautiful speeches, like JK Simmons and Julianne Moore. But these socially responsible speeches really caught my ear!
Me too! I was incredibly moved by Common and John Legend’s speeches in particular. Their performance was also phenomenal.
Well done, Sam, and thanks.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1046
|
__label__cc
| 0.638004
| 0.361996
|
What's the mathematical model behind the security claims of symmetric ciphers and digest algorithms?
Why can SHA-1 be considered a secure hash function? That's something I still wonder about.
I understand the concepts of why modern asymmetric algorithms are deemed to be secure. They are founded on sound mathematical problems that are provably "hard" to solve, e.g. discrete logarithms in finite fields or integer factorization. The concepts of security claims and proofs are relatively easy to follow if one is aware of the mathematical concepts.
But when it comes to symmetric cryptography and secure hash functions the picture becomes much less clear. I understand that there exist a lot of results and analysis for block ciphers and digest algorithms, but what are these results founded on?
E.g. when it comes to block ciphers you can find a lot of proofs that cipher algorithm X is resistant against a certain number of known attacks. Or they prove that some property holds, e.g. every bit of the input affects the output, because this is deemed necessary etc. etc.
From the outside, the construction of cipher and digest algorithms looks like "trying to fiddle and mess with the input as much as possible" by applying bit shifts, XORs and so on.
What I would like to know now (I would be grateful for deeper insight in either):
a) Could you provide me with pointers to resources (books preferred) that explain the design and security considerations one has to take into account when constructing a
a1) cipher algorithm
a2) digest algorithm
that would explain things such as why an S-box has to look exactly the way it does instead of any other way and probably even more important for me and my understanding why it would be bad if it were constructed differently?
b) Does there exist or are their attempts for modelling these "bit fiddling operations" mathemtically(e.g. are "algebraic attacks" based on such a model?) ?
c) How do you "measure" the quality of a digest algorithm such as SHA-1? I.e. how can you say it's better to do a shift by two bits here instead of three or an XOR, and why are these operations the basis of SHA-1 in the first place? Because at the time it seemed like the only known thing that would "maximally mess" with the input? I'm asking because it seems as if most SHA-3 candidates were either based on cipher algorithms (because there are more theoretical results) or e.g. on new concepts such as sponge functions. To me the definitions of any of the SHA algorithms (MD5 too) still look like "Let's mess with this, shall, we?" - but what's the reasoning behind it? Why do it the way they did?
I'd be more than happy if you could give me insight into any of these topics.
cryptography encryption hash cryptanalysis
embossemboss
I think this is an important question, and the answer will surprise many users. See e.g. Thomas Pornin's intro to Most secure password hash algorithm(s)? - IT Security - Stack Exchange – nealmcb Jul 9 '11 at 17:08
I can't give you an answer that is going to leave you perfectly satisfied, because there is no such answer. How do we know that our algorithms are secure? Strictly speaking, we don't. We have no proof that SHA256, or AES, or RSA are secure -- it is widely believed that they are secure, but I could not give you a mathematical proof of that fact, and who knows, it is always possible that widespread beliefs are wrong.
Our belief in the security of these algorithms comes from the fact that a lot of really smart, knowledgeable people have tried really hard to break these algorithms, without making much of a dent at all. Of course, this is not a guarantee that no clever attack exists -- it is always possible there is some incredibly sneaky mathematical shortcut attack that no one has been clever enough to find, but the more people who try to find one and fail, the less likely that looks. For practical purposes, it seems unlikely that a garden-variety attacker is going to discover an attack that dozens of really smart people tried to find and failed.
Your immediate reaction might be, what the heck? Why are those cryptographers so lame? Why can't they prove any of their algorithms secure? Are they numbskulls? The answer is, there are fundamental reasons that make it very difficult to prove that an encryption algorithm or a hash function is secure (except in special cases). Roughly speaking, proving that an algorithm like AES or RSA or SHA256 is secure seems likely to be at least as hard as proving that P != NP (an infamously hard problem in computer science). We have very few tools for proving that an algorithmic task can not be completed efficiently. At its core, this is what makes it hard to prove that SAT cannot be solved in polynomial time (i.e., hard to prove that P != NP), and makes it hard to prove that there is no shortcut attack on AES (i.e., that AES cannot be broken). So it's not just that cryptographers are lame, it is that we are up against very hard problems that no one knows how to make progress on.
Note that nothing I said above is specific to hash functions, or to symmetric-key cryptography. It applies to all computationally-secure cryptography, including symmetric-key encryption, public-key encryption, digital signatures, hash functions, and many other standard primitives that we take for granted.
Your last question was: Can anyone teach me the theory of how symmetric-key algorithms are analyzed and cryptanalyzed? How do cryptographers analyze them? How do attacks work? No, I cannot teach you this within the time and space constraints here. There is an entire research field built up around these questions, with an intellectually deep literature on techniques for analysis of symmetric-key algorithms. (See, e.g., the FSE, CRYPTO, and EUROCRYPT conferences.) It takes years of dedicated study to learn this material. Unfortunately, I cannot teach you all of that in the space available here. The very short version is: cryptographers have developed a large suite of attack techniques, and as a starting point, any new primitive is first analyzed to see if any of those attacks will work. If the primitive resists all of the known attack techniques, then cryptographers spend time trying to design ad-hoc or custom attacks against the primitive. Cryptographers also study artificially-weakened versions of the primitive (e.g., with fewer rounds), to learn about the best attacks on those weakened versions in an attempt to extrapolate to the full thing. If after many person-years of effort, no one is successful in attacking the scheme, then people start to gain more confidence. More recently, there has also been some research on gaining confidence that the high-level structure is sound, or that all attacks of a particular class are guaranteed to fail, using ideas from the provable security community.
But at the end of the day, it is an art as much as a science. Vetting a new primitive is extremely expensive: it takes person-decades of effort from intensely-talented specialists. For this reason, smart users of cryptography generally try to use existing, vetted primitives, rather than inventing their own. If you invent your own scheme, it is extremely unlikely you'll be able to arrange for as much analysis and vetting of your own scheme as the standard ones have already received -- so don't do that. Don't "roll your own". Instead, build on existing, standard, accepted primitives, like AES, SHA256, RSA, etc.
D.W.D.W.
One of my questions still remains unresolved. I still don't know why XOR, bit shifting and the like are used for hashes and ciphers in the first place - if there is any mathematical reasoning behind this, why it's exactly these operations and nothing else? Do you happen to know where I can find some background material on this? – emboss Jul 20 '11 at 0:21
@emboss I expect they get used because (a) they work, and (b) they can be implemented efficiently in software. For example, XOR and addition can be a cheap (1 cycle) way to mix a lot of bits efficiently. And other operations (e.g., table look-ups, bit operations) are a cheap way to get non-linearity. You need both non-linearity and good mixing to have a secure cryptosystem. Thomas Pornin has some good book recommendations. The original AES submission also had some justification for their design. – D.W. Jul 20 '11 at 3:19
Thanks! OK, maybe I should read "The design of Rijndael", I heard good things about it. – emboss Jul 20 '11 at 9:27
@D.W. says it well; in shorter words: the only know way to deem a cryptographic algorithm is to have hundreds of cryptographers gnaw at it for a few years. This is not ultimately satisfying, intellectually speaking, but one can still work with that (the whole of Medicine, for instance, is built on even shakier grounds, but it is still a very useful art).
For the specifics (i.e. how a S-box is chosen, what is "avalanche effect", how to study things with algebra...), see (as always) the Handbook of Applied Cryptography, which begins to be a bit old but still a very good reference, and can be downloaded for free. Another good book is Algorithmic Cryptanalysis by Antoine Joux.
Thomas PorninThomas Pornin
Thanks for Algorithmic Cryptanalysis, didn't know that one. When checking it out, I found this - do you know that? Sounds exactly like what I was looking for, no? – emboss Jul 20 '11 at 9:30
@emboss: "boolean functions" in cryptographic is the code name for a rather specific field historically coming from the use of lookup tables on the output of one or several LFSR. I fear that the book you cite may be overly restrictive with regards to what you look for (e.g. it will probably not include discussion on the overall structure of a block cipher). – Thomas Pornin Jul 20 '11 at 12:23
Thank you, Thomas! I guess I will start with something else then :) – emboss Jul 20 '11 at 13:48
One of my questions still remains unresolved. I still don't know why XOR, bit shifting and the like are used for hashes and ciphers in the first place - if there is any mathematical reasoning behind this, why it's exactly these operations and nothing else?
One of the reasons why exactly XOR is used is that because XOR has an important property: reversibility. If you XOR a number with a key and then XOR the result with same key again, you will get your original number.
Paŭlo Ebermann
AlibekAlibek
that might be usefiul for encryption but in hashing reversibility is the one thing you DONT want. – My1 Nov 27 '17 at 9:16
Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged cryptography encryption hash cryptanalysis or ask your own question.
Why are hash functions one way? If I know the algorithm, why can't I calculate the input from it?
Most secure password hash algorithm(s)?
Is it possible to have a key for encryption, that cannot be used for decryption?
What are the requirements for a random number generator to a be safe to use in cryptography?
How is a cypher algorithm verified?
What are the realistic, and most secure crypto for Symmetric, Asymmetric, Hash, Message Authentication Code ciphers?
Hashing Algorithms on GPU, 32 bit vs 64 bit
Cascading Encryption Algorithm using mcrypt or GnuGP
What block ciphers and algorithms are now safe?
Which hashing algorithm is ideal for use on the web?
Figure out if “correct” encryption algorithm was used
How are SHA1 and MD5 considered to not protect against collisions?
Do you need more than 128-bit entropy?
Differences between the OpenVPN SHA1 variations in the digest aglorithms
Symmetric Encryption Algorithm
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1050
|
__label__wiki
| 0.808253
| 0.808253
|
Military Taiwan Defense
Taiwan’s Air-to-Air Missile Shortage: A Critical Vulnerability
Posted On April 1, 2018 Benjamin Fan 0
The acquisition or development of more air-to-air missiles is a small but highly important measure to improving Taiwan’s self-defense for the decades ahead.
In May 2005, Taipei-based journalist Wendell Minnick sounded the alarm in an article over Taiwan’s defense situation, noting that Taiwan had too few air-to-air missiles (AAM) in its inventory for adequate self-defense. A National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) publication made a similar observation that year.
Over a decade has elapsed since then. In that time, relatively little has been done to address the missile shortage. Indeed, owing to aging and other factors, Taiwan’s AAM situation has arguably worsened.
Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to Taiwan’s air defense, most of it aimed at improving Taiwan’s fighter fleet. Taiwan lobbied for years for the purchase of 66 new Lockheed Martin F-16C/Ds from the United States (a request rejected by both the Bush and Obama administrations.) Taiwan’s air arm, the Republic of China Air Force (ROCAF), is modernizing its entire F-16 fleet to F-16V Viper configuration, and its Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF) fleet is being upgraded as well. There has been talk of Taiwanese interest in the stealthy F-35 Lightning II, while rumors of Taipei’s pursuit of the Boeing F-15 Eagle or advanced versions of the F/A-18 Hornet went unconfirmed by the ROCAF. But such measures taken to improve Taiwan’s fighter fleet – vital and necessary though they may be – may ultimately be of little use in combat if the ROCAF’s fighters are inadequately armed.
Taiwan’s air arm, the ROCAF, operates primarily three types of fighters. The fleet’s French-manufactured Dassault Mirage 2000-5Di/Eis are primarily air-to-air interceptors while its American-manufactured Lockheed Martin F-16A/B Block 20 Fighting Falcons and Taiwanese-manufactured AIDC F-CK-1 Ching Kuo IDFs have dual air-to-air and air-to-ground functions. (For practical purposes, this article will consider Taiwan’s aging F-5E/F Tigers to be fully defunct and retired.)
Fighters in many contemporary air forces are fitted with a combination of close-range and beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles for aerial combat, and the ROCAF’s three fighter types all utilize a pairing combination of such. For close-range and BVR aerial combat, respectively, Taiwan’s F-16s employ Sidewinders and AMRAAMs/Sparrows, its Mirages employ Magic 2s and Micas, and its IDFs employ Tien Chien-1s and Tien Chien-2s. This weapons loadout philosophy follows in the footsteps of other air forces such as Israel’s Python and Derby pairing, Japan’s AAM-3 and AAM-4 combination, and Russia’s “Archer” and “Adder” mix.
On the surface, Taiwan’s air force does not lack air-to-air weaponry; there is a considerable number of AAMs in the arsenal if Taiwan’s Mica, Magic, Sparrow, AMRAAM and Tien Chien munitions are all tallied together. But on closer examination, there are several issues that could severely constrain the ROCAF in aerial combat.
The first is that the ROCAF is handicapped by a mismatched ratio of missiles to aircraft. Although Taiwan has a significant number of AAMs, a large portion of these missiles is comprised of French-made Mica and Magic AAMs (1,440 acquired originally) mated to one aircraft type only, the French-made Mirages. At 56 airframes, the Mirages constitute only a small fraction of Taiwan’s overall fighter fleet. This stockpile yields a ratio of well over 20 AAMs per Mirage. Given the severe threat environment Taiwanese fighters would face in a cross-Strait war, it is doubtful that the Mirages would even survive enough sorties to use their way through such a large stockpile, and a large fraction of the Micas and Magics could therefore sit on the ground unused and wasted.
ROCAF ground crew handle missiles at Hualien Air Force Base (Photo: J. Michael Cole)
Taiwan’s F-16 fleet, on the other hand, faces the opposite problem – a curiously low ratio of AIM-120s to fighters. Taiwan’s small inventory of AMRAAMs (300-plus) and relatively large F-16 fleet (144 jets) yields a ratio of barely two AMRAAMs per F-16. This creates a double misfortune whereby many Mica and Magic missiles may be stranded on the ground in wartime with no surviving Mirage fighters to use them, while many F-16 fighters may find themselves bereft of AMRAAM missiles to use. (Owing to incompatibility, many missiles designed for one particular aircraft nationality cannot be used by aircraft of another nationality. Taiwan therefore cannot remedy its ratio imbalance by having its American-made F-16s use surplus French-made missiles.)
The second issue is one of guidance. The AIM-120 is not the only BVR missile compatible with Taiwanese F-16s; Taiwan acquired a stockpile of AIM-7 Sparrow radar-guided missiles from the U.S. as well. But the Sparrow, a 1970s-era missile, is semi-active radar-homing (SARH), meaning that its launching platform must guide it by keeping its radome pointed in the direction of the target, enabling its radar to provide continuous illumination all the way to detonation. This is a considerable disadvantage compared to more-modern active-radar-homing (ARH) “fire-and-forget” missiles such as the AIM-120, as it greatly constrains the launching platform’s freedom of movement during aerial combat and makes it more vulnerable to enemy counterattack. The abysmal performance of the Sparrow in past Taiwanese military exercises has not inspired confidence either, to the point that a large number of them were temporarily withdrawn from active service in 2012.
The third factor is age. Air-to-air munitions do not have an indefinite service life. Mica missiles, for instance, have a service life of 25 years, and although measures may be taken to prolong the service life of the ROCAF’s Micas and Magics, these upgrades may ultimately be irrelevant if the Mirage 2000s are phased out of ROCAF service in the near future. The Sparrows are even older yet. Certain components of the American-manufactured Raytheon AIM-120 missile have a finite lifespan. In addition, many missiles can only tolerate a certain amount of “captive flight” (that is, being carried by an aircraft in flight and subjected to the accompanying physical stresses entailed therein) in their service life. The ROCAF thus faces a future decline in its air-to-air armament stocks if nothing is done to replenish them.
Fourthly, it must be assumed that many missiles fired by Taiwanese aircraft in aerial combat will fail to achieve a hit. AAMs can and will be opposed by chaff, flares, evasive maneuvering, towed decoys and a variety of other defensive countermeasures. Even some advanced munitions can still be thwarted by relatively rudimentary countermeasures; an American AIM-9X was drawn away by a Syrian Su-22’s flares in combat last year. Missile defects or component failure must be taken into account as well. In addition, many Taiwanese fighters may be lost in combat before they have fully depleted their weaponry loads. (A Taiwanese Mirage shot down in combat while still carrying six missiles on its pylons, for instance, would represent the loss of not only the Mirage jet itself but also the six unused missiles.)
When all these deficiencies are considered together, the result is an AAM stockpile wholly inadequate for a Taiwanese air force that can expect to be heavily blitzed by the world’s largest military at the very outset of war.
Finally, in the event of war the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) fleet would conceivably be vast. Taiwan is already in a precarious situation, having too few AAMs in stock to adequately counter its Chinese opponent. China can also be expected to employ numerous unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV), decoys and other tactics in combat that would further tax the Taiwan’s AAM inventory. The math only gets direr for Taiwan as time goes on; by the year 2030, attrition may have whittled the ROCAF’s entire AAM inventory down to only a few hundred usable BVR missiles at a time when the PLAAF may have surpassed the U.S. Air Force in fleet size. Simply put, China may field more aircraft against Taiwan than Taiwan has missiles with which to oppose them.
When all these deficiencies are considered together, the result is an AAM stockpile wholly inadequate for a Taiwanese air force that can expect to be heavily blitzed by the world’s largest military at the very outset of war. In pessimistic conditions, the ROCAF might be overwhelmed, unable to bring down any more than a tiny fraction of its Chinese foe.
Taiwan is not wholly dependent on the ROCAF for air defense; Taiwanese land-based and ship-based surface-to-air missiles (SAM) can be expected to throw their weight into the fray as well. But land-based SAMs are limited by terrain, range, and relative immobility, and Taiwanese warships that carry SAMs can be expected to have their own hands full dealing with the Chinese threats that face them.
Taiwan should place urgent priority on acquiring a substantial number of additional AIM-120 missiles, and of the new long-ranged D variant in particular, if possible. The AMRAAM will remain the BVR mainstay of Taiwan’s F-16 fleet for the duration of the fleet’s service (assuming retirement of the Sparrows) and currently numbers only 300-some missiles, as noted above — an insufficient stockpile for 140-some Fighting Falcons. It is noteworthy for comparison that Australia, a nation that operates a much smaller air force and faces a less daunting enemy air threat than Taiwan, sought the purchase of no fewer than 450 AIM-120Ds, a batch sizably larger than Taiwan’s current AMRAAM inventory.
If the Mirage 2000 is retired from ROCAF service in the near future, such a move would retire all of its associated Mica and Magic missiles with it. Assuming no acquisition of a new fighter type, Taiwan’s fighter fleet would be down to only two fighter types; the F-16 and IDF. Taiwan’s IDF fleet would have to pick up some air-to-air slack, and additional Tien Chien missiles should be manufactured for the IDFs, a move which would benefit Taiwan’s economy and indigenous arms industry as well. It would also be in Taiwan’s interest to develop a new successor to the TC-2. (Any subsequent American fighter type acquired by Taiwan, such as the Eagle, Super Hornet, Lightning II or additional F-16s, would likely be compatible with Taiwan’s existing AIM-120 and Sidewinder munitions.)
AIDC F-CK-1 Ching Kuo IDFs from the 443rd Tactical Fighter Wing at Tainan Air Force Base (Photo: J. Michael Cole)
The purchase of such missiles would be an easier request for the U.S. to approve than higher-end items, as it would be an arms buy of a significantly smaller nature than the purchase of “big ticket” items such as submarines and new fighters. Taiwan’s 2007 purchase of 453 Maverick and AMRAAM munitions, for instance, ran into relatively little opposition from China as opposed to Taiwanese requests for new F-16 fighters. The very act of Taiwan requesting small-scale and large-scale US arms sales simultaneously is an important goalposting strategy, even if the bigger items are rejected by Washington, as this would stymie Beijing’s attempts to move the goalposts further and further on the arms-sales issue. By requesting large, unlikely-to-be-approved arms sales, Taiwan takes Chinese heat off of smaller, likelier-to-be-approved sales. If Taiwan were to submit only requests for small-scale weapons buys and no big-ticket buys, then Beijing could direct all of its ire onto small arms sales that would have previously been reserved only against large-scale buys, boxing Taiwan arms sales into a corner.
In the same way that certain strengths can be “force multipliers,” greatly increasing the effectiveness of a fighting force, certain deficiencies can have the opposite effect; greatly decreasing a military’s effectiveness likewise. The bad news is that Taiwan’s air-to-air missile shortage is one of its most critical vulnerabilities. The good news is that it is perhaps one of the simplest to address. The acquisition of more air-to-air missiles is a small but highly important measure to improving Taiwan’s self-defense for the decades ahead.
Top photo of F-16 by J. Michael Cole.
#active-radar-homing#AIDC#AIM-120#AIM-9X#Air Force#air-to-air missiles#AMRAAM#ARH#beyond-visual-range#BVR#china#F-15#F-16#F-18#F-35#IDF#Magic#Mica#Mirage-2000#National Bureau of Asian Research#NBR#PLAAF#ROACF#SARH#semi-active radar-homing#Sparrow#Tien Chien#UCAV#unmanned combat aerial vehicles#Wendell Minnick
Activists Trace Origins of China’s Intensifying Repression of Uyghurs
More from Military
U.S. Government Approves US$2.2bn Sale of M1A2 Tanks, Stinger Missiles to Taiwan
Posted On July 9, 2019 J Michael Cole 0
The proposed sale includes 108 M1A2T Abrams Tanks and 250 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) on …
Taiwan Requests New Combat Aircraft From the US: What Happens Next?
Posted On March 12, 2019 Milo Hsieh 0
Whatever happens in the next few months — and expect the whole thing to become highly politicized — it is …
Benjamin Fan has a B.A. in International Relations and an M.A. in Military Studies. He previously resided in Taiwan for over a decade.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1053
|
__label__wiki
| 0.928478
| 0.928478
|
Results for Hüsker Dü
518 Bob Mould
Like most breakups, band breakups can be agonizing and traumatic, but also opportunities for self-reflection and reinvention. This week Jim and Greg talk to Hüsker Dü songwriter and guitarist Bob Mould about the breakup of his band - on the cusp of what many believed would be their mainstream breakthrough - and his subsequent reinvention as a solo artist. It's a period Mould talks about in his new memoir, See a Little Light, though he rarely discusses it in person. Aside from being one of the most rousing live rock n' roll acts around, Minnesota's Hüsker Dü was amazingly prolific. With Mould on guitar, Grant Hart on drums, and Greg Norton on bass, the band took punk velocity and pop craft to superhuman levels on a series of significant releases between 1984 and 1986: Zen Arcade, New Day Rising, Flip Your Wig, and Candy Apple Grey. But as Mould recalls, after the band's move to a major label, personal relationships, competition, and addiction proved to be toxic. The crisis came after a disastrous 1987 performance in Columbia, Missouri, when Hart's drug use brought the show to a halt. It was the period, Mould emphasizes, at the end of a very long sentence. The band broke up shortly thereafter. Bob also discusses his retreat to rural Minnesota, where he began experimenting with new instruments and alternate tunings. In 1989, he would re-emerge as a solo artist with another great album, Workbook.
Want more Mould? Listen to Jim and Greg's 2008 interview with Bob here.
Throughout his storied career, songwriter and guitarist Bob Mould seems to be driven by the mystical power of the number 3. He's best known for his work with a couple of power trios: the pioneering Minneapolis punk band Hüsker Dü and the successful alternative era band Sugar. He's now formed trio #3 along with bassist Jason Narducy and drummer Jon Wurster (Superchunk, The Mountain Goats, Scharpling & Wurster). Together they've recorded three (of course) albums, most recently the double-Buy It earning Patch the Sky. This week, Bob Mould joins Jim and Greg for the third time in the show's history, this time with Narducy and Wurster in tow. They give a blistering live performance and discusses the vitality of guitar music, finding salvation through rock, and Bob's polarizing turn toward electronica.
1306 Bob Mould
One of the most influential figures in independent music, Bob Mould, joins Jim and Greg this year. For almost 30 years he has been making music with Hüsker Dü, Sugar and as a solo artist. Now he has a new album out called District Line. Jim and Greg wanted to talk to Bob about the progression of his music, which has evolved from electric guitar-based pop to a more electronic sound. But listeners who are wary of electronic flourishes can rest assured according to Bob — the signature guitars are still there. And, he admits that over the course of 20-something years it's hard to grow and still please loyal fans.
Bob Mould loyalists can also count on him for dark, introspective tunes. But, as the songwriter explains, as he's gotten older, and perhaps wiser, his songs are not only autobiographical, but also observational. Jim and Greg joke that he was inspired by his time as an advice columnist for the Washington City Paper. You can hear Bob's writing style — new and old — in the songs "Again and Again" from his new album, and "I Apologize," a Hüsker Dü classic. You should also check out this bonus web track.
1305 Mark Anthony Neal and Joan Morgan
Next Jim and Greg welcome Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of Black Popular Culture at Duke University and author of New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity, and Joan Morgan, a writer and critic who recently left her post as Executive Editor of Essence Magazine. Joan and Mark have been debating the merits and demerits of hip hop since they grew up as friends and neighbors in "Boogie Down Bronx." And Joan was one of the first music critics to examine the dichotomy of hip hop fandom and feminism in her 1990 Village Voice review of Ice Cube's first classic album AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted. Greg asks Joan what she makes of misogyny in modern hip hop. She explains that it was always there, but the level of it has changed. That concept of women has consumed commercial rap music, so listeners don‘t hear a lot of balance in perspective and tone. She also explains that something like the Ice Cube album is actually easier to wrestle with because it’s a brilliant album. Joan and Mark explain that labels are as complicit as artists in perpetuating a certain level of misogyny since they are the ones actually limiting the range of what you hear in hip hop.
Greg wonders if perhaps the consumer has already begun to speak out. Last year's top hip hop act, T.I., sold 1.7 million copies of his album King. Those aren‘t paltry figures to be sure, but they are definitely much smaller than what we’ve seen from star rappers in years past. Mark sees less revenue and less investment in major-label hip hop as a good thing; it's an opportunity for fresher sounds to come into the marketplace. Jim likens the trend to the development of indie rock in the '80s. That market was also glutted with big name acts like Poison and Mötley Crüe, leaving music fans to seek out underground rock from bands like Hüsker Dü and The Minutemen. Perhaps next we'll enter into an era of indie hip hop.
When asked about the effectiveness of banning certain words in hip hop music, Joan first expresses disappointment in what came out of Simmons and the Hip Hop Summit Action Network's meetings. Without doubting Simmons‘ sincerity, she calls the resulting call to action anemic at best and disingenuous at worst. Mark also grates against people, especially members of the“old guard,”making proclamations about culture or language. This kind of criticism is compounded by the fact that critics of rap music often don’t understand aesthetics. Mark's specific example is the hit hip hop single "In Da Club." People that take issue with the shallow nature of 50 Cent's lyrics may be failing to hear what makes a song like that so popular — the production and the beats. Mark furthers that rulings against specific words don't take into consideration that some rappers can make really complex, compelling statements using racial or sexist epithets. Joan adds that you can also say some really sexist, racist and homophobic things without using any“bad words”at all.
101 Top Albums of 2005
The“Best Records”list: It's“a sacred thing”in pop music fandom, says Jim, requiring a discerning ear and laser-like focus. Thankfully, our hosts are here to help. After sifting through hundreds of records, and countless days spent listening (perhaps to the discontent of their wives), they‘ve managed to pick out their absolute favorites. Here’s what Jim and Greg say they'll still be listening to in 2006.
Kanye West's latest record takes the number one spot on Greg's list. Kanye West, Late Registration. (It was a contender for Jim's number-one slot too, but ended up at number three.) Greg notes how West has mass crossover appeal, but doesn't shy away from topics like diamond mining or AIDS, or from complex compositions and elaborate string orchestrations courtesy of producer Jon Brion. Greg really enjoyed West's first album The College Dropout, but applauds him for taking more chances on this second effort.
LCD Soundsystem, LCD Soundsystem. Jim and Greg are in total agreement on their number-two record of the year: LCD Soundsystem. The group's self-titled double album is an irresistible mix of electronic dance music, garage rock and punk. Heading up LCD Soundsystem is James Murphy, an in-demand producer who, along with partner Tim Goldsworthy, runs the DFA label. While Murphy has produced hits for Britney Spears and Le Tigre and has provided a home to bands like Rapture and The Juan Maclean, it is perhaps his unintimidating physical appearance, Jim suggests, that accounts for his appeal. Or maybe it's the cowbell. Either way they love it.
Sleater-Kinney, The Woods. Sleater-Kinney, an indie-rock trio from Portland, has been facing the same issue as Moby (see below): Are they over the hill? Heck no, Greg confidently responds. He believes that singer/guitarists Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein and drummer Janet Weiss have done their best work on The Woods, an album produced by The Flaming Lips recording guru Dave Fridmann. Incidentally, Sleater-Kinney opened for the Lips and Wilco at Madison Square Garden last New Year's Eve. Jim, however, is not a fan of Sleater-Kinney… to say the least. The Woods didn't even make his top 400.
The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema. This Canadian power pop band gets its name from a comment from Jimmy Swaggart in which he likened pop music to a new kind of pornography. Twin Cinema is the group's third release, and Greg's favorite. Band leader A.C. Newman is back with Neko Case, a superb Chicago-based singer, and fellow singer/songwriter Dan Bejar. Greg compares Newman and Bejar's competitive relationship to that of McCartney and Lennon, or Grant Hart and Bob Mould of Hüsker Dü. To fuel that creative fire, Bejar also brought his own band, Destroyer, on the New Pornographer's current tour. While listening to this segment, don‘t miss Greg’s helpful explanation of what a song's“bridge”is. 5.Amadou and Mariam, Dimanche à Bamako. This blind husband and wife team joined up with Manu Chao, a Parisian born artist of Spanish descent who gained great popularity in the Latino Indie music scene for this album, which Jim admits he completely overlooked.
We come to Jim's favorite album of 2005: Common's Be. Before he and Greg are accused of homerism, Jim is quick to note that fellow Chicago native Common is the only artist to receive four stars from Jim this year. He calls Be a near-perfect record. Greg agrees and compares this“ghetto symphony”to Marvin Gaye's classic What's Going On. The album was produced by the aforementioned Kanye West, but is not as lush or orchestrated as Late Registration. Rather, it's a back-to-basics album full of Common's signature flow.
LCD Soundsystem, LCD Soundsystem
Kanye West, Late Registration
The Go! Team, Thunder, Lightning, Strike. The group is helmed by English basement musician Ian Parton who has been influenced by everything from Vincent Guaraldi's music for the Charlie Brown cartoons to My Bloody Valentine to Bollywood. Jim's love of this band was solidified after seeing them at Pitchfork's Intonation Festival this past summer in Chicago. 5.Moby, Hotel. The electronic pop artist turned 40 this year (that's 100 in rave time, according to our host), and Jim suspects that many people think he's over the hill. That's not the case though, he asserts, adding that Moby is doing post-alternative, underground music better than newer bands like Interpol and The Rapture. The two-disc album comes on one CD completely comprised of instrumental music. This is perfect, Jim suggests, for reading columns by your two favorite rock critics.
Ladytron, The Witching Hour. The Witching Hour is the third release for the Liverpool-based group. Jim appreciates Ladytron's infusion of Kraftwerk-type electronica with more poppy, disco sounds. Comprised of two men and two women, they are like ABBA, he notes, only with less sunny lyrics.
Go to episode 2
828 Parts and Labor
This week Dan Friel, B.J. Warshaw and Chris Weingarten of Parts and Labor visit the show. The experimental indie rock band formed in 2002 after Dan and B.J. worked together at New York's famed Knitting Factory. All of the members bonded over their love of the noise-meets-melody formula perfected by bands like Mission of Burma, Hüsker Dü and The Boredoms. But, with a low-budget aesthetic that includes the use of toy keyboards, cheap foot pedals and distortion devices, the band has carved out a unique sound of their own that can be heard on their most recent album Mapmaker. Greg for one is already a fan of Mapmaker and says that if you like rock at all, you have to like Parts and Labor.
Parts and Labor are as striking visually as they are audibly. The band had a complicated setup of gizmos, toys and instruments — none of which are more expensive than $200. The result is not a rinky-dink sound, though. The band is known for its anthemic songs, and their performance at Chicago Public Radio literally shook the station's walls. But, Jim and Greg note that if you strip the songs of their big effects, they could hold up as quiet, acoustic tracks. In fact, one of the band's original missions was to include politics in their songwriting. Now, with this third release, things are getting more personal.
419 Eleventh Dream Day
Jim and Greg harken back to the alternative era this week as they sit down with Eleventh Dream Day. The band formed in 1983 and got its start as part of the Chicago underground scene alongside peers Hüsker Dü in St. Paul and Nirvana in Seattle. Greg remembers watching Eleventh Dream Day perform at that time, and knew they were destined for big things. But, while albums like Prairie School Freakout garnered high critical praise and caught the attention of Atlantic Records, they were never able to achieve major commercial success. As Jim notes, however, they are having the last laugh with their impressive longevity, especially considering founding members Rick Rizzo and Janet Beveridge Bean got married, had a child and got divorced, all while maintaining the group. In January Eleventh Dream Day released its eleventh studio album Works for Tomorrow, and they show no signs of slowing, as is clear in this ferocious live performance in the Sound Opinions studio.
1305 Donovan
This week Jim and Greg talk with legendary '60s singer/songwriter Donovan. In honor of his 40th anniversary in the music business, Donovan has written an autobiography, released a box set, and set out on tour. A contemporary of Bob Dylan and The Beatles, Donovan was acclaimed for his finger-picking style, which he garnered from The Carter Family and demonstrates for our hosts.
Jim and Greg also want to know about the sex, drugs, and rock and roll in Donovan's life. Specifically, they discuss his experience being busted for drugs in 1966. His arresting officer, Sgt. Pilcher, later targeted fellow British rockers Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones and John Lennon.
Another part of the Donovan mythology involves the origin of his song "Mellow Yellow." As Jim points out, many people believe that Donovan was alluding to the ability to get high by smoking banana peels. While Donovan does not refute this idea, which was tried out by Country Joe McDonald, he also admits that part of the song's imagery was taken from a“marital device”he saw advertised in a magazine. In his book, Donovan also suggests that Andy Warhol may have been inspired by the "electrical banana."
Jim and Greg also ask Donovan about covers of his songs. They play for him the Butthole Surfers' rendition of "Hurdy Gurdy Man." Other notable covers include Hüsker Dü's "Sunshine Superman," Eartha Kitt's "Hurdy Gurdy Man," and My Morning Jacket's "Wear Your Love Like Heaven."
595 Rock Clubs in the 21st Century
Just like the small independent band or the mom and pop record store, independently owned rock clubs are also finding it hard to navigate their way through the ever-changing, increasingly corporate music industry. Cities often don‘t have the friendliest live music regulations, especially after tragedies like 1993’s E2 stampede and The Station fire. But, with album sales down, bands are more and more dependent on live music revenues. Jim and Greg have been writing about this issue in Chicago for years, but wanted to get a national perspective. They invited the following guests to share their insights: Sean Agnew of R5 Productions in Philadelphia, Mitchell Franks of Spaceland, Echo and Echoplex in Los Angeles and Jake Szufnarowski of Rocks Off Concert Promotions in New York City.
Rock clubs have an important place in the music industry, but they are just as important to the music fan as well. To illustrate this, Jim and Greg both reveal two of their most significant experiences at an independently owned music venue. Jim discusses seeing Hüsker Dü perform their album Zen Arcade in its entirety. It was at Maxwell's on New Year's Eve, and Jim was a college student. As he explained during The Feelies' interview, Maxwell's was pivotal to him learning about music, and this Hüsker Dü performance, complete with wrestling, was one of his most memorable. Jim plays "What's Going On?" from Hüsker Dü's live album The Living End.
Greg discusses seeing house music fixture Ron Hardy DJ at Chicago's Muzic Box. Hardy was not as internationally known as his peers, but Greg remembers how the DJ was able to bring together so many different types of music fans. The democracy of the dance floor is one of the reasons music clubs are so integral to the community. Greg plays a famous track from Hardy's set list, "Love Can't Turn Around."
301 Touch and Go Records
This week Jim and Greg wanted to take a look at one of the music industry's most important independent labels: Touch and Go Records. Touch and Go recently turned 25 and celebrated with a three-day bash at Chicago's Hideout Block Party. Over the course of the show, you‘ll hear why Jim and Greg wanted to focus on this modest Chicago label. You’ll also hear from the founder himself, Corey Rusk, and a number of the label's artists, including Scott McCloud from Girls Against Boys, Janet Weiss from Quasi (and formerly Sleater-Kinney), Ted Leo, David Yow from Scratch Acid and The Jesus Lizard and recording engineer and musician Steve Albini of Big Black and Shellac fame.
Touch and Go's founder Corey Rusk is known not just as a tastemaker with an incredible ear for talent, but also as one of the most honest businessmen in the biz. This is what separates Touch and Go from other labels, major and independent alike. Rusk's business model, which doesn't shy away from the Internet and which relies merely on trust and a handshake, has kept it going for 25 years, helping it to outlive its peers. Labels like Twin/Tone in Minneapolis, which launched The Replacements, SST in California which launched Black Flag and Hüsker Dü, and I.R.S. in which launched R.E.M. and The Go Go's, all emerged in the early '80s after punk's mainstream explosion and before alternative's reign. However, Touch and Go is the only one of the bunch not only to stay in business, but to do so successfully and independently.
The best way to understand the label's significance is to sample some of the music. You'll hear these songs in our short-but-sweet montage of Touch and Go music:
Killdozer, "Hi There"
Girls Against Boys, "Kill the Sexplayer"
The Dirty Three, "Doris"
Jesus Lizard, "Mouth Breather"
TV on the Radio, "Dreams"
Butthole Surfers, "Fast"
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, "Art Star"
Calexico, "Cruel"
Touch and Go has put out a lot of music over the past quarter century, but Jim and Greg both manage to pick their single favorite T&G tracks. Greg goes first and chooses "Stage 2000" by Seam. Touch and Go is often thought of as the place to go to for loud, hard-edged punk music, and that is certainly true. However, their roster is actually quite diverse, and there are a number of bands like Seam, who are making beautiful, soft, melodic music.“Stage 2000”is on Greg's favorite Seam album, The Problem With Me. That album was recorded with Chicago producer Brad Wood, best known for producing Liz Phair's classic Exile in Guyville.
Jim's Touch and Go pick is "Kerosene" by Big Black off their 1985 album Atomizer. Though Atomizer was initially released by Homestead Records, Big Black moved to Touch and Go a year later, and the label reissued the band's entire catalog. So we'll let Jim slide on this one — especially since no one has been as closely associated with Touch and Go as Big Black founder Steve Albini. Albini came to Chicago to study journalism at Northwestern, and Jim can hear this sensibility in his lyrics. Songs like "Kerosene" are essentially sensationalistic tabloid stories backed with thrashing noise-rock.
95 Bob Mould Patch The Sky
On his 13th solo album, Sunshine Rock, Hüsker Dü frontman and serious rocker Bob Mould threw longtime fans for a bit of a loop with four song titles referencing the sun and cover art resembling a lollipop. Greg calls it Mould's attempt at bubblegum pop, while Jim compares it to The Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset." He says since Mould formed a power trio with Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster and bassist Jason Narducy (formerly of Verbow) in 2012, he's been at a career high. The most recent albums recorded by that trio (Beauty & Ruin and Patch The Sky) have focused on the deaths of Mould's parents and now Jim says he's emerged in a happier place. It reminds him of Hüsker Dü covering Donovan's "Sunshine Superman." Greg points out the melodies are at the forefront and there's a lyrical theme of reconciliation. "The Final Years" is a wistful look back at time with his parents, while "I Fought" is like a message to his late songwriting partner Grant Hart, moving past bitterness to appreciation. Greg and Jim both appreciate Mould's honesty about who he is now.
Beauty and Ruin available on iTunes
2659 Bob Mould Beauty and Ruin
10 solo albums later and former Hüsker Dü frontman (and friend of the show) Bob Mould still shows no sign of slowing down. The alt-rock pioneer adds another album to that list with his latest, this month's Beauty and Ruin. Jim and Greg celebrate the release as a return to form for Mould, who has often taken creative detours away from his rock trio past—one that paved the way for bands like Nirvana, Green Day, Nirvana and more. On Beauty and Ruin, Mould returns to that influential sound and reaches deep both into the din of his instrumentation, and into his personal history, to meld huge melodies with emotionally resonant lyrics. Greg loves the honesty and says Beauty and Ruin is a Buy It. Jim agrees the album is worth purchasing, but doesn‘t think it lives up to Mould’s previous album, 2012's Silver Age, in terms of killer hooks and levity. Jim says pick both up if you can.
Patch the Sky available on iTunes
2871 Bob Mould Patch the Sky
Guitarist and singer Bob Mould returns with a new album called Patch the Sky. Mould, previously an integral member of the power trios Hüsker Dü and Sugar, has also maintained a successful solo career. And fans can always expect introspective material about family and relationships. Greg loves Mould's guitar playing, and really appreciates the juxtaposition of the up-tempo rhythms with the dark lyrics. He calls this Mould's mid-career renaissance and gives the album a Buy It. Jim wholeheartedly agrees. He respects Bob Mould for using his music to express his feelings and help alleviate negative energy. It's an enthusiastic Double Buy It for Patch the Sky.
The Most Lamentable Tragedy available on iTunes
2536 Titus Andronicus The Most Lamentable Tragedy
The New Jersey punk band Titus Andronicus recently released their fourth album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy. The thematic nature of the record is about lead singer Patrick Stickles‘ battle with manic depression. It’s a rock opera, complete with five different acts, a silent intermission track and even a couple of covers. For Greg, every note oozes with importance and passion. He thinks the album as a whole is definitely overwhelming and opulent but ultimately a distinctive piece of work. He gives it a Buy It. Jim agrees and says that the music can overtake the listener, but one doesn't have to follow the somewhat complicated story to enjoy it. He thinks Titus Andronicus does a good job mixing a Celtic lilt with traditional punk sound and even thinks the album is on par with Hüsker Dü's Zen Arcade and Fucked Up's David Comes to Life. The Most Lamentable Tragedy receives a double Buy It.
Silver Age available on iTunes
2961 Bob Mould Silver Age
Next Jim and Greg review the new solo album from an artist they affectionately call "Uncle Grumpy": Bob Mould. If you were a music-loving kid coming up in the alternative '80s, Jim says, Mould's band Hüsker Dü, was a revelation. The band imploded too early to cash in on the nineties alternative gravy train, so Mould founded another band, Sugar, in 1992. He also put out a prolific series of arty solo albums. Lately, Mould's moved away from music to pursue writing. He published an autobiography See a Little Light last year (and discussed it on Sound Opinions). He says writing about his life inspired him to make Silver Age, a record he's called dumb rock fun. Is that true? Jim says Uncle Grumpy's just putting the critics off the scent. Like Mould's book, this record is all about dark and light, highs and lows. It's also got a wicked sense of humor.“Star Machine,”he says, is one of the most vicious eviscerations of the corporate rock machine he's ever heard. Jim gives Silver Age a Buy It. Greg agrees. He says Mould can be a bit meticulous and fussy in his solo work, but here he's letting it fly. Plus, he's got Superchunk's Jon Wurster playing drums on his record. So how could it be bad?
105 Musical Grand Slams
With Chicago baseball trying to keep their heads up during this World Series, we thought we'd inject a little joyous noise into this baseball season. Jim and Greg team up with Len Kasper, TV voice of the Chicago Cubs, to pay homage to their version of a Grand Slam. We all know how this works in baseball (though sports-phobe Jim DeRogatis is still getting the hang of the rules). A batter hits a home run with bases loaded, sending four players to home plate. In music, Jim and Greg define a grand slam as four masterpiece albums in a row. Which artists have achieved this rarest of rock feats? Jim and Greg sit down to compare stats.
Talking Book (1972)
Innervisions (1973)
Fulfillingness' First Finale (1974)
Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
Call the Doctor (1996)
Dig Me Out (1997)
The Hot Rock (1999)
All Hands on the Bad One (2000)
The College Dropout (2004)
Late Registration (2005)
Graduation (2007)
808s and Heartbreak (2008)
Zen Arcade (1984)
New Day Rising (1985)
Flip Your Wig (1985)
Candy Apple Grey (1986)
Led Zeppelin II (1969)
Led Zeppelin III (1970)
Led Zeppelin IV (1971)
Houses of the Holy (1973)
Modern Life is Rubbish (1993)
The Great Escape (1995)
Blur (1997)
XTC (Seven in a row!)
Go 2 (1978)
Drums and Wires (1979)
Black Sea (1980)
English Settlement (1982)
Mummer (1983)
The Big Express (1984)
Skylarking (1986)
The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
White Light/White Heat (1968)
The Velvet Underground (1969)
Loaded (1970)
110 Halloween Scary Songs
Let's face it. Rock ‘n’ roll can be plain scary to a lot of folks. But there are some songs and artists that go above and beyond and give even our hosts the creeps. Here are some of their favorite Scary Rock Songs to set the mood this Halloween.
Salem, "King Night"
Pere Ubu, "Dub Housing"
Apocalyptica featuring Nina Hagen, "Seemann"
Ween, "Spinal Meningitis (Got me Down)"
Willie Dixon and Koko Taylor, "Insane Asylum"
Hüsker Dü, "Diane"
Handsome Family, "My Ghost"
Sunn O))) featuring Julian Cope, "My Wall"
Listener Picks
Pat from St. Paul, MN: Tom Waits, "What's He Building?"
Margaret from Manhattan, KS: Old Time Relijun,"Cold Water"
Scott from Chicago, IL: Bobby“Boris”Pickett, "Monster Mash"
Jon from Cincinnati, OH: Black Sabbath, "Black Sabbath"
105 Best Cover Songs
In the age of karaoke and“American Idol,”it's easy to forget how great a cover song can be. But, as Jim and Greg discuss, an artist's interpretation of someone else's song can often be better than the original. In those cases, the performer brings passion and a new spin to a song. During the course of the show, Jim and Greg run down their picks for best cover songs. (For an even longer list of noteworthy cover songs, go to the thread on the Sound Opinions Message Board.)
Isaac Hayes' cover of "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" by Jimmy Webb
Richard Thompson's cover of "Oops…I Did It Again," by Britney Spears
The Clash's cover of "Police On My Back," by The Equals
Tricky's cover of "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos") by Public Enemy
The Byrds' cover of "Mr. Tambourine Man" by Bob Dylan
John Cale's cover of "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen
Hüsker Dü's cover of "Eight Miles High," by The Byrds
The Kingsmen's cover of "Louie, Louie" by Richard Berry
Listeners' Picks:
Ian: Bauhaus' cover of "Ziggy Stardust" by David Bowie
Scott: Johnny Cash's cover of "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode
Jim: Slayer's cover of "In A Gadda Da Vida" by Iron Butterfly
Christine: The Sundays' cover of "Wild Horses" by The Rolling Stones
The inspiration for this show's theme came from the recent release of three new albums that all celebrate the art of the cover song. Jim and Greg take on all three to see how they fare on the Buy It, Burn It, Trash It rating system.
306 Apology Songs
There are a lot of ways to say“I'm sorry,”but what better method than through song. Jim, Greg and a few listeners share their favorite apology tracks.
The Rolling Stones, "Prodigal Son"
Outkast, "Ms. Jackson"
Bonnie Raitt, "The Ones We Couldn't Be"
Hüsker Dü, "I Apologize"
Nirvana, "All Apologies"
Brenda Lee, "I'm Sorry"
R.E.M., "So. Central Rain"
The Temptations, "Sorry is a Sorry Word"
George from Florida: Randy Newman, "Marie"
Mitchell from New York: The Who, "A Quick One While He's Away"
John from Austin, TX: Blake Mills, "Don't Tell Our Friends About Me"
Paul from St. Paul, MN: Wussy, "Beautiful"
433 Anti-Love Songs
This year, we're celebrating Valentine's Day as only Sound Opinions can, with some anti-love songs! Greg and Jim share their favorite tracks that convey how much love can really stink sometimes. Then they chat with some listeners to hear what they have to say.
Cee Lo Green, "Forget You"
Material Issue, "Very First Lie"
Jay Z, "Song Cry"
Robyn, "Dancing On My Own"
Hüsker Dü, "Never Talking to You Again"
Pansy Division, "Luv Luv Luv"
Joan Jett and The Blackhearts, "I Hate Myself for Loving You"
Phil Collins, "In the Air Tonight"
Ron: Bob Dylan, "Idiot Wind"
Clare: The Cure, "Pictures of You"
Kate: The Beatles, "I'm Looking Through You"
Grand Slam Allstars
Song in the Key of Life (1976)
In Memoriam:Grant Hart
Grant Hart, drummer and singer for the influential Minneapolis-based rock band Hüsker Dü, is dead at age 56. Hart died the evening of September 13 from liver cancer. While many associate the band Hüsker Dü with Bob Mould, in many ways it was just as much Hart's band as Mould's. Hart wrote songs like "Pink Turns to Blue," "Green Eyes," "Diane" and more. After the band broke up in 1987, Hart embarked on a solo career and founded a new group, Nova Mob. Jim and Greg pay tribute to the late Hart by playing "The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill," a song he wrote and sang from Hüsker Dü's third album New Day Rising.
First up in the news is the official announcement of The Police reunion, which will kick off at this month's Grammy Awards. Jim and Greg asked Police guitarist Andy Summers about a potential reunion when he was on the show last year, but he wouldn‘t give up any secrets. What isn’t a secret is the potential for big bucks — something our hosts suspect to be the prime reason for Sting, Summers and Stewart Copeland joining forces again. Also cashing in on a reunion is Van Halen. The band has announced it will perform at the 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony, with a possible tour to follow. And, with pending reunions by Rage Against the Machine and Smashing Pumpkins, 2007 is poised to be the year of the reunion. Jim and Greg are still keeping their fingers crossed for reunions by The Smiths, Hüsker Dü and The Replacements.
Also making news is rocker Tom Waits. He sued car manufacturer Opel for using his vocal likeness in a recent Scandanavian ad campaign. Waits refused to lend his own voice to the commercial, so he believed Opel went out and found the next best thing. A judge agreed, and Opel was forced to pay an undisclosed settlement which Waits plans to give to charity. This isn't the first time the singer has had to tangle with an auto company. Last year he won a case against Volkswagen-Audi, which also impersonated his voice and changed his song without permission.
Next up Jim and Greg discuss YouTube's new plan to share revenue with some of its content providers. The website's co-founder Chad Hurley made the announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and explained that revenues will only be shared with users who own the full copyright of their material. Guess this means that Lasse Gjertsen should be expecting a check sometime soon.
Courtney Barnett, Scotty Says (Live on Sound Opinions), Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, Mom + Pop Music, 2015
Hüsker Dü, Sorry Somehow, Candy Apple Grey, Warner Bros., 1986
Hüsker Dü, The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill, New Day Rising, SST, 1985
Mudhoney, 1995 (Live on Sound Opinions), My Brother the Cow, Reprise, 1995
Hüsker Dü, Diane, Metal Circus, SST, 1983
Zola Jesus, Hunger (Live on Sound Opinions), Taiga, Mute, 2014
Sleater-Kinney, Get Up (Live on Sound Opinions), The Hot Rock, Kill Rock Stars, 1999
Torres, Ferris Wheel (Live on Sound Opinions), Sprinter, Partisan, 2015
Hüsker Dü, Pink Turns to Blue, Zen Arcade, SST, 1984
Drive-By Truckers, What It Means (Live on Sound Opinions), American Band, ATO, 2016
Against Me!, True Trans Soul Rebel (Live on Sound Opinions), Transgender Dysphoria Blues, Total Treble, 2014
Staple Singers, Freedom Highway, Freedom Highway, Epic, 1965
Howlin Wolf with Muddy Waters & Bo Diddley, Long Distance Call, The Super Super Blues Band, Checker, 1967
Seal, Crazy, Seal, ZTT, 1991
The Kinks, Headmaster, Schoolboys in Disgrace, RCA, 1975
Mott the Hoople, All the Young Dudes, All the Young Dudes, Columbia, 1972
Chuck Brown and Eva Cassidy, Over the Rainbow, The Other Side, Liaison, 1992
LMFAO, Party Rock Anthem, Sorry for Party Rocking, Interscope, 2011
Nine Inch Nails, Head Like a Hole, Pretty Hate Machine, TVT Records, 1989
Ja Rule, Livin' It Up, Pain Is Love, Def Jam, 2001
Hüsker Dü, New Day Rising, New Day Rising, SST, 1985
Grant Hart, 2541, Intolerance, SST, 1989
Hüsker Dü, These Important Years, Warehouse: Songs and Stories, Warner Bros., 1987
Hüsker Dü, Could You Be The One?, Warehouse: Songs and Stories, Warner Bros., 1987
Hüsker Dü, Something I Learned Today, Zen Arcade, SST, 1984
Hüsker Dü, Celebrated Summer, New Day Rising, SST, 1985
Hüsker Dü, Bed of Nails, Warehouse: Songs and Stories, Warner Bros., 1987
Bob Mould, Brasilia Crossed With Trenton, Workbook, Virgin, 1989
Bob Mould, Poison Years, Workbook, Virgin, 1989
Bob Mould, Sunspots, Workbook, Virgin, 1989
Bob Mould, See A Little Light, Workbook, Virgin, 1989
Brian Eno, Glitch, Drums Between the Bells, Warp, 2011
Brian Eno, Seedpods, Drums Between the Bells, Warp, 2011
Wye Oak, Civilian, Civilian, Merge, 2011
Death Cab for Cutie, Monday Morning, Codes and Keys, Atlantic, 2011
Yes, Fly from Here: Overture, Fly from Here, Frontiers Records, 2011
The Rolling Stones, I'm Free, December's Children, London, 1965
The Rolling Stones, Play With Fire, Out of Our Heads, London, 1965
Lil Wayne, Playing with Fire, Tha Carter III, Def Jam, 2008
Bow Wow Wow, C30, C60, C90, Go!, 1000 Original Hits: 1980, EMI, 1980
Elvis Costello, Clubland, Trust, Columbia, 1981
Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Down at the Rock and Roll Club, Blank Generation, Sire, 1977
Iggy Pop, Night Clubbin, The Idiot, RCA, 1977
Hüsker Dü, What's Going On?, The Living End, Warner Bros., 1994
Farley Jackmaster Funk, Love Can't Turn Around, Chicago House ‘86-’91: The Definitive Story, Beechwood, 1997
Randy Newman, Harps and Angels, Harps and Angels, Nonesuch, 2008
Randy Newman, Short People, Little Criminals, Warner Bros., 1977
Randy Newman, A Few Words, Harps and Angels, Nonesuch, 2008
Spiritualized, The Waves Crash In, Songs in A&E, Sanctuary, 2008
Spiritualized, Death Take Your Fiddle, Songs in A&E, Sanctuary, 2008
Lymbyc Systym, Fall Bicycle, Love Your Abuser, Mush, 2007
Johnny Thunder, Get off the Phone, L.A.M.F. Revisted, n/a, 1984
Oasis, Wonderwall, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, Reprise, 1995
Radiohead, No Surprises, OK Computer, Parlophone, 1997
Bob Mould, Hands Are Tied, Patch the Sky, Merge, 2016
Bob Mould, Voices In My Head (Live on Sound Opinions), Patch the Sky, Merge, 2016
Hüsker Dü, Whatever, Zen Arcade, Spot, 1984
Hüsker Dü, Eight Miles High, Eight Miles High, SST, 1984
Bob Mould, Hold On (Live on Sound Opinions), Patch the Sky, Merge, 2016
Bob Mould, I Don't Know You Anymore, Beauty & Ruin, Merge, 2014
Hüsker Dü, In a Free Land, Everything Falls Apart, Reflect, 1983
Bob Mould, Quasar, Modulate, Granary, 2002
Hüsker Dü, Makes No Sense At All, Flip Your Wig, SST, 1985
Bob Mould, The End of Things (Live on Sound Opinions), Patch the Sky, Merge, 2016
Bob Mould, Daddy's Favorite (Live on Sound Opinions), Patch the Sky, Merge, 2016
Bob Mould, Pray for Rain, Patch the Sky, Merge, 2016
case/lang/veirs, Atomic Number, Case/Lang/Veirs, Anti-, 2016
case/lang/veirs, Delirium, Case/Lang/Veirs, Anti-, 2016
P.M. Dawn, Downtown Venus, Jesus Wept, Gee Street, 1995
Herman Hermits, Dial My Number, Both Sides of Herman's Hermits, MGM, 1966
Nina Simone, Sinnerman, Pastel Blues, Philips, 1965
Ramones, I Wanna Be Sedated, Road to Ruin, Sire, 1978
Suicidal Tendencies, Institutionalized, Suicidal Tendencies, Frontier, 1983
Peter Gabriel, I Have the Touch, Peter Gabriel, Geffen, 1982
Twenty One Pilots, Stressed Out, Blurry Face, Fueled By Ramen, 2015
The Rolling Stones, Prodigcal Son, Beggar's Banquet, London, 1968
Nirvana, All Apologies, In Utero, Geffen, 1993
Outkast, Ms. Jackson, Stankonia, Arista, 2000
Randy Newman, Marie, Good Old Boys, Reprise, 1974
Blink-182, Hey, I'm Sorry, California, BMG, 2016
Brenda Lee, I'm Sorry, Brenda Lee, Decca, 1960
The Who, A Quick One While He's Away, ABKCO, ABKCO, 1996
Blake Mills, Don't Tell Our Friends About Me, Heigh Ho, Verve, 2014
Bonnie Raitt, The Ones We Couldn't Be, Dig in Deep, Redwing, 2016
R.E.M., So. Central Rain, Reckoning, I.R.S., 1984
Wussy, Beautiful, Attica!, Damnably, 2014
The Temptations, Sorry is a Sorry Word, With a Lot o' Soul, Gordy, 1967
Hüsker Dü, I Apologize, New Day Rising, SST, 1985
Jem, They, Finally Woken, ATO, 2004
Run the Jewels, A Report to the Shareholders / Kill Your Masters, Run the Jewels 3, Run the Jewels, Inc., 2017
Run the Jewels, Angelsnuggler (Dan the Automator Remix), Meow the Jewels, Mass Appeal, 2015
Run the Jewels, Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost), Run the Jewels 3, Run the Jewels, Inc., 2017
Run the Jewels, 2100, Run the Jewels 3, Run the Jewels, Inc., 2017
Run the Jewels, Thursday in the Danger Room, Run the Jewels 3, Run the Jewels, Inc., 2017
The Sheppards, Pretend You're Still Mine, Walkin' (Single), Okeh, 1962
Esperanza Spalding, Judas, Emily's D+Evolution, Concord, 2016
David Bowie, Lazarus, Blackstar, Columbia, 2016
Jefferson Airplane, Chauffeur Blues, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off, RCA Victor, 1966
Jefferson Airplane, The Ballad of You & Me & Pooneil, After Bathing at Baxter's, RCA Victor, 1967
The J. Geils Band, Love Stinks, Love Stinks, Nautilus, 1980
CeeLo Green, Forget You, The Lady Killer, Elektra, 2010
Hüsker Dü, Never Talking to You Again, Zen Arcade, SST, 1984
Material Issue, Very First Lie, International Pop Overthrow, Mercury, 1991
Marilyn Monroe, I'm Through With Love, Some Like It Hot (Original Film Soundtrack 1959), Él, 2010
Harry Nilsson, You're Breaking My Heart, Son of Schmilsson, RCA Victor, 1972
Bob Dylan, Idiot Wind, Blood on the Tracks, Columbia, 1975
The Cure, Pictures of You, Disintegration, Elektra, 1989
The Beatles, I'm Looking Through You, Rubber Soul, Parlophone, 1965
Pansy Division, Luv Luv Luv, Absurd Pop Song Romance, Lookout, 1998
Jay Z, Song Cry, The Blueprint, Roc-A-Fella, 2001
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, I Hate Myself for Loving You, Up Your Alley, Blackheart, 1988
Phil Collins, In the Air Tonight, Face Value, Atlantic, 1981
Lucinda Williams, The Ghosts of Highway 20, The Ghosts of Highway 20, Highway 20, 2016
Lucinda Williams, Doors of Heaven, The Ghosts of Highway 20, Highway 20, 2016
Rihanna, Higher, ANTI, Westbury Road / Roc Nation, 2016
St. Paul and The Broken Bones, Call Me, Half the City, Single Lock, 2014
Patti Smith, Gloria, Horses, Arista, 1975
Motörhead, Killed by Death, No Remorse, Bronze, 1984
Eagles, Take It Easy, Eagles, Asylum, 1972
Chance Halliday, Home Run, Slow … Boogie … Rockin', Collector, 2012
Stevie Wonder, Jesus Children of America, Innervisions, Tamla, 1973
Stevie Wonder, Living for the City, Innervisions, Tamla, 1973
Led Zeppelin, When the Levee Breaks, Untitled (Led Zeppelin IV), Atlantic, 1971
Led Zeppelin, Thank You, Led Zeppelin II, Atlantic, 1969
Sleater-Kinney, Call the Doctor, Call the Doctor, Chainsaw Records, 1996
Sleater-Kinney, All Hands on the Bad One, All Hands on the Bad One, Kill Rock Stars, 2000
Sleater-Kinney, Dig Me Out, Dig Me Out, Kill Rock Stars, 1997
The Baseball Project, Past Time, Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails, Yep Rock, 2008
Kanye West, Jesus Walks, The College Dropout, Roc-A-Fella, 2004
Kanye West, Heartless, 808s and Heartbreak, Roc-A-Fella, 2008
Kanye West, Roses, Late Registration, Roc-A-Fella, 2005
XTC, Dear God, Skylarking, Geffen, 1985
XTC, Generals and Majors, Black Sea, Geffen, 1980
Husker Du, Sorry Somehow, Candy Apple Grey, Warner Bros., 1986
Husker Du, The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill, New Day Rising, SST, 1985
The Velvet Underground, The Black Angel's Death Song, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Polydor, 1967
The Velvet Underground, I Heard Her Call My Name, White Light/White Heat, Polydor, 1968
Billy Bragg and Wilco, Joe DiMaggio Done It Again, Mermaid Avenue, Vol. 2, Elektra, 2000
Wilson Pickett, 634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.), The Exciting Wilson Pickett, Atlantic, 1966
Justin Timberlake, Suit & Tie, The 20/20 Experience, RCA, 2013
Justin Timberlake, Pusher Love Girl, The 20/20 Experience, RCA, 2013
David Bowie, Aladdin Sane, Aladdin Sane, RCA, 1973
The Strokes, One Way Trigger, Comedown Machine, RCA, 2013
The Strokes, 80's Comedown Machine, Comedown Machine, RCA, 2013
George Harrison, Cloud Nine, Cloud Nine, Dark Horse, 1987
AC/DC, Live Wire, T.N.T., EMI, 1975
Katy Perry, Firework, Teenage Dream, EMI, 2010
The Minutemen, Maybe Partying Will Help, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, Shit From An Old Notebook, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, D.'s Car Jam/Anxious Mo-Fo, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, Political Song For Michael Jackson, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, Corona, Double Nickles On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, Two Beads At The End, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, June 16th, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, My Heart And The Real World, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
Wire, Ex Lion Tamer, Pink Flag, Harvest, 1977
The Minutemen, Don't Look Now, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, Doctor Wu, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, History Lesson, Part 2, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, The Glory Of Man, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, This Ain't No Picnic, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
The Minutemen, Love Dance, Double Nickels On The Dime, SST, 1984
Lady Gaga, Born This Way, Born This Way, Streamline, 2011
Lady Gaga, Bloody Mary, Born This Way, Streamline, 2011
Death Cab For Cutie, You Are A Tourist, Codes And Keys, Atlantic, 2011
Death Cab For Cutie, Doors Unlocked And Open, Codes And Keys, Atlantic, 2011
The Antlers, I Don't Want Love, Burst Apart, Frenchkiss, 2011
Johnny Thunders And The Heartbreakers, Get Off The Phone, L.A.M.F., Track, 1977
The Gaslight Anthem, American Slang, American Slang, Side One Dummy, 2010
Babes In Toyland, Bruise Violet, Fontanelle, Reprise, 1992
The Staple Singers, Freedom Highway, Freedom Highway, Epic, 1965
Protomartyr, The Chuckler, Relatives in Descent, Domino, 2017
Protomartyr, A Private Misunderstanding, Relatives in Descent, Domino, 2017
Mavis Staples, Eyes on the Prize, We'll Never Turn Back, Anti-, 2007
Mavis Staples, If All I Was Was Black, If All I Was Was Black, Anti-, 2017
The Staple Singers, I Can't Help from Cryin Sometimes, This Little Light, Riverside, 1964
Mavis Staples and Lucky Peterson, Precious Lord, Take My Hand, Spirituals and Gospel: Dedicated to Mahalia Jackson, Verve, 1996
Mahalia Jackson, How I Got Over, How I Got Over / Just As I Am, Apollo, 1951
Mahalia Jackson, Take My Hand, Precious Lord, Bless This House, Columbia, 1956
The Staple Singers, This Year, Soul Folk in Action, Stax, 1968
The Freedom Singers, Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around, Sing For Freedom, Folkways, 1980
The Staple Singers, Pray On, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Vee Jay, 1963
The Staple Singers, Why (Am I Treated So Bad)?, Why, Epic, 1966
The Staple Singers, This May Be The Last Time (Alternate Take), Faith and Grace: A Family Story (1953-1976), Stax, 2015
The Staple Singers, Good News, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Vee Jay, 1963
Bob Dylan, Blowin' In The Wind, Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Columbia, 1963
The Staple Singers, Blowin' In The Wind, This Land, Riverside, 1963
The Staple Singers, Masters of War, This Little Light, Riverside, 1964
The Staple Singers, A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall, This Little Light, Riverside, 1964
James Brown, Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud, Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)" (single), King, 1968
Chance the Rapper, Blessings, Coloring Book, Not on Label, 2016
Kendrick Lamar, Alright, To Pimp a Butterfly, Top Dawg, 2015
The Staple Singers, Uncloudy Day, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Vee Jay, 1963
Protomartyr, A Private Understanding, Relatives in Descent, Domino, 2017
Protomartyr, Windsor Hum, Relatives in Descent, Domino, 2017
Protomartyr, My Children, Relatives in Descent, Domino, 2017
Protomartyr, Up the Tower, Relatives in Descent, Domino, 2017
Charles Bradley, Victim of Love, Victim of Love, Daptone, 2013
Charles Bradley, Changes, Changes, Daptone, 2016
Lady Gaga ft. Beyoncé, Telephone, The Fame Monster, Interscope, 2009
Hüsker Dü, Actual Condition, Warehouse: Songs and Stories, Warner Bros., 1987
Hüsker Dü, Pink Turns to Blue, Zen Arcade, SST Records, 1984
John Coltrane, A Love Supreme Pt. 1 Acknowledgement (Live), A Love Supreme (Deluxe Edition), Impulse!, 2002
Blur, Chemical World, Modern Life is Rubbish, Parlophone UK, 1993
Blur, Song 2, Blur, Parlophone UK, 1998
Blur, Tracy Jacks, Parklife, Food, 1994
Protomartyr, Ellen, The Agent Intellect, Hardly Art, 2015
Protomartyr, The Devil in His Youth, The Agent Intellect, Hardly Art, 2015
Count Basie and His Orchestra, Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?, Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball? (single), RCA Victor, 1949
The Vaughan Brothers, Telephone Song, Family Style, Epic, 1990
Brian Eno & David Byrne, The Jezebel Spirit, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, Sire, 1981
Dio, Holy Diver, Holy Diver, Warner Bros., 1983
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Up Jumped the Devil, Tender Prey, Mute, 1988
The Minutemen, Political Song For Michael Jackson To Sing, Double Nickels On the Dime, SST, 1984
Hüsker Dü, What's Going On, Zen Arcade, SST, 1984
Pharrell Williams, Hunter, G I R L, i Am Other/Columbia, 2014
Pharrell Williams, Marilyn Monroe, G I R L, i Am Other/Columbia, 2014
The War on Drugs, Red Eyes, Lost in the Dream, Secretly Canadian, 2014
The War on Drugs, An Ocean in Between the Waves, Lost in the Dream, Secretly Canadian, 2014
Blue Öyster Cult, The Red and the Black, Tyranny and Mutation, Columbia, 1973
The Ladybug Transistor, Always on the Telephone, Can't Wait Another Day, Merge, 2007
Sly & the Family Stone, Stand!, Stand!, Epic, 1969
Red Hot Chili Peppers, If You Want Me to Stay, Freaky Styley, EMI, 1985
Mark Mothersbaugh, Emmet's Morning, The Lego Movie: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, WaterTower Music, 2014
U2, Ordinary Love, Single, Interscope, 2013
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1059
|
__label__wiki
| 0.83617
| 0.83617
|
Girls Who Code club exposes high school students to computer science
By Lucy Skrobacz
Colorado State University computer science professor Chris Wilcox has teamed up with a CSU student and an HPE (Hewlett Packard Enterprise) employee to form a club for high school female students to learn more about coding and the computer science industry.
Changing the culture
Olivia Thero
The computer science field, historically, has been predominately male. Over the last six years, CSU’s sophomore-level computer science courses have been about 10 percent female students. This year, they have seen an increase to about 19 percent, which Wilcox attributes to cultural changes, and efforts to attract more females to the field. Girls Who Code is one of those efforts.
The idea for a club came from Fort Collins high school student Olivia Thero. She stumbled across Girls Who Code information and decided to look into starting a local chapter. Olivia and her mom, Alison, then spoke to people around Fort Collins who would be interested in teaching, hosting, and starting up this type of activity.
“It took a while to find Chris, and he was thinking the same thing,” Alison Thero said.
Support from HPE
HPE’s Alison Thero is a club volunteer and a 2007 CSU MBA graduate. She mentioned how the majority of young females who know about computer science come from families with ties to the industry. Clubs like Girls Who Code will hopefully expose more students from a wider variety of backgrounds to coding and engineering, earlier on.
The club started in January and has continued to add new members. HPE has provided both financial and programmatic support.
Victoria Nobe of Ridgeview Classical Schools learns how to code using python computer language.
The students are working on preset curricula and projects, which are taught by Wilcox. The hope is that eventually, they will do things like design websites and incorporate more creative processes into the content.
“We have girls who are interested in art, sports – we have a harpist,” Thero said. “We want to show these girls how they can use these computing skills … to facilitate their own interests.”
Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit organization that offers summer immersion programs, clubs and teaching opportunities to educate girls about computing. According to their website, just 0.4 percent of high school girls express interest in majoring in computer science. Having a chapter on CSU’s campus could help spread knowledge of the computer science department, and the field, to many young women in Fort Collins.
Mentoring opportunities
Meilin Kalahiki, the club’s teaching assistant, is a sophomore computer science major from Kauai, Hawaii.
Kalahiki was originally a computer engineering major, but after taking one of Wilcox’s courses, she decided to switch into computer science.
“I hadn’t heard about Girls Who Code until Chris asked me, but now I’m so happy to be a part of it,” she said. “It’s really amazing to see how much these girls know and want to learn about computer science.”
Francesca Sica is from Fort Collins High School, one of five schools represented at Girls Who Code.
She mentioned how she has gained “humility” from being part of Girls Who Code, and she hopes to inspire the younger students.
“It’s just very humbling to teach these girls what I know,” she said.
Thero also said the club is not just about what the students can learn, but also how they can give back to the community. The club has had guest speakers from across the nation Skype into club meetings to talk to the students about future opportunities. Club leaders also hope to organize field trips to local businesses in Fort Collins to tour IT departments.
“We’re hoping to make this the first of many years,” Thero said.
Girls Who Code meets every Tuesday night from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in the computer science building on campus. Wilcox is also planning several future programs for girls, including a summer opportunity. For more information or to get involved, Chris Wilcox can be reached at wilcox@cs.colostate.edu.
College of Natural SciencesDepartment of Computer Science
Lucy Skrobacz
More posts by Lucy Skrobacz
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1060
|
__label__cc
| 0.743553
| 0.256447
|
Saturn III
The planet Saturn gives more than it gets. It radiates almost twice as much energy into space as it receives from the Sun. That internal heat powers most of the planet’s complicated weather.
Saturn is nine and a half times farther from the Sun than Earth is, so each square foot of the giant planet receives only about one percent as much sunlight. That’s not enough energy to power the storms seen in Saturn’s thick atmosphere. So most of the energy has to come from inside.
There are a couple of leading ideas for the sources of Saturn’s internal heat. One is that at least some of it is left over from Saturn’s formation, stored in its core.
The other says there’s a “rain” of liquid helium. As the droplets descend through Saturn’s great bulk, they pick up speed. As they move into denser layers, friction slows them down, which generates heat. The heat rises back toward the surface, where it powers big storms and some of the fastest jet streams in the solar system. Every few decades, a monster storm breaks out. It can cover an area many times bigger than Earth, and last for months — all powered by Saturn’s own heat source.
And right now, you can’t tell that Saturn receives little sunlight just by looking at it. The planet is shining like a bright golden star. In fact, it’s at its brightest for the entire year. Saturn is low in the southeast as night falls, scoots across the south during the night, and sets around sunrise.
Script by Damond Benningfield
Get Premium Audio
Listen to today's episode of StarDate on the web the same day it airs in high-quality streaming audio without any extra ads or announcements. Choose a $8 one-month pass, or listen every day for a year for just $30.
Month (31 days), $8.00
Year, $30.00
New subscriber
Weather and Atmospheric Phenomena
Just Spinning Along
Squashed Planet
Login now to access your premium content or request a new password if you've forgotten yours.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1070
|
__label__cc
| 0.574877
| 0.425123
|
We’re Living Longer, But Not Better
Jonathan Gornall
AFP Photo: Hazem Bader
Few paid much attention when Finland’s entire government resigned in March. Tucked away in the far north, Finnish affairs rarely intrude upon the world’s headlines. But what happened on March 8 was equivalent to the opening scene in a disaster movie – an earthquake in some distant wilderness that spooks the wildlife and foreshadows a global catastrophe. Finland’s government was brought down by a single issue: the failure to fix the country’s increasingly unaffordable health system. It is an issue facing almost every society today.
Falling birth rates in the developed world are reducing the supply of productive taxpayers. At the same time, healthcare improvements are swelling the ranks of the elderly. A century ago, the average global life expectancy was little more than 35 years. Today, it is more than 72 years. In 2016, there were just five countries designated by the World Health Organization as “super-aged,” meaning one in five of the population is 65 or older. By 2030 there will be 34.
This good news for individuals comes with a downside, signaled by the acronym HALE – Health-Adjusted Life Expectancy. If trends continue, a person born today will live about seven years longer than one born in 2000, which itself poses difficulties for systems designed to cater for shorter lifespans. Worse, thanks to the rise of lifestyle conditions such as diabetes and obesity, many of those extra years will be spent in increasingly poor and expensive-to-treat health.
Life expectancy in all the wealthy Gulf states is 77 years, the same as in Europe and with the same attendant health problems, which are accelerating in the GCC states just as rapidly as the economic development that followed the discovery of oil. WHO statistics show that while obesity has tripled worldwide since 1975, some of the most dramatic increases have occurred in Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Similarly, GCC states have the dubious honor of occupying many of the top slots in a table of nations with the highest incidence of lifestyle-induced Type 2 diabetes – 20 percent of adults in Kuwait, rising to 29 percent in the UAE and 55 percent in Bahrain.
Across the Mena region, 35 million adults are living with diabetes, an entirely avoidable condition which in 2017 cost $20 billion to treat. By 2045, says the International Diabetes Federation, there will be 84 million sufferers costing $38 billion a year. According to the 2017 Global Burden of Disease study, healthcare costs will rise to more than $24 trillion by 2040 from $9.21 trillion in 2014. But with fertility rates dropping everywhere, who will bankroll it?
Some countries are more vulnerable to the healthcare timebomb than others. Systems that have traditionally coddled their citizens in generous cradle-to-grave healthcare will be the first to come apart at the seams as costs that were once manageable spiral out of control. In the UK, the National Health Service is crumbling under the weight of demand, with patients facing ever longer waiting times, even for emergency and cancer treatment.
Governments around the world are scrambling for short-term solutions. Many, including Denmark, Sweden and the UK, are raising retirement ages, but some are fearful of taking such an unpopular step. Israel’s parliament approved raising the retirement age for women from 62 to 64 back in 2003, but nobody has since dared to actually implement the measure. Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are among eight G20 nations in which the retirement age for men is 60 years or younger.
Ultimately, no health system, however it is structured or funded, is immune to rising costs. Singapore operates a unique blend of public, personal and private provisions, in which individuals pay part of their salary into a personal healthcare fund, creating an investment that encourages them not only to take responsibility for their health but also to shop around for the best prices. But even Singapore’s standout model is showing signs of buckling under demographic pressures, with medical costs rising at 10 percent a year, outpacing global healthcare inflation of 8.4 percent.
Around the world, the Gulf included, governments are belatedly waking up to the need to educate populations about the perils of the good life. They are also considering other public health measures, from punitive taxes on sugary drinks to mandatory nutritional information on food. Better late than never, but all these initiatives have been tried elsewhere with little evidence so far that they have done any good.
The personal and wider economic tragedy is that poor health in our last years is entirely avoidable. Study after study has shown that the key factors driving up healthcare costs everywhere are medical conditions induced by our own poor personal lifestyle choices – physical inactivity, obesity, high cholesterol and elevated blood pressure.
If there is any hope of defusing the healthcare timebomb, therefore, it surely lies in the phrase “personal responsibility.” Just as each of us must look to our personal impact on global warming, so we must consider the effect our lifestyles may have on our long-term health and on the economies of the societies in which we live. If we fail to do so, as with climate change, it will be our children who are left with the bill.
Jonathan Gornall is a British journalist, formerly with The Times, who has lived and worked in the Middle East and is now based in the UK.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1081
|
__label__wiki
| 0.637592
| 0.637592
|
Linda Greenwood is Gallery's Featured Artist
Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is pleased to announce that fine art photographer Linda Greenwood has been named as the Gallery's new featured artist.
Jupiter, FL, USA (March 17, 2016) -- Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is pleased to announce that fine art photographer Linda Greenwood has been named as the Gallery's new featured artist.
Linda Greenwood grew up on Long Island, New York. Many visits to art museums in Manhattan with her mother served as a base for growing a love of art that was nurtured then and continued to develop when she later traveled abroad.
Greenwood has taken classes in art and photography at The Sharon Art Center in Peterborough NH and with the CALL Adult Education Program at Keene State College. Linda also completed Project 365 in 2015, meeting a personal challenge to shoot at least one photograph every day of the year. "It definitely made me so much more aware of the world around me, which inspired me to try to take even more significant photos!"
She takes pride in turning ordinary objects and landscapes into artistic creations and is thrilled to have opportunities to shoot photographs in New Hampshire. She exhibits her work in the Monadnock Region of southern New Hampshire. Greenwood is a member of the Monadnock Camera Club, Monadnock Area Art Association and the Dublin Art Colony. (https://www.lightspacetime.com/artist-showcase)
Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery conducts monthly art competitions and monthly art exhibitions for new and emerging artists. It is Light Space & Time's intention to showcase this incredible talent in a series of monthly themed art competitions and art exhibitions by marketing and displaying the exceptional abilities of these worldwide artists. The art gallery website can be viewed here: http://www.lightspacetime.com.
Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1083
|
__label__wiki
| 0.617439
| 0.617439
|
Recent reads, 2016-09-03 — September 3, 2016
Recent reads, 2016-09-03
September 3, 2016 /stevereads
Attention-conservation notice: 3,216 words on some recent books I’ve read. Consider this a downpayment on all the reviews I’ve neglected to write. I may end up defaulting on that particular mortgage, but at least I made the downpayment, right?
Steve Coll, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power
This book is far less polemical than the title suggests. The title would suggest that liberals will be waving this in their political enemies’ faces and spluttering something about Citizens United.
The overarching thesis of Private Empire is far less exciting: that what ExxonMobil wants above all else is predictability. If it’s going to set up drilling operations in, say, Russia, it’s making an enormous upfront capital investment in exchange for returns that are expected to pay out over 20-30 years. On those kinds of timelines, it needs certain guarantees: that contracts will be honored, that its workers will be safe, that political corruption won’t be allowed to interfere with crude-oil extraction.
The impression most of us might have, going into this book, is that Exxon’s hooks into the Federal government go deep. While Coll doesn’t dispute that Exxon — like any large corporation — does its share of lobbying, and doesn’t dispute that Exxon’s executives were chummy with the Bush administration, he seems to suggest that mostly Exxon wants the government to ensure stability of contract. Certainly the Federal government encourages foreign governments to sign contracts with Exxon, but Coll really suggests that the relation is hands-off.
The ‘private empire’ piece comes in when Exxon places its drilling operations in dangerous countries; Equatorial Guinea figures prominently here. One could argue that Exxon has a responsibility to reinforce the security services of the country it’s operating in, but the company seems to believe in minimizing its political involvement. Instead its hunkers down in each country, sets up its drilling operation, surrounds it with high fences and armed guards, and tries (with uneven success) to remain an oil-extracting island.
Along the way, of course, Exxon is arguing against the very idea of global warming, and lobbying against carbon taxes or cap-and-trade — though Coll suggests that the Rex Tillerson era at Exxon has been moderately more open to the idea of progressive legislation than was the Lee Raymond era.
Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
It’s extremely hard to imagine a more depressing book than this one; I repeatedly had to put it down for a while to catch my breath. It’s the story of people trapped forever in a cycle of eviction and poverty. In the same way that those who’ve been imprisoned are often prevented from finding jobs, which makes it that much easier for them to return to illegal employment, so eviction traps people in substandard housing. A double-digit fraction of renters seemingly pay more than 100% of their income in rent, and a quarter pay more than half. When they miss a few rent payments, they’re now on notice that they might be evicted, and at this point any legal protections that they may have had when complaining to their landlords about non-functioning plumbing or a leaky ceiling disappear.
All of Desmond’s subjects are sympathetic, including the slumlords; their tenants are often not people you’d want living in your home. They’re hoarders; they’re drug addicts; they allow filth and cockroaches to accumulate. But the tenants are sympathetic, too; poverty in the United States makes life more expensive for the poor than it does for the rich. Desmond’s book certainly comes from a place of outrage, but I read it more as the housing version of The Wire: the system has evolved to the point that no one wants to be part of it, but no one has a choice.
Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900
A delightful little history of how Boston became a small city with thick suburbs. Essentially — this is a point I infer from both Warner’s book and from Crabgrass Frontier, below — Americans have always dreamed of living in idealized suburbs; everyone has always wanted to have a few acres of land to call his or her own. So streetcars were built off into the country, and the development followed. Warner notes that as the suburbs were being built, it always looked to their new residents like they were surrounded by farmland — right until their neighbors moved in and they realized that they weren’t living in the city or the country, but rather in some new variety of housing that they were creating.
Initially the pattern was that those who needed transit to get to work in Boston lived on streetcars near to the city, while the wealthy could afford to live further out on their estates. But the land near the city was already more thickly settled, hence more expensive; hence the working class were from the beginning more burdened by high housing costs than the wealthy were.
Certain neighborhoods, like lower Roxbury, developed in a self-negating way: the housing stock was constructed cheaply, in a hurry, with the intent of luring the working class. This meant that anyone who could would leave the neighborhood for better housing as soon as he could afford it. In short, Roxbury’s housing was never aspirational; the neighborhood was always a halfway house. Smarter neighborhood design would have offered housing for multiple economic levels. As Warner tells it, lower Roxbury sealed its own fate from the beginning.
Warner’s central argument, indeed, is that Boston has done a poor job fashioning a cultural community from its neighborhoods. Neighborhoods may be unified religiously (Catholic versus Protestant), or they may be unified economically (wealthy or working class), but they’re still ultimately balkanized. Boston, and perhaps American cities generally, have done a bad job correcting for the U.S.’s steep economic hierarchy. This devastating paragraph sums up the state of the city as Warner saw it in 1977:
In 1900 the new metropolis lacked local communities that could deal with the problems of contemporary society at the level of the family and its immediate surroundings, and it lacked a large-scale community that could deal with the problems of the metropolis. As a result Boston community life fell into a self-defeating cycle. Each decade brought an increase in the scale and complexity of economic and social life; each decade’s problems demanded more wide-scale attention, more complex solutions. Because of the physical arrangement of the new metropolis, each decade also brought an ever greater fragmentation of community life into town and ward politics, church groups, clubs, and specialized societies of all kinds. The growing parochialism and fragmentation resulted in a steady relative weakening of social agencies. Weakness, in turn, convinced more and more individuals that local community action was hopeless or irrelevant. From this conviction came the further weakening of the public agencies. The self-defeating cycle, begun by the streetcar metropolis, has continued with increasing severity to this day. It has proved, both for the metropolis and its constituent political units, an iron cycle, a cycle which once established, is difficult to break.
That still describes Boston to this day.
Miscellaneous notes I took while reading this book:
As of 1851, more than a quarter of the 46,000 people commuting into Boston did so on foot. (Via the Hunt’s Merchant Magazine, page 759.)
This book contains a history of the development of the South End that looks to be worth reading.
If you believed that there were a lot of Washington Streets around here, you were not wrong:
Excluding the Washington avenues, alleys, and boulevards, there are at the moment of writing thirty-six Washington streets in metropolitan Boston, six in the different quarters of Boston itself. For the purposes of this book the reader should distinguish between two different Washington streets. One is the long street which runs north and south from the downtown shopping center of the city, along the South End, through Roxbury, up the Stony Brook Valley to Forest Hills, West Roxbury, and thence through West Roxbury until it passes out of the city limits into Dedham. The other important Washington street is in Dorchester. The street, which is unconnected to its Roxbury counterpart, begins at Blue Hill avenue and runs through Codman Square to the village of Lower Mills, where it ends in a junction with Dorchester avenue.
A.J. Liebling, Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris
This is a little book by a great big fat man, lamenting the era when you could spend the entire day eating spectacular quantities of food in Paris. Everything went to shit, says Liebling, when the doctors started obsessing over the health of your liver. Then the copious quantities of meat and wine went away.
It’s a fun book, about a lost era, and about a time in Liebling’s life when he was “poor” (more on why I put that in air quotes below) and spent most of his money on food. I seem to recall that there’s a passage in here where Liebling says that, to become a gourmand, you really need to be neither too poor nor too rich. If you’re too poor you can’t afford to eat anything good; if you’re too rich, you spend money on food whose main selling point is that expensive, rather than that it’s good. Only if you’re in that sweet spot in the middle do you develop some discernment in your palate: you can afford to eat the good stuff, but you need to be choosy.
I have a hard time believing that the pre-World War II Parisian life that Liebling describes was ever the life that most people could experience. Most people at most times, I imagine, had to grind through their days trying to earn enough to eat; it was the rare person who could spend practically his whole life eating. Liebling was lucky enough to have a father who paid for him to live and eat in Paris for months, ostensibly because the son was attending school there. Liebling’s experience in Paris resembles A. Scott Berg’s description of Princeton before Woodrow Wilson took over: largely a playground for the rich to spend their days idly.
So Between Meals is a study of a particular class of person at a particular time in world history. And it’s fun, for all that.
John McPhee, Coming into the Country
McPhee’s general schtick, more or less camouflaged, is to write about people under the guise of writing about things. In Oranges he writes about, well, oranges, but he’s writing just as much about the men who pick them. The Curve of Binding Energy is as engrossing a walk through the construction and safeguarding of nuclear weapons as it is a biography of Ted Taylor. Uncommon Carriers gives fascinating accounts of how coal makes its way via train from the mine to a Georgia power plant, of boats on the Russian River, and of the paths of packages through the UPS facility in Louisville, but it’s just as much about trainmen, ship captains, and UPS employees.
So it is with Coming Into The Country. John McPhee has as much to say about Alaskan wildlife, as he perceives it while hiking and kayaking, as he does about the peculiar sort of person who decides to become Alaskan. You “come into the country” when you move way, way, way off the grid. For the sort of person who lives near the Arctic Circle, Juneau and Anchorage are too crowded; all those people create anxiety and a desire to run away. If American history is the story of people moving westward to stake their claim and make their fortune, one branch of that history contains people who veered to the right while everyone else was moving westward to California.
People who make it in Alaska, as McPhee observes them, are self-sufficient to an admirable degree. I wish that I had it in me to move off into the woods, fashion my own home from trees I chop down, and eat food that I hunted myself. I wish I were so confident in my own skills that I could fly a little prop plane around the backcountry and bandage the plane with paperclips and chewing gum when the need arose — because without those skills, I am stuck in the middle of an empty vastness containing one-fifth the area of the Lower 48.
Unfortunately, I don’t have it in me. I don’t know whether to feel bad about this. Reading this book, you really can’t help but consider what civilization really means; it’s a place where people come together to handle problems together that they simply couldn’t tackle on their own. The positive side of civilization is that we achieve things we couldn’t otherwise; the negative side is that we may have evolved — Maynard Smith-style — in an irreversible way: the division of labor may mean that it’s now impossible for most of us to go back to an earlier, more-solitary way of life. Small tribes don’t have the collective knowledge to construct an iPhone, but the inhabitants of large cities may be unable to hew their own wood. Your judgment of this situation may rest on how you evaluate the relative importance of iPhones and wood-hewing.
One further note on the moral economy of cities. The economic view of their importance — which you’ll encounter in, for instance, Ed Glaeser’s Triumph of the City, or at a more formal level in Fujita/Krugman/Venables — focuses on this specialization aspect. People working in close proximity to one another can accomplish things that none of them individually could. As the city grows, entire industries become possible that wouldn’t even make sense in small towns; you can ask how many piano tuners there are in the city of New York, but it doesn’t really make sense to ask how many there are in Stewart Township, Pennsylvania. New York is not just a larger Stewart Township; it’s an entirely different variety of thing.
This division-of-labor story is fruitful, and you can go in a number of interesting directions with it. It’s part of a rebuttal to Malthus: as the number of people increases, the existence of larger cities is a reason why you can expect more output rather than less. But even still, this economic view is impoverished, in a way that Lewis Mumford recognized: the city should be understood as a place where we can be collectively uplifted. It should be the place where collective education allows us to learn more and faster than our rural brethren; it should be the place where our cultural accomplishments go beyond anything that small towns could dream of. The Museum of Fine Arts is in Boston rather than in Burlington, Vermont for a reason; Boston has about 15 times the population of Burlington, but it shouldn’t be understood as just 15 Burlingtons lined up next to one another. The large city can accomplish what the small city cannot.
Mumford’s attitude here is pessimistic: the moral arc of the city has been basically downhill ever since Ancient Greece understood the collective greatness available to the Athenians. When Mumford wrote in the 60s, cities were in the middle of being decimated by the automobile. We’re in the middle of rolling that back ever so slightly (not nearly so completely as the optimists would have it), but we still don’t appreciate the possibilities that the city brings us: that our collective accomplishments will make humanity better. Instead we mostly follow the economists: the city is a place where jobs are plentiful and incomes are higher than average. High-paying jobs are important, but they shortchange what the city can achieve.
It’s hard not to think of all of this when McPhee writes about Alaska. Americans move off into the wilderness to make their own solitary civilization, and in many ways I admire them for it. As Americans, they come from a civilization that has done much to destroy its cities, so it’s even easier to understand why they’d want to desert those cities. (I wonder whether Pericles would have decamped for Juneau if the opportunity had presented itself.) In my most fevered dreams, I imagine an American civilization that honors our cities to such an extent that moving off into the woods would be an unthinkable act of lunacy.
Joseph Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel: Reportage from “the New Yorker”
Delightful candy about old New York, where I understand that “old New York” is always the good old city that had disappeared by the time you arrived. In old New York, everyone in the neighborhood knew the crank. In old New York, owners of seedy movie theaters watch over the Bowery and give the occasional dime to those same cranks. In old New York, crotchety old men spent their days nursing warm beer at McSorley’s.
Old New York was seemingly also filled with an assorted collection of fishermen and oystermen who plied their trade off Long Island, and who sold their catch to fishmongers in the Fulton Street market. I don’t know if that part of New York has changed (here The Downeaster ‘Alexa’ is playing softly in the back of my head). Either that part of old New York has disappeared, or writers like Joseph Mitchell have.
Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States
This is the definitive history of how the U.S. came to be suburb-dominated; like Caro’s biographies of LBJ and Robert Moses, it’s hard to imagine another book that would tell the story as clearly and completely as Jackson has. (It’s a Bancroft Prize winner, and like all Bancroft Prize winners that I’ve had the good fortune to read, it’s extraordinary.) The main thing I take away from Jackson is that the process of unwinding suburbanization will take a lot more than just some wealthy people — even all the wealthy people — moving back in. (Among many other reasons, this “great inversion” story irritates me because it tends to hand-wave over the problems of schools, mass transit, and affordable housing.) Suburbanization is as much a part of the American ethic as is the Jeffersonian love of rural life. And our particular variety of it comes, in no small part, from our having had ample unoccupied (well, “unoccupied”) land from the very beginning. It’s still an extremely sparse country: if the U.S. were as densely populated as Somerville, Massachusetts, you could easily fit all 319 million of us in West Virginia.
Of course, there’s suburbanization and then there’s suburbanization. An East Coast urban liberal snob such as myself sees a world of difference between Brookline, Massachusetts — a 19th-century streetcar suburb — and a modern 20th-century car-dominated suburb like Woburn, Massachusetts. Automobile dependence is even harder to unwind; the most Boston could do to the highways when it wanted to reverse the decades of damage that they’d done was to move them them underground. “(Nothing But) Flowers” this is not.
I don’t mean to be entirely cynical and pessimistic; you have to start somewhere, after all, and the fact that New York and Boston are growing faster than the nation as a whole could only please me. But the point of Jackson’s work is that the suburbs were a long time in the making, from which I infer that they’ll be a long time in the destroying.
Categories: Between Meals: An Appetite for Paris, Coming into the Country, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power, Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900, Up in the Old Hotel: Reportage from "the New Yorker"
The Compromise of 1790
Oh, and Barbarian Days
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1085
|
__label__wiki
| 0.640687
| 0.640687
|
Flog It!
Series 9 Reversions
Truro Flog It!
Subtitles Found! We found subtitles for the program Truro. Please use the links below to download them, or go here for a preview
Download 9-truro.srt ⇓
Download 9-truro.ass ⇓
Paul Martin and his team of experts are at Truro Cathedral to value the public's antiques and collectibles and take the best items to sell at auction to the highest bidder.
Browse content similar to Truro. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
That is a fantastic backdrop for our venue today - Truro City Cathedral.
It's wonderful for me to be back in my home county of Cornwall.
Hundreds of people are queueing up in the rain with bags and boxes.
They want to ask that very important question - what's it worth?
-When you've found out, what will you do?
-Flog it!
It is just starting to rain, so we'll get everybody inside now.
It's 9.30. It's time to open the doors of this magnificent cathedral.
Don't go away. Keep watching the show.
There's one or two surprises. We found some real gems out there and we'll show you in there.
Building work started on the cathedral in 1880 and it was completed in 1910.
That's a marvellous achievement - 30 years to build all of this, a real architectural delight.
It was a massive undertaking because they copied the great cathedrals of the medieval era.
Looking around, they've certainly achieved wonders. Your eyes just gravitate up towards the heavens.
It's only one of three cathedrals in the country to have three spires
and it's the first cathedral to be built in this country
on a new site since Salisbury Cathedral was, back in 1220.
Our two fabulous experts leading our team of valuers today are David Barby and David Fletcher.
David Barby's first job was as a choirboy aged eight,
so he should feel at home hitting the high notes in Truro Cathedral.
That's lovely, isn't it?
David Fletcher's no choirboy, but as a child,
he was hooked on the antiques series in the '60s, Going For A Song.
That's what I like to hear.
Coming up today, John and Pat's statue catches the appreciative eye of David Barby.
If I look at this figure, there are two highlights.
We might have a new double act.
-Another fine mess you've got me into here!
-Sure have!
And all David Barby's dreams come true at once.
We'll find out what's got David so excited later on, but first, he's feeling bookish with Edith's items.
-Edith, why are you getting rid of these bookmarks?
-I didn't intend getting rid of them.
-I found them in a box today when I was bringing some other things to show you.
-Right.
-You'd never used them for their original purpose?
-They're quite beautiful. Who owned them?
This one was from my father-in-law, a Scottish doctor.
And this one was from my nan, who brought me up.
She was no relation. She was a nanny.
This one that belonged to your father who was Scottish is in the form of a Scottish sword.
If you look at the little pommel here, it's inlaid with what we term as Scottish pebbles.
Those are semi-precious stones.
That's rather nice,
although the hallmark there is for Birmingham 1936.
So it's got some age to it.
-And if this was polished, it would look wonderful.
-Oh, right.
This other one is just brass, but at the end here, it has an agate, like a Scottish agate.
So the two are linked. It's rather appropriate that we're in Truro Cathedral
and we have this wonderful cross at the upper section there.
That's rather nice. You could imagine that on a family Bible or Common Prayer, something like that.
My nan who brought me up, she used to read her Bible every day.
-You're selling a family...
-I didn't know I was until I came here.
There are collectors of bookmarks and you get a huge variety.
The more interesting ones like this one here, the Scottish sword, you'll find a collector at auction.
I think they'll realise somewhere between £20 and £40.
-That sort of price range.
-Yes, yes.
The sentiment might be too great to let them go at that figure, but they're interesting for collectors.
If you don't use them, if they've been stuck in a box, they'll go back home to be stuck in a box again,
-so at least you could sell these and get some good books. Thank you for bringing them along.
-Thank you.
Edith was lucky that her bookmarks were spotted by our valuers,
but Rosie's collection is more prominent.
I don't know that much about Laurel and Hardy, but I'll do my best.
-That one is Charlie Chaplin.
-Charlie Chaplin has sneaked in as well. I hadn't even noticed him.
Laurel and Hardy were both born in the 19th century
and lived well into the 20th century.
I think they both lived certainly after 1950.
They, I think I'm right in saying, made their first film in the 1920s.
They had worked individually up until that time, then their careers took off.
And you have a good collection of Laurel and Hardy related material.
And have you collected it yourself?
No, it was given to me by my... He's now my ex-boyfriend's brother.
I had my eye on them and now that we're not together,
there's no point in keeping them cos they're just cluttering up in a box.
-They don't have a sentimental value.
The almost lifelike busts at the front, copyright of 1984,
so they're no more than 30 years old, really.
-Have you any idea what the collection is worth?
-No, I don't.
OK, I think we've got to really be ultra-conservative
because although I'm sure there are ardent collectors of Laurel and Hardy material out there,
I think they're going to be looking for items that relate to Laurel and Hardy's own lifetime.
-Right, yeah.
-Theatre programmes, cinema bills, that sort of thing.
So we've got to be mindful of that.
I would be inclined to put an estimate of £50 to £80 on them
-and I think with the best will in the world, sell without reserve.
-OK.
-Have you any idea what you'd spend the money on?
-Yes, both my children.
I want to start a savings account for when they either go to uni...
-Don't ask me for financial advice!
-I won't.
But if you do that, by the time they come to university age,
you'll have done pretty well for them, so that's lovely.
I'm certain they'll do OK.
These days, sales go online and there might be a collector and we might have a pleasant surprise.
-We'll do our best for you and I look forward to seeing you at the sale.
-Thank you very much.
'With no sentimental attachment, Rosie is happy to let her Laurel and Hardy collection go with no reserve.
'I've stopped to look at a painting brought in by Diana and Nick.'
I love that. That is so typical of the Scottish Highlands.
Look at the perspective. You're just drawn into that lake, aren't you?
Look, what I've found is MacWhirter,
John MacWhirter, that's the artist, and it's also signed.
It could be worth £400 to £500 in good condition. It's got its original frame.
But what's putting me off is that water damage.
'Sometimes giving a valuation can be a tricky business.
'You have to be confident about the authenticity of an item.
'But it's not always easy. Even I can get caught out. Well, nearly.'
-Can I just take a look at this with a glass? Do you mind?
-Of course. Yes.
If I show you something here, you can see it's not a watercolour.
-Really?
-No, it's a print.
-My goodness! A print?
Oh, my goodness!
If you look through this with a light, you can identify hundreds of tiny little dots that go together
-to make up a print.
-Oh, my goodness!
We're looking at something that's possibly worth around about...£5 to £10.
Have a look at this.
-Oh, yes.
-Well, I think...
-It was worth bringing it in.
It can go back in the attic in the damp. You don't need to worry.
Oh, dear!
'That was a close shave, but David Barby has no doubts about the provenance
'of the little object brought in by Barbara and Norman.'
This is an exquisite little object.
Now, it's exquisite because it's a piece of
a needlewoman's equipment.
-Who's keen on needlework? Is it you, Barbara, or is it you, Norman?
-Neither of us.
How did you get hold of this?
-My mum gave it to me when I was a little girl.
I like it because, first of all, it's a miniature piece of furniture.
This looks like a knife box,
covered in tortoiseshell veneer,
with a little brass plaque on the top
that we call a cartouche.
So I open this little press section here
and then see that it's divided into various compartments,
filled with needles in little paper folds.
There's one, two, three, four that haven't got any.
At the side here, you've got the name of the retailer
which is "W Lund, 24 Fleet Street".
That was London.
And if I can just take one of these little needle sections out...
The needles were made by "Shrimpton & Hooper, Albion Works, Studley".
Now, in that area, close to Redditch,
they made needles.
So this is a beautiful example
for a collector of needlework requisites.
How much is it worth? We're not talking about hundreds of pounds.
But I think somebody is going to pay between £50 and £80,
that sort of price range.
-How many more have you got at home, Barbara?
-Only the one.
Why are you getting rid of this? It doesn't take up room in your house.
Well, we haven't got any children.
-Spend the money on a meal out?
-Yes.
I don't blame you. If you don't use it, what's the point in having it?
I like it, I must admit.
It's just on the side.
-It's stuck on the side in a cabinet?
-In the Welsh dresser.
-Yes, sell it.
-Or should I say, flog it?
-Flog it, that's it.
We'll do our best for you.
Next up Clyde has brought in a little plate with an unusual provenance to show David Fletcher.
I had it nearly 40 years ago.
Someone gave me a pot plant and it was standing on this plate.
So, it came free with your pot plant.
It came with a pot plant. I think it was a cacti in those days.
That's long since gone I expect?
The cacti has gone, but the plate, once one realised the age of it,
one put it away and took a bit of care of it.
I'm glad you did.
It would have been made not in Cornwall, as you might expect,
but in Staffordshire.
It is a type of pottery known as pearlware,
and that refers to the nature of the glaze.
It has a moulded border,
decorated with leaves and these might be oak apples.
The centre is transfer printed in blue and white.
It commemorates the death
of the late and, as it says, much lamented Charlotte of Saxe Cobourg,
who was George IV's only daughter,
and who died, as it tells us here, in 1817,
the day after she gave birth to a son, who tragically died.
And her death was indeed much lamented.
I think very largely because, had she survived,
she would eventually have become Queen Charlotte of England.
And, commemorative china relating to the royal family
from this date is rare, it's early.
-You had an idea that it was of some value obviously.
-Mmm.
It's true to say that it has got a bit of damage.
-Bit of damage, two cracks.
-Two longish hairline cracks,
which are a problem.
I must say, condition is always important but, in a case like this,
I think it's less important than it might otherwise be
because the plate is rare and highly collectible.
-Collectors will put up with a bit of damage.
-Just as well.
I think the time has come to be able possibly to sell it
and let somebody else have the pleasure of it.
Just want to get the benefit of a few quid from it.
I've got a special birthday this year, so...
Have you? What's that, 60?
No, no. A nought but not 60, go up a bit. But, that's beside the point.
So, I think just be able to treat myself to something.
-A birthday present to yourself.
-Just to myself, it can be, yes.
Good for you. I don't think all the times I've asked people what they are selling things for,
I don't think anyone's ever said, "To buy myself a birthday present." but that's a good idea.
I'm the first selfish Cornishman that you've interviewed or what have you!
I don't think you're being selfish You're being very realistic. You treat yourself.
If you haven't got children... If not, why not?
They are not buying you presents, no children to buy you presents.
-That's right.
-Good for you.
It's now time for us to work out exactly what you'll be able to buy.
I think the damage on this plate is important but not crucial.
We have got to be mindful of it.
I would like to say £200 but I don't think I can really.
I would like to go £100 to £150.
I'm certain it will find a buyer within that price range, who knows someone might pay a bit more.
A bit more on the day, yes.
So, let's hope for the best, put an estimate of £100 to £150 on it
and a fixed reserve of £100.
Yes, I wouldn't like for it to go for less than that.
If we're not bid £100, you can have it back.
I'll take it back, that's right.
Bring it back in ten years when you have your next special birthday.
Right, will do.
The rugged coastal landscape of Cornwall
is one of its main attractions.
It's peaceful, beautiful and home to a wide variety of wildlife.
But not so long ago, these cliff tops would have reverberated
with the noise of crushing machinery and the bustle of miners.
This whole area was once
no less than the engine room of the Industrial Revolution
which shaped our modern world.
Most of the Land's End peninsula is built on granite which was formed 300 million years ago.
This granite contains an awful lot of tin and copper.
In fact, there's probably more tin and copper here than anywhere else in the world.
Many mines were started in Cornwall, but few stayed open for long
and the landscape now is littered with their remains like Levant Mine here in St Just.
But Levant was different. It remained open and profitable for 110 years.
It was the lifeblood of the community and hundreds of families depended on it.
But working conditions were extremely tough
and also one of the greatest tragedies in Cornish mining history
ultimately led to Levant's decline.
The Levant Mining Company was formed in 1820
and at its peak, employed over 600 men, women and children.
The miners, often father and son, toiled to break the ore at a rate of four feet a month,
using a volatile combination of gunpowder and hand-digging.
The narrow shafts followed the mineral-rich lodes in an almost vertical direction.
The Levant workings extended one and a half kilometres out into the Atlantic Ocean
at a depth of 600m below the sea bed.
In the early days of the mine, the only way up and down the shafts was by ladder.
At the start and end of each shift, the miners had to climb 1,500 feet through narrow chambers.
They needed over 90 ladders.
The climb back up took one and a half hours.
Now, our present-day preoccupation with health and safety wasn't really shared with 19th century employers.
Aside from heart and lung disease, accidents through blasting were all too common.
Many, many miners were maimed for life or blinded.
The average age of a working miner who worked these mines was just 27 years old.
Working conditions were particularly gruelling
and miners worked by candlelight
in temperatures up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
It wasn't unusual for a chap to finish his shift 12 pounds lighter than when he started.
In 1857, Levant installed a new engine to help transport the men up and down.
It was called the man engine and it acted like a giant pump rod
with men stepping on and off platforms as it transported them down to the bottom in 30 minutes.
It could carry 130 men at a time and the shaft is still here today. Take a look.
Incredibly, it is still possible to hear first-hand
what it was like to work in the mine and to use the man engine from the miners themselves,
speaking in a BBC documentary made in 1970.
Every 12 feet, there was a step...
..about two foot square.
And about three foot six to four foot six up, there was a handle for you to catch hold of.
Really, it was safe as anything. A child could ride on it.
The first day I started, I started with a man, he rode down with me, two on the step.
You see? And after three days, well, you can get on all right.
You had to take a candle in your hat and a lantern in your hand for a while.
And, of course, after that, you put the lantern to one side and you just used the candle.
When they travelled the man engine, they all started to sing
and the sound that you heard as it came up through the shaft was out of this world.
MEN SINGING
If you could stand on top of that shaft and listen,
rich, it was, rich.
HARMONIOUS SINGING
But the owners of the mine were slow to modernise.
And despite its success, there was little investment to update or replace machinery.
After 70 years of use, it was the last working man engine in the world
and considered a museum piece.
And then at 2.50pm
on Monday, the 20th of October in 1919, disaster struck.
I was about to step in. He said, "Don't step in, boy. There's something wrong."
And he made a...quiver. And I dodged back and under.
The manager shook like that and then he dropped away.
That was that. Down he goes.
What happened was the main pin on the top broke.
And then the rod on the way down broke in half.
That's what done the damage.
That went right through, see, took everything with it.
A full shift of men were ascending when suddenly there was an accident.
The top layer collapsed, crashing down 100 feet below.
It went through different layers on its way. 31 men in total lost their lives.
It took six days to get them out.
This tragedy hastened the decline of the mine and it finally closed in 1930.
A worldwide drop in the price of tin meant many of Cornwall's mines became unprofitable
in the decades that followed. The industry is practically extinct.
After the mine closed, the engines were blown up for scrap and many of the buildings were demolished,
their stone used to build houses elsewhere.
One engine was saved and so began a remarkable preservation project.
Today the site is looked after by the National Trust.
I've come here to talk to Chris Quick about the Levant's beam engine.
What's the significance of this?
As far as I know, it's the only working steam engine in Cornwall still in its original house.
-It was installed in this mine in 1840.
-Wow!
-And worked for 90 years.
-Gosh. She's seen some life.
-What would you get today to do that?
-What is the function of the engine?
-Its sole purpose is to wind the rocks they've cut
-and bring it to surface.
-Can I have a go?
-Yes!
-First, take the brake off.
-Wind it as far as you can...
-And that'll turn that wheel there?
-It turns the brake block.
-I can see the brake block rising.
-You're there.
-What a wonderful piece of kit.
-OK. Brake's off.
-Now you put some steam on.
-Bring that lever towards me.
-Wow! Look at that.
-That's fine.
Look at that beam work now!
-Oh, take it off! I've never done this before. More steam?
-More steam.
-Keep the engine going now.
-So the driver stayed here all day.
-Making sure it didn't slow down...
-Give it some steam.
-He would just stay here?
-He would stay here, look at the gauge to see where it is.
-But you only run it for four minutes at a time.
-Just long enough for a skip to come to the surface.
You can hear those pistons working. Everything is so beautifully articulated.
It's just wonderful to see it working.
The steam is moving a beam which weighs two tonnes,
the rod weighs a tonne, crankshaft weighs a tonne
-and the flywheel weighs four tonnes.
-I feel part of its history now. Wonderful.
'The engine was the last to work on Levant mine. It's final days were used to salvage equipment.
'After the tragedy, it was used to bring some of the deceased up,
'so it remains a fitting memorial to those miners who lost their lives, helping to build our world.'
Here's what's going under the hammer.
Edith's little bookmarks valued by David Barby at £20 to £40,
Rosie's Laurel and Hardy collection valued by David Fletcher at £50 to £80,
Clyde's plate, valued by David Fletcher at £100 to £150
and Barbara and Norman's needle box valued by David Barby at £50 to £80.
For today's sale, we've come to picturesque Lostwithiel in the heart of Cornwall.
Back in 1205, Lostwithiel had the second busiest port on the south coast of England,
mainly due to the tin mines.
Sadly, there's no port here today,
but, hopefully, it will be just as busy
because we're the guests of Jefferys Auction Rooms.
Auctioneer Ian Morris is on the rostrum and first up, it's Edith and her bookmarks.
Why have you decided to sell these now then?
I came along to Flog It! with a few items in a box and...
-Met Mr Barby.
-Mr Barby picked these out and they're something I hadn't thought much about.
-They were with other things I thought were more valuable.
-I like the association with books.
There's a great revival for reading books with so many book clubs starting up. I belong to one.
I don't have an expensive bookmark. I use a piece of paper.
But I'm not buying!
Hopefully, someone is. Good luck. Here we go.
It's a silver hallmarked bookmark, made by J Cook & Sons, dated 1911.
And one other. Lot 132.
-I've got two bids and I've got to start at £30.
-Well done.
At £30, both bids are with me. I'll take 2.
32. 35. 38. At £40.
42. My bids are out. 42 right there.
I'll take 5 to get on. At £42.
-That's very good.
-45, two of you.
48? 45, the two of you both can't have it. 48 from one of you?
-Lots of bookworms.
-It's at 48. At 48. At 48.
At 48. 50 now? At 48. At 48 right at the back.
At 48. 50? We're done at 48...
-That's good.
-Top end, very good. They love their books here.
-Happy?
-£48, that's great.
It is a wonderful feeling when things exceed the top end of the estimate.
-It's not so good when it struggles at reserve.
-When it doesn't sell, it's dreadful.
'What a fabulous result for Edith! It just goes to show it's always worth having a good rummage around.
'Even little, hidden away objects can have value.
'Next, Rosie's Laurel and Hardy collection which she inherited from her ex-boyfriend's brother.'
-Now it's time to wave goodbye to Laurel and Hardy, isn't it?
-Yeah.
-Every time you see Laurel and Hardy, do you always think of the ex then?
-So you can't wait to get rid.
There is no reserve. Hopefully, they're going to go to a good home.
There's something for everyone in there.
Lot 11 there, Laurel and Hardy, a collection of novelty items.
What shall we say for that? Very quickly. £30 away? £30?
£30 away? £30 I'm bid. The bid's here with me. 35. £40. 45.
At 45. I've got the bid on the book. £50. 55. At 55 with me.
-55. 60 now.
-That's great.
-£60.
65. At 65, still here. At £65 with me.
At £65. 70 now? Are we all done? With me at 65...
-That was very good, wasn't it?
-Excellent.
-You're going out to celebrate now?
-No, it's going into my children's savings account.
-Good idea.
-We've got them off to a flying start. That's really good. I'm thrilled.
-So am I. Thank you for letting me flog it.
-That's OK.
'Well, it's big smiles all round.
'ext up, it's Clyde's plate, but will the damage put people off?'
I never knew this would be worth so much
even with two hairline cracks in it.
We had a chat to the auctioneer and he says it's really rare.
Well, I hope I'm right.
The great thing about this particular plate is it's early.
You see lots of commemorative ware
which relates to the late 19th century,
but very little from as early as this. That's what I'm pinning my hopes on.
Thank goodness you've looked after it.
Yes, it's lasted fairly well.
-Nearly 200 years old.
-Nearly 200.
Well, I'm starting to tingle now.
This is what auctions do. It won't be long.
In fact, we can't talk any more, because it's going under the hammer.
Let's find out what this lot think.
Rare pearlware commemorative tea plate there.
Princess Charlotte.
Got a crack in, otherwise it'd make a lot more money.
Can I say £100 to start, £100.
£50, I've got, 50. 60.
60, here. 70, there, 80.
90. £100. The bid's with me.
£100. 110 to get on, at 110.
The bid's in the middle.
Someone at the back of the room wants this.
£110, I'm bid. 120 now.
Are we done? At £110.
£110, the hammer's gone down, well done.
-Brilliant valuation.
-You've got your 100.
-Thank you very much indeed.
-Pity about those cracks, but we can't put the clock back.
-No, age will tell.
In the end, David Fletcher was spot-on with his valuation.
Clyde goes home without the plate, but with a pocket full of cash.
David and I have just been joined by Barbara and Norman. We've got that needle box going under the hammer.
-Tiny needles. They must have had tiny fingers.
-And very good eyesight.
Good luck. It's going under the hammer now.
172 there is a miniature, hinged, little tortoiseshell stamp box
with seven individual, graduated compartments,
made by Lund of Fleet Street, London.
I've got one, two, three, four bids and I've got to start at £135.
GASPS
At 135. At 135.
140 now? At 135, all the bids are with me.
My goodness!
140. At 140. All my bids are out.
At 140, the bid's still at the back.
At 140. 145? At £140. I'm selling then at £140...
Straight in and straight in at £140.
I knew it was good, but my word!
What a surprise! Well, happy spending.
If you've got anything like that at home, we'd love to sell it for you.
Hopefully, there's a valuation day near you soon.
Check details in your local press or log on to bbc.co.uk/programmes, click F for Flog It!,
follow the links and hopefully, we are very near a town near you soon, so come along.
Just a few miles from Land's End,
and perched precariously on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic,
is what seems like the remains of a Roman amphitheatre.
It's not Roman. In fact, it's not that old at all.
It's the brainchild of one woman, Rowena Cade.
Rowena Cade was born on 2nd August, 1893, in Derbyshire,
into a large and loving family.
After Rowena's father passed away during the First World War,
the family were living scattered all over the country,
but eventually, Rowena and her mother moved to Lamorna,
just a few miles along the coast in that direction.
When Rowena discovered the Minack Headland, which I'm standing on now,
she fell in love with it and you can see why, can't you?
It's absolutely breathtaking.
She had to own it and she bought it for £100,
and in 1923, she built a house for herself and her mother
using granite from the local quarry.
Between the wars, Rowena used the house and its grounds
to stage a variety of plays to provide entertainment for her family and friends.
She discovered she had a knack for designing
and making the costumes needed for the productions.
Then in 1931, an opportunity arose for a much more ambitious project.
Rowena wanted to put a production on of The Tempest
and looking for an appropriate setting,
she had this vision of creating a stage out of the gully above Minack Rock.
At the age of 38,
a determined Rowena set about building the theatre by hand.
with the help of just two men - her gardener Billy Rawlings
and a local craftsman called Charles Thomas Angove.
All this work took place
on the slope above a sheer drop into the Atlantic.
It took the three of them six months, working through a harsh winter,
to make the stage and some basic seating cut out of the rock.
The production was a huge success.
The unique setting at the Minack Theatre here
brought something magical to the performance
and, of course, the public and the press absolutely loved it
and they wanted more.
Rowena and her gardener Billy worked tirelessly over the next few decades
to improve and expand the theatre,
which played host to many performances.
When Billy died in 1966,
Rowena inscribed one of the seats as his memorial.
By now, Rowena had developed her own innovative building techniques.
For example, these carvings were done
when the cement was wet with the tip of an old screwdriver.
Rowena passed away in 1983,
but her legacy is thriving today
and the theatre is still extremely popular.
Phil Jackson is the current theatre manager.
Well, you knew her, what was she like?
She was a seriously determined woman,
which you have to be to create a place like this.
A lot of people remember her as a Victorian headmistress type, tall and thin.
-Formidable.
-Formidable woman.
She was to me, because I first knew her as a child,
and she gave me my first summer job, when I was in my teens.
Everyone looked up to her and the companies were in awe of her that came here to play.
She had great vision, didn't she?
Indeed and she never designed it, she never wrote it down on paper.
-It just evolved.
-She used what she had
and what we've got is a concrete set for certain plays.
I mean, most of what's left on stage was built for a '51 production
of Tristan of Cornwall, sort of Celtic motifs around the place.
If she didn't like what she was making,
she would smash it up, chuck it in the sea and build something else.
-She wasn't precious about it.
-Did she make any money from it?
No, not during her lifetime.
She was funding it out of her own pocket
and actually in the 1950s, she tried to get someone else to take it over
because it was draining her pocket
and by then, she was in her 60s, late 50s, 60s.
Later on, it became a Charitable Trust,
then it had to stand on its own two feet,
and now it's financially self-sufficient.
Let's talk about the theatre today.
I've been here a few times and I've seen many,
so what are you trying to do now that's slightly different?
Early on, she put on one show a year, a Shakespeare,
and built bits for what we do...
As the theatre progressed and had to become more financially sound,
we extended the season.
You needed variety. We've got a lot of people who come every week.
I mean we do 17, 18 shows for the summer
and some people will be here every Friday night for 17, 18 weeks.
We still do Shakespeare, two or three a year,
but we also do musicals, drama, comedy,
the full gamut of the repertoire really.
This is just so stunning, isn't it, on a day like this?
-This is your office.
-It is, this is my office.
In my office at the top of the car park, I get a sea view.
A lot of people say to me, "You actually get paid to work here?"
-Is it a job for life?
-I'd like to think so.
Nowhere else I'd rather be.
-I could sit here all day long.
-We could sit here and chat all day long, as well.
Gosh, this brings back so many happy memories for me.
I first came here when I was about 14 years old with my mum and dad.
And they bumped into Rowena on several occasions and talked to her,
and she was always busy doing something, wearing scruffy clothes
and always covered in muck.
I just wished I'd spoken to her at the time, really.
I guess if I did speak to her, I wouldn't really have much to say at the age of 14.
But we saw many performances here,
wrapped up warm, I would have sat around here with my mum and dad,
a good view of the stage, blanket on,
cos it'd get really cold in the summer on those evenings.
And the odd glass of wine for Dad and a flask of tea.
Oh, I wish I could put back the clock.
Well, they say the world's a stage
and back at the valuation day in Truro Cathedral,
it's June's turn to take the lead role
with an item that has caught David Barby's eye.
I'm going to disappoint you.
-These are not diamonds and they're not sapphires.
-Dear, dear, dear.
-But it's a lovely piece of bling.
This is German and I'm just going to check on the mark,
which I think is...
Yeah, it's German silver, 935 -
which is a purer silver than English, which is only 925.
-So, this is German and it's beautifully set
with diamante
and then these blue stones, which are imitation sapphires.
So, the amount of workmanship that went into this
is almost as much as a real jewel itself.
But, this is quite small, it's highly sophisticated.
Where did you get it from?
Well, it was an old aunt.
She left me quite a lot of glitzy jewellery, if you like,
a lot of marcasite and what have you,
and this was among it and I have never worn it,
-never bothered with it.
-That's disappointing.
-Today, it is costume jewellery, which is sought after, isn't it?
-Not these little pieces of glitzy.
There is still a market for this
and if this was polished up, it would look absolutely stunning.
-It's not going to sell for a fortune.
-Oh, that's a shame.
Not going to sell for a fortune because it is paste, it' sham,
but the effect is what we're selling.
To lot of people seeing a small piece on a lapel,
they'd think it was genuine and this was the idea of the manufacturers.
Right, yes.
The impression that you had got diamond and sapphire jewellery.
As regards value - at auction,
it might do £40 to £50.
That sort of price range, but it could do less.
-I think we've got to protect it,
-because we don't give it away for £5, do we?
-No, no.
-We want to make the auctioneer work for his commission.
-I am going to suggest we put a reserve of about 35 on it.
It's very little. Very little amount of money for such a beautiful object.
The sort of piece I might buy my wife. It's very nice.
-Right, thank you.
-But I can't. No, no. We're not allowed to.
Oh, well, that's a shame.
-Isn't it just?
-Do you want me to take it back, then, and sell it to you?
Oh, you shouldn't even have suggested that, no!
-I shall look forward to seeing you at the auction.
-Keep your fingers crossed.
It may not be diamonds, but even David Barby is tempted by June's sparkly brooch.
Let's hope others feel the same in the auction room.
David Fletcher has spotted an iconic item with Sandra.
This, to anyone who works in a saleroom,
is instantly recognisable as Royal Doulton.
As I'm sure you know. How long have you owned it?
-I'm not sure. 10, 15 years.
-Is it something you particularly like?
-No. I'm sorry!
-Which is why you brought it today.
The great thing about Royal Doulton is that it's a factory with a fabulous reputation,
in spite of your slightly disparaging view of it, producing good quality marketable products.
And the Royal Doulton factory knew about selling what they made.
And for that reason they produced series of collector's items.
It's obvious, really. If you have one figure in your collection,
you want two. Then three.
Anyway, many of these figures sell for relatively small sums
and when I saw it when you first brought it in,
I thought we were looking at a figure for £30-£40.
But it turns out that it's quite a bit rarer than I originally thought.
It was modelled by a potter called Mary Nicholl.
And it came into production in 1955
and it ceased production in 1958 or 1959.
So it was in production for no more than three or four years
and that makes it rare.
And it is rarity that gives these items their value,
as you can imagine, really.
All Royal Doulton figures are marked in the same way.
They have the title. In this instance, The Tailor.
They have an HN number,
HN being the initials of Harry Noke, who was an early potter in the Doulton factory.
After the HN there is the number itself
and, in this instance, the number is 2174.
HN2174.
If I was to tell you that I think it might make £200,
would you suddenly start to like it?
It would make you want to sell it all the more, I suppose.
I don't blame you. Right.
I'm optimistic that it might make £200.
Have you got anything planned, plans for the money?
My husband and I are going on a French holiday so, you know, any bit of money will help.
That'll buy a couple of good dinners in an expensive Parisian restaurant!
I'd like to suggest a reserve of £150-£200.
-Seeing as I don't think it's price-sensitive to you...
-You'll be glad to see the back of it!
-Shall we put a reserve of 120?
-Just a covering reserve to make sure it doesn't sell too cheaply.
-So a reserve of 120.
-Great. I'll look forward to seeing you at the sale and let's hope it does much better!
'Sandra will be happy to see it go and even happier if she gets £200.
'Across the room, a young lady brought in by John and Pat has got David hot under the collar.'
Who's responsible? Who bought this?
Well, actually, it was given to us many years ago by my father.
-Know where he acquired it?
-No idea.
-Was he in the Forces?
-Yes, in the Merchant Navy.
In the Merchant Navy.
Did he ever go to central Europe, sort of Hungary, Czechoslovakia?
-I really don't know.
-We cannot answer that.
He went all over the place.
This is Hungarian. And it is signed here.
That's the surname of the artist, which is Kerenyi.
His Christian name is spelt J-E-N-O.
-Jeno Kerenyi.
-He had quite an interesting history.
Born in...1907. And he died in 1975.
So he had a long period of artistic achievements.
This dates from his early period.
This might have been his mistress!
If you think of what happened to Hungary, towards wartime and post-wartime,
it became dominated by socialism.
And a lot of his sculptures after WWII
were very much in the socialist manner - workers marching out to the fields with implements.
Solidarity, and the idea of the mass of workers supporting the state.
So he did a lot of sculpture in that form.
I think this is a wonderful work of art.
If you wanted to portray the sensual female figure, in all its glory,
-this is it, isn't it?
This languid female figure. If you think in terms of 1920s vamps.
And you think of dancers like Josephine Baker.
She's got all the movements of a very, very attractive woman.
This is not a one-off.
Bronzes are cast.
So several of these actually have appeared in sales.
There was one sold in 2001 for £3,000.
And then two years ago one was sold for £2,000.
I would think that this
would sell for round about £1,500-£2,000,
but we ought to put a reserve on that particular piece.
So when it comes up for sale, I would suggest a reserve of £1,600.
And I hope it goes above the £2,000 mark.
-Is that agreeable?
-Yes, it would be nice.
-Are you going to miss it?
I won't use the duster so very often!
That brings me to another point. If I look at this figure,
there are two highlights! I don't know who's responsible.
Not guilty!
That's me, unfortunately. I had been, I thought, rather careful
not to over polish.
'Let's hope their over polishing won't trouble the bidders too much.
'Next up, Pauline has brought in a charming silver ring.'
I love this ring.
-In the form of a stylised heart.
-It is.
Does that mean it was bought for you on a special occasion?
-I think it was bought in 1960.
-The year after we were married.
It might have been in my husband's romantic period!
Oh, dear! How long did it last?
-Maybe Valentine's Day.
-I like that.
"In his romantic period". Very good. Like Picasso's Blue Period.
Surely it has sentimental value?
It has, but I've very rarely worn it because it's very large
and my hands are very small.
I've not very long fingers.
I could imagine it on somebody
with lovely long fingers and beautifully-manicured nails
-and it'd look stunning.
-As you know, it was made by Georg Jensen,
the greatest, really, of 20th century jewellery designers,
-many people would say. Certainly the greatest Danish designer of jewellery.
Georg Jensen himself died just before the war,
but the factory continues to this day.
And this particular ring was designed
-by one of his assistants, a man called Henning Koppel.
Who was equally famous.
I think he was famous in his own right, really, as a designer.
Much admired.
-He won lots of awards in the '50s and '60s.
I love this stuff. I love it for its modern styling.
One sees a lot of Victorian jewellery,
one sees lots of Edwardian jewellery.
And, by comparison, come the time this was designed and manufactured,
-the modern movement is in full swing, really.
It's great and I'm sure it'll sell jolly well.
So if we estimate it at £100-£150,
and put a reserve of £100 on it,
because minimalist jewellery of this sort is so fashionable today,
I'm confident you'll get towards the top estimate or a bit more.
-You've got his permission?
-My husband is quite happy.
Considering it was bought for you in his romantic period!
-I hope he's not watching!
-He might start again!
His second romantic period. Starting soon. OK.
Look forward to lots more rings!
'Now for my favourite part of the show - let's head to the auction.
'Auctioneer Ian Morris is very impressed with one of our lots.'
It is a nice bronze. Good period. Lovely Art Deco period.
Bronzes, the lovely detailing, the lovely shape, lovely lines.
-Sexy lady.
-It's the kind of thing that will appeal to the market.
Signed as well. We've got everything there the buying public want.
Good period pieces of Art Nouveau, Art Deco,
seem to be selling certainly better than Victorian pieces.
Has this been heavily viewed and picked up?
It certainly has been viewed. There is some interest.
£1,600 is... probably towards the top end.
Quite a lumpy reserve. I'd like to think I'd get there.
Maybe a bit nip and tuck. Might just get there.
'Well, fingers crossed. We'll find out how it gets on later.
'Also about to go under the hammer is Sandra's Royal Doulton figurine
'and Pauline's charming ring.
'June's brooch, valued by David Barby at £40 to £50.
'First up, it's the ring.'
-It's time for it to go.
-It's very stylish.
-And sought after.
-I always think an item should speak of its period.
-It should look as if it was made in the 1960s
and not the 1860s. Jensen jewellery complies with that little rule.
Hopefully, it'll find a new home. It's a great name.
Quality always sells. That's the key. Here we go.
Lot 192 there. A Georg Jensen sterling silver ring with pierced heart decoration.
Can I say £100 away, please?
£50 to start me?
£50 I'm bid. At 50. 60 now.
-80. 90. 100.
-It's gone.
At £100, the bid's to my left. I'll take 110.
-At £100 I'm bid.
-A bit more!
At £100. Are we done? At £100.
-Bottom end.
-Bottom, though. Never mind.
This will go to my two grandchildren, their little pots of money.
-It will top up their fund.
-What a great grandma!
'I'm sure that Pauline's grandchildren will be very happy with £50 each added to their funds.
'Next up is Sandra's figure.'
-Who have you brought along?
-Barry, my husband.
-Pleased to meet you.
What do you think of this?
-I love it. I was at work when she brought it in!
-Now we're selling it!
-I hate it!
-Oh, dear. So you had to tell him?
-He knew.
-Was it a sad goodbye?
-It was a good meal!
We've got a valuation of £150-£200 and it's quite rare
-because it was only in production for three years.
-Yes, 1950s.
And sitting so quietly ever since.
It's a Royal Doulton figure. The Tailor. Quite a rare figure.
Lot 657.
Can we say 150 away?
£100 I've got. At £100. 110 to get on.
110. 120. 130. 140. 150?
He's had a bid on the book. Someone's left a bid.
At 140. The bid's on the books.
-At 140. 150 now? At 140.
-Come on. A bit more.
150. At 150. I can go to 155.
-At 155.
-It's doing all right.
155. 160 now?
At 155 I'm bid. 155.
At 155.
-Just in with a chance there. £155.
-Really pleased.
-Towards our holiday.
-To where?
-France.
-Normandy and Brittany.
-Enjoy it.
'Sandra has finally got rid of her figure and even husband Barry appreciates a bob or two.
'Next up, June's hoping her sparkly brooch will catch someone's eye
'when it goes under the hammer.'
June is not a silver girl, that's why you're selling
-the silver brooch. You are more gold?
-And you like your brooches.
-I do.
-Some people suit gold, you suit gold, I can see that.
I'm more silver, I've got some silver things on. What's David?
Pewter. LAUGHTER
He's already passed a remark today that I look rather grey.
I think you look good.
-Well, a bit of blue coming through there, though.
You normally wear brighter colours.
Well, yes, but I thought this was quite OK today.
So, are we selling this to buy some more gold jewellery?
No, no, I don't think it'll be quite enough,
but it'll go nice towards an evening out I think.
OK, well, good luck both of you.
This is something for the ladies
and I know there's hundreds here, so it should sell. Good luck.
Can I say £40 away? £40 away.
£20 I'm bid. At £20.
At £20 a bid, I'll take five now.
£20. 25. £30. 35.
-35, 40...
-Sold it.
At 35 seated, is it 40? 40.
At £40, 45. £50.
At £45 seated. At 45. If you're not, we're done, at £45.
-Yes. £45, we did it, June.
That sold really well, well done, David.
'Now it's the turn of that magnificent bronze figure,
'but are the bidders here?'
We've all been looking forward this one. We hope to get top end.
That wonderful bronze figurine. She has caused a lot of interest.
I had a chat to the auctioneer. We both agreed - absolute quality.
-And it's so nice, so sensuous.
-Very.
-Typical of the period.
-Now in the saleroom
-and possibly going to somebody else's front room.
The Hungarian bronze figure there. A naked exotic dancer.
Signed on the base. Lot 112.
Got a little bit of interest. Start at £1,000.
At £1,000. £1,000. And 50 to get on. And 50.
1,100. 1,150. 1,200. 1,250. At 1,250.
At 1,250. 1,300 right at the back.
Fresh legs.
1,400? 1,400.
1,400. 1,450. 1,500? 1,500.
1,500. 1,550. 1,600?
-1,600.
In the doorway. Is it 50?
1,650. 1,700? At 1,650 on the phone. At 1,650.
1,700? At 1,650 on the phone.
£1,650.
-That was exciting! That was brilliant.
-Not quite the top end, but happy.
-That was fine.
-What are you going to replace the figurine with?
Going to do some spending?
We'll move one of the other bronzes to the same place!
At least you've got a few!
That's it. It's all over. Another day in the auction room.
It's wonderful to be back home in Cornwall. The sun's shining
and we sold everything! So congratulations to everyone.
I hope you enjoyed the show. Keep watching for more surprises.
But for now it's cheerio. Proper job!
Truro Cathedral plays host to this episode of Flog It!, the show where members of the public turn up and have their antiques and collectibles valued by our team of experts, this time led by David Barby and David Fletcher. Paul Martin is the host with the most, taking the best items to sell at auction to the highest bidder. Paul also takes some time off to learn about one of the worst mining disasters in Cornish history, at the Levant Mine near St Just.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1087
|
__label__wiki
| 0.612398
| 0.612398
|
Home › Telcos › Going, going, gone: Vodafone NZ sold for $3.4b
Going, going, gone: Vodafone NZ sold for $3.4b
By Heather Wright - Assistant Editor on May 14, 2019 • ( 0 )
Vodafone has sold its New Zealand business to Kiwi infrastructure investment company Infratil and Canadian asset management firm Brookfield Asset Management in a NZ$3.4 billion deal.
Vodafone New Zealand chief executive Jason Paris dubbed the deal “the absolute best of both worlds for customers,” claiming it gave New Zealand’s number one mobile telco and number two fixed broadband player “the backing of two world class and long-term investors, while enabling it to still tap into Vodafone’s global expertise.”
Talk of a potential sale reignited last week when Infratil confirmed talks were taking place and a trading halt was put in place on the New Zealand Stock Exchange. Infratil owns airport, transport, electricity generators and retailers across Australia and New Zealand, including Canberra Data Centres, TrustPower – which as well as providing power is New Zealand’s joint fourth largest fixed broadband player with 5% market share – RetireAustralia and NZ Bus.
Brookfield, meanwhile has a focus on owning and operating assets in the infrastructure, real estate and renewable power markets and has more than US$365 billion in assets under management.
Vodafone NZ had been planning to list on the NZX after the New Zealand Commerce Commission axed its plans to merge with Sky TV.
The company had revenue of NZ$2.0 billion in the 12 months to March 31, 2019, with underlying EBITDA of NZ$463 million for the period.
Paris, who took on the top role with the telco late last year, says the key things – strategy, people, management team, brand and ability to tap into Vodafone’s global products and services – ‘remain the same’.
“What changes is our owners, who back our ambitious plans for New Zealand and who share our views on the importance of creating sustainable, long-term profitability in order to reinvest in the future. So it really is the best of global and local.”
Paris says the company will look to maximise the opportunities presented by new and emerging technologies, such as IoT, 5G, artificial intelligence and data analytics.
“And we know we have a lot of work to do to deliver more consistent customer service so we’ll focus even more on getting it right for our customers, first time, every time.”
Infratil says agreements in place with Vodafone Group – under which Vodafone NZ will become the company’s largest Vodafone Partner Market worldwide – will see global roaming remain in place while other services are expected to be transitioned away from Vodafone Group over the next one to five years.
In a statement to the NZX, Infratil says the acquisition of New Zealand’s leading mobile telco company is ‘transformational’ for Infratil and complements its acquisition of Canberra Data Centres in 2016.
Marko Bogoievski, Infratil CEO says Vodafone NZ was rigorously assessed over the past few months. “We have done an extensive amount of work to ensure we understand the opportunities available to the business, in particular, the ability to use next generation 5G technology to significantly enhance network capability and future services to Vodafone NZ customers,” he says.
Analysts have suggested the deal will provide Vodafone with the funding for a 5G build.
Bogoievski says the deal gives some local ownership to Vodafone NZ ‘which will be important in terms of how we work together to grow the business over the coming years’.
Vodafone NZ has been in the midst of a project to cut costs, return to business growth and improve customer experience. That project has seen a move to agile – including reportedly will see it cutting up to 400 staff from its nearly 3,000 strong workforce – and an IT simplification and automation program enabling customers to be set-up, served and billed from a single platform.
The deal is expected to complete in August, subject to regulatory approval from the New Zealand Overseas Investment Office and the Commerce Commission.
‹ Vertiv teams with Australian gov’t-approved ICT supplier SRA Solutions in IoT and smart city push
Huawei: commitment to UK delivers billions in economic benefits ›
Categories: Telcos
Tags: Vodafone NZ
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1089
|
__label__wiki
| 0.726484
| 0.726484
|
Miami Skyline welcomes Zaha Hadid’s One Thousand Museum
Add to Flipboard Magazine. Fuente: arch2o - View all news from this site
Zaha Hadid’s legacy continues with a curving structural “exoskeleton” that snakes in front of glass facades, One Thousand Museum joins a row of towers opposite Museum Park in Downtown Miami, Florida.
Its developers have marked the topping out ceremony by releasing a series of updated renderings showing its amenities, also designed byHadid, to offer a preview of life for future residents. Among the facilities will be a swimming pool at top of the building, to be covered by a curving, faceted metal ceiling that will reflect the water.
The double-height space is occupied by the pool on one side and a seating area on the other ? both with large expanses of glazing that offers views across the city and ocean. There will also be a bar for residents will be topped by a similar metallic canopy design. Other curvaceous forms in the project that are typical of Hadid’s style include a bent roof above the gymnasium, which appears to be made from wood.Comprising 5,000 pieces of lightweight glass-fiber-reinforced concrete, the building’s exterior formwork is a visible feature of many of the communal areas, covering the windows of the gym and sheltering the adjoining terrace. There will also be sunbathing areas beside the outdoor pool, raised on a podium that will contain parking, and public restaurants and retail.
Residents will also have access to a spa ? including sauna, steam room, and a rain shower ? a multimedia theatre and private dining room. A h...
Fuente de la noticia: arch2o
"Under-recognised" Itsuko Hasegawa wins inaugural Royal Academy Architecture Prize
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1092
|
__label__cc
| 0.582092
| 0.417908
|
Three cups of diddly-squat 2
Afghanistan is an American protectorate; its kleptocrat president is an American client, kept alive these last twelve years only by American arms. The Afghan campaign is this nation’s longest war — and our longest un-won war: That’s to say, nowadays we can’t even lose in under a decade. I used to say that, 24 hours after the last Western soldier leaves Afghanistan, it will be as if we were never there. But it’s already as if we were never there. The American imperium has lasted over twice as long as the Taliban’s rule — and yet, unlike them, we left no trace.
So Mark Steyn declares. “All we have built” he writes, “is another squalid sharia state” that practices the stoning to death of adulterers. And we can only nod in sad agreement.
In my book America Alone, I quoted a riposte to the natives by a British administrator. … The chap in question was Sir Charles Napier, out in India and faced with the practice of suttee — the Hindu tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Napier’s response was impeccably multicultural: “You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”
He praises Napier’s “cultural cool”. His confidence in the rightness of his own culture’s laws was “in the long run, more effective than a drone”.
India is better off without suttee, just as Afghanistan would be better off without child marriage, honor killing, death for apostasy, and stoning for adultery. …
The American way of war is to win the war in nothing flat, and then spend the next decade losing the peace. The American people have digested that to the point where they assume that … the next intervention [would be] a fool’s errand. The rest of the world grasps it, too. If Hamid Karzai treats Washington with contempt and gets away with it, why expect the Iranians to behave any differently?
A nation responsible for almost half the planet’s military spending goes into battle with the sentimental multiculti fantasist twaddle of Greg Mortensen’s Three Cups of Tea as its strategy manual — and then wonders why it can’t beat goatherds with fertilizer.
All true. But even if America did manage to put a stop to child marriage, honor killing, death for apostasy, and stoning for adultery in Afghanistan, wouldn’t they resume as soon as the last American troops left? As far as we know, suttee was not resumed in India when the British Raj came to an end. So Napier and his fellow administrators won the argument while they had the power to enforce their law. But that was India, a civilization. Who believes in an Afghan civilization – even if it has had periods with less stoning and more Western pop music in it?
Americans [might] sigh wearily and shrug, “Afghanistan, the graveyard of empire,” or sneer, “If they want to live in a seventh-century s***hole, f*** ’em.” But neither assertion is true. Do five minutes’ googling, and you’ll find images from the Sixties and early Seventies of women in skirts above the knee listening to the latest Beatles releases in Kabul record stores.
Those are undeniable signs of our culture, but are they the best we have to give for the improvement of barbarous s***holes? They are far from matching Napier’s gift to India. But nor are they the worst. What would be most representative of American culture now? The deeply depressing answer may have been given by the Obama Administration and the Pentagon: that cloying lying little book Three Cups of Tea.
Posted under Afghanistan, Britain, Commentary, India, Islam, jihad, United States, War by Jillian Becker on Friday, December 27, 2013
Tagged with America's longest war, Greg Mortensen, Hamid Karzai, Sharia in Afghanistan, Sir Charles Napier, stoning to death, suttee, The US in Afghanistan
Struggling with a culture called Islam 3
On September 1, George Will wrote that it was time to stop the war in Afghanistan. Broadly speaking, we agree with him – we have said that the war is pointless. (See A pointless war, August 20, 2009.) To us the most interesting part of the article was this:
The Economist describes Hamid Karzai’s government – – his vice-presidential running mate is a drug trafficker – – as “so inept, corrupt and predatory” that people sometimes yearn for restoration of the warlords, “who were less venal and less brutal than Mr Karzai’s government”.
We don’t trust the Economist, and the statement that people (who exactly? How does the reporter know?) yearn for the restoration of the warlords (did they ever go?) is prima facie unlikely. But that the Karzai government is corrupt, venal and brutal we fully believe. Also that his running-mate is a drug-trafficker. How many rich and influential Afghans are not well-connected to the opium industry, we wonder. And isn’t it like wondering how many rich and influential Saudis are not well-connected to the oil industry?
George Will’s article has been much discussed in the blogosphere. By far the best discussion of it, and of the Afghan war in general – the one with which we are in closest agreement – is by Diana West in Townhall:
Finally, some debate over U.S. war policy in Afghanistan. Or at least debate over George F. Will’s call to pull the plug on U.S. war policy in Afghanistan, headlined “Time to Get Out of Afghanistan.”
The negative response from conservatives was revealing. It showed that after eight years of America’s post-9/11 war efforts, which started out as President Bush’s vaguely named “war on terror” and never crystallized into a cogent strategy against the jihad driving the “terror,” ambiguity and confusion still cloud the prevailing thinking, from the conventional wisdom to war strategy.
Most conservative rebuttals ignored Will’s reckoning of just how grossly ill-suited Afghanistan is to the hallucinogenic U.S. policy of constructing a modern society out of dust as our military worms affection from a hostile population. Instead, they focused on the concept of leaving Afghanistan — a move I, too, have advocated since April in my column and at my blog as a necessary precondition to better repulsing global jihad. Such an effort is, or should be, a multi-level campaign to reverse jihad’s ultimate goal, which is to extend Islamic law by both violent and other means. In this larger context, Afghanistan is not only just one front, it is also a front too far.
Most of my conservative colleagues, however, see withdrawal from Afghanistan as surrender.
This assumption, based in the fallacy that U.S. forces are simply fighting an army called “the Taliban,” rather than struggling with a culture called Islam shared by enemy and civilian alike, makes sense only if withdrawing from Afghanistan means ending our efforts against global jihad. The point of withdrawal is not to stop destroying America’s active enemies in Afghanistan or elsewhere … The point of withdrawal is to stop trying to create an American ally out of Sharia-supreme Afghanistan, something we attempted at great expense in Sharia-supreme Iraq, and failed.
Of course, what animates and drives most conservatives today is their vision of Iraq as a “success,” and their desire to repeat that “success” in Afghanistan. What has become increasingly clear to me, however, is that an infidel nation cannot fight for the soul of an Islamic nation. This, in effect, is what our “nation-building” troops have been ordered to do both in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let me rephrase: An infidel nation can indeed fight for the soul of an Islamic nation. It just can’t win it.
It also turns out there is nothing there for infidels to win. After six U.S.-intensive years, Iraq remains just another OPEC-participating, Israel-boycotting, Hezbollah-sympathetic, Sharia-supreme, anti-U.S. entity with new and improved ties to Iran. Why? Our belief systems, Islam’s and the West’s, are so diametrically opposed that our interests cannot intersect. Left and Right in this country, however, scrub this truth and its centuries of confirming history from all policy — an antiseptic way to view conflict in the world that will always miss the cure by ignoring the germs.
On this count, Will’s column is no different, never once contemplating Islam. Which is why his conclusion may be a little fuzzy. Describing his “offshore” alternatives to basing a massive army inside Afghanistan, Will identifies the key mission as “concentrating on the porous 1,500-mile border with Pakistan, a nation that actually matters.”
I’m not sure what Will means by calling Pakistan “a nation that actually matters.” Certainly, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal “matters” because it could hurt us, and thus our national security demands an execution-ready plan to neutralize it. But Pakistan, a jihad-based culture, doesn’t “matter” in terms of fitting into an anti-jihad alliance — the ultimate goal, whether admitted or not, of efforts to work together. It can’t. Quick facts: Pakistan’s army’s motto is “Faith, piety and holy war in the path of Allah.” Seventy-eight percent of its people, the latest Pew Poll tells us, support the death penalty for leaving Islam. Not exactly our ideal match.
But we keep such politically incorrect facts out of focus. Then we struggle to see why things go wrong. More clarity is required. More debate is essential. Eight years after 9/11, this means finally reckoning with Islam — discussing jihad, analyzing Sharia, understanding dhimmitude — as a strategic factor in U.S. policy.
One thing we can be sure of: such a ‘reckoning with Islam’ will not happen on President Obama’s watch. He likes Islam.
Posted under Afghanistan, Commentary, Defense, Diplomacy, Islam, jihad, Muslims, Terrorism, United States, War by Jillian Becker on Saturday, September 5, 2009
Tagged with Afghan war, Diana West, George F. Will, Hamid Karzai, Iraq war, jihad, Pakistan, Sharia, The Economist, US foreign policy
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1093
|
__label__wiki
| 0.849289
| 0.849289
|
Health care, Investigations 07.03.2018
FDA Boss Confirms Opioid Crackdown Is Aimed at Cheaper Prescriptions, Too
“We need to give the criminal purveyors of these products no quarter,” Scott Gottlieb, FDA Commissioner, said.
By Michael McAuliff
Keeping International Pharmacies Under a Cloud Tarbell story on government collusion with pharma prompts call for DOJ investigation
FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb confirmed in a mostly secret summit on online opioid sales that his agency is not just targeting illicit trade in addictive painkillers, but stepping up enforcement aimed at other sorts of FDA-regulated products purchased on the internet.
Although Gottlieb did not specify those other products, Tarbell reported earlier this month that the FDA is dramatically ramping up interdictions of cheaper regular prescription drugs that Americans order online from overseas pharmacies.
Gottlieb cast the heightened enforcement primarily as targeting opioids, however, pointing last Wednesday to a recent FDA operation against nine online networks that allegedly offered the drugs.
“We need to give the criminal purveyors of these products no quarter,” Gottlieb said. “I don’t want to be caught again feeling like we’re one step behind a dangerous new turn in this crisis. And that’s why we’re going to hit back hard.”
Online opioid sales, however, account for only a small part of a crisis that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate claimed 42,249 lives in 2016. According to a 2017 study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only 0.1 percent of people aged 12 and up got their pain pills over the internet. The Internet Association — which attended the summit — told reporters in a conference call that data shows just 3.4 percent of people who abuse opioids get them online.
Scott Gottlieb, Commissioner of Food and Drugs, official portrait.
At the same time, while Gottlieb noted that the opioid crisis is evolving, it still has its roots in the over-prescribing of drugs legally manufactured and sold by the pharmaceutical industry. A recent CDC study found that doctors prescribe more than three times as many opioids as they did in 2000. Indeed, in 2015 it was enough to medicate the entire U.S. population 24 hours a day for three weeks straight.
According to Gottlieb, the vast majority of the FDA’s investigations still target non-opioids. Citing new statistics, he said that of 339 probes at U.S. ports of entry in 2017 by the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigation, 19 involved opioids. This year, with 167 investigations launched so far, 25 involve opioids.
The point of the summit was to put pressure on tech and banking companies to do more to make it harder to run illicit opioid operations online. But Gottlieb also made clear the investigation unit was not just focusing on opioids.
“OCI’s current investigations include the counterfeiting and illicit manufacturing of opioid products and other illicit pharmaceuticals being distributed on the surface web, as well as on the dark web,” Gottlieb said.
And he pledged that increased funding from Congress — including $94 million passed in March — would go to all the areas the FDA polices, not just the minority of cases involving opioids.
“We’ll use these new resources to interdict more illegal products flowing across our borders, including products ordered online, as well as shifting more of our criminal investigative resources to target these online sales,” Gottlieb said. “This is a conscious policy decision by the FDA, and we believe these online sales represent one of the highest areas of risk facing Americans right now.”
Most of the summit had originally been billed as being open to the public through a webcast. But reporters were excluded from the event and the agenda was revised shorty beforehand to stream only remarks by FDA officials.
Gottlieb said the discussions were closed in the interests of security and fostering an open dialogue among the participants, which included Google, Oath’s Yahoo, Microsoft’s Bing, Twitter, Facebook and others.
Many of the tech company participants are members of an organization called the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies, which was created by the pharmaceutical industry in collaboration with the Obama administration to crack down on attempts to use the internet to import prescription drugs from overseas.
Support journalism like this
The industry has long opposed such imports, which could cut into their bottom lines, on safety grounds. The rationale used to create CSIP was also centered on protecting Americans, except it was focused on regular prescription drugs before the opioid crisis.
A number of organizations funded and created by the pharmaceutical industry also attended the summit, including the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, which helped create CSIP.
The high level of secrecy appears to have stemmed from the tech companies’ concerns. Given a chance by Gottlieb to ask questions in one of the brief open portions, none of the dozens of representatives in the room took him up on the offer.
The FDA has yet to release its conclusions from the summit.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1098
|
__label__cc
| 0.535409
| 0.464591
|
TBI on the Hill
The politics of brain injury
Tax Returns Could Trump Trump’s Philanthropy Claims
Donald Trump often speaks of all the donations he makes to various charities. In January, Trump held a fundraiser for at least 40 veterans-focused nonprofits, which raised $4.5, $5.5, $5.6 or $6 million, depended on which member of his staff you ask and when you ask them. Some of this money was donated by Trump himself, with the majority of the money coming from fundraiser attendees. The Bob Woodruff Foundation received a check for $75,000, which Woodruff said, “We can put it to very good use to help our vets and their families.” Also, in May, “[Trump] gave $1 million to a nonprofit group helping veterans’ families.”
Recently, The Wall Street Journal looked into the history of donations from the self-proclaimed philanthropist to all charities throughout the years. The title of the article that followed this investigation is “Trump promised millions to charity. We found less than $10,000 over 7 years.” (I think the title of this story explains the findings of the Journal, although it can neither be proven nor repudiated without Trump’s tax returns.)
Posted in 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump
Money or Safety: Who Wins?
Mixed Martial Arts combines the skills needed in wresting, kickboxing and jiu-jitsu into one violent sport. In this century, MMA has gained popularity and consequently been legalized in most of America. This past week, the New York legislature, Governor Cuomo and the State Athletic Commission entered the cage.
While MMA matches have been going on in New York for some years, legalization means that there will be regulations. Specifically, these regulations include classifying 31 Acts that constitute a foul in the arena and would result in “disqualification from a mixed martial arts contest or exhibition… as determined by the referee.” Five of these fouls specifically involve violence to the brain: Butting with the head, striking to… the back of the head, kicking the head of a grounded opponent, kneeing the head of a grounded opponent, and spiking an opponent to the floor surface on his head or neck. Other rules are not specifically directed to the head, but could easily result in head trauma, such as “attacking an opponent on or during a break”. Additionally, “New York [is] to Require $1 Million Brain-Injury Coverage for Mixed Martial Artist,” to be provided by the promoters.
However, the safety of the athletes was not directly the reason of the legalization… it was the money. It is estimated that legalizing MMA will bring $140 million to New York in economic growth.
In covering this story, Forbes magazine notes that, “insurance doesn’t provide for fighter safety. It provides compensation after fighter safety has failed.” (On the other hand, the NYS Athletic Commission says it, “has taken another step toward ensuring the health, safety and integrity of its athletes and event.”) Some people still want the sport banned. Currently, the State is seeking comments from the public on this issue. The proposed legislation can be found on this link and comments can be submitted for review until August 27, 2016.
Posted in Politics/Sports
Conventions Are Staged, Too
Da na White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, is not an athlete, but he works in athletics. He is not involved in politics, but yesterday he spoke at the Republican National Convention. And Dana White doesn’t have a brain injury, but he makes sure other people do… And it’s with the help of Donald Trump that he can do this all.
In a 4 minute speech, White used the knowledge he acquired from acting as a Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) promoter, to promote Trump for President. He describes Trump as his friend, noting that, “Just for the record [he] has nothing to do with my business.” (To counter that statement, know that the first 2 UFC fights were fought at the Trump Taj Majal, and Trump continues to host UFC events at his Atlantic City casino.) He then goes into Trump’s three characteristics that will make him a great President.*
When UFC fighting first came out, in 1993, it was considered a blood-sport. The description of the sport is not simply rhetoric, as, after time in the ring, fighters drip with blood. Last year, Wanderlei Silva, a former fighter, claimed that the UFC fixes its games. (World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. admits to fixing their games.) However, if we accept the games as being fixed, that doesn’t make them any safer. For example, the comparatively tamer World Wrestling Entertainment is being sued by more than 50 former fighters for the brain trauma they suffered in the sport. Since the sport is essentially “fake”, being scripted and choreographed, the WWE is “directly responsible for wrestlers’ injuries”, according to the lawsuit.
According to a study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, about one-third of professional MMA matches end in knockout, indicating a higher incidence of brain trauma than boxing or other martial arts. “The researchers [of this study] at the University of Toronto proposed introducing rules like in boxing where a fighter gets a 10-second count and evaluated after a knockdown. They also proposed more training to help referees to identify fighters who are defenseless or have lost consciousness so they can stop fights more quickly.” This year, the UFC extended its partnership with the Cleveland Clinic in the “Professional Fighters Brain Health Study”.
Yes, the UFC is trying to better its sport, to prevent head injury thereby allowing athletes to stay in the sport longer. Technically, Trump is supporting this investigation. However, do you think that the man who likes to see head collisions in football wants to make the UFC safer? Will the sport continue to be as popular if its rings are not filled with blood after a fight, thereby decreasing his game sales? Assuming the UFC is here to stay, Trump needs to think about his point of view. It’s one thing to except that a sport is going to happen, it’s a whole other thing to give it a place to happen.
(Currently, in combat sports, there is a call from some for fighters to toss away their gloves and fight bare-handed. That call sounds awful and horribly unsafe, and would increase hand injuries. For the head, bare-handed fighting is actually safer (safer, not safe).)
*First, White says that Trump has excellent business instincts, presumably talking about his instincts with the UFC – even though, as White said, “[Trump] has nothing to do with it.” Second, Trump is a hard worker. Third, Trump is a loyal, supportive friend. Being a good friend is a great feature, but I’m not sure how it applies to the presidency, though there was talk about Trump buddying up with Putin.
Posted in 2016 Presidential Election, Donald Trump, Politics/Sports
PTSD = Police Trauma Stress Disorder?
My thoughts are with the Baton Rouge police today, 3 of whom were shot and killed and 3 others injured. With this, and the events in Dallas last week, I understand that many police officers, especially the survivors of these attacks, may be experiencing some form of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As President Obama said today, “Attacks on police are an attack on all of us.” My best goes out to the families of those who lost their lives protecting this country and to all police officers. I hope all Americans soon realize the good work that police officers, in general, do and that officers are given the respect that they deserve.
Posted in Miscellaneous, News
America’s Pastime Hopes to Make Concussions a Problem of the Past
He ran for the ball, knocking head-first into a concrete wall in a game versus the Washington Senators at Washington’s Griffith Stadium. He then lay on the ground, unconscious, for five minutes. Eventually, he arose, shook off the trauma and returned to play.
Such a story as the one above seems unfathomable in current athletics. Now, if a player is hit on the head and falls unconscious, he would never be permitted to return to play immediately and, most likely, would be taken to the hospital for neurological testing. However, this is what happened to America’s famed baseball player for the New York Yankees, Babe Ruth, in 1924.
Compared to many other sports, baseball does not have a high concussion rate. Between ten to twenty players are put on the disabled list yearly because of concussions. However, even one concussion is one too many. Most prone to concussions are outfielders and catchers.
Recently, this was brought to my attention because of the story, Ex-Met Josh Satin explains why retiring is ‘the right thing’ after suffering head injuries. Specifically, while playing for the Louisville Bats, the Triple-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, Satin collided with his team’s third baseman, as both were going for a pop fly. After being unconscious for five long seconds, Satin says he had a “weird feeling” and later was “never the same”. He further stated that his depth perception, once his best skill, never fully recovered. “The ball was always in a different spot than I thought.” (Officially diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Satin sat out most of last season.)
Similarly, in December 2012, Toronto Blue Jays’ utility player Ryan Freel, the first pro-baseball player diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) who had to retire from playing the sport because of his injuries, committed suicide. In 2013, Freel’s family donated some of his brain tissue to Boston University for study. Though Freel’s behavior after his accident pointed towards CTE, he was not officially diagnosed until this postmortem study.
Dr. Robert Stern, co-founder of the Center of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University, said, “I cringe [whenever] I see two guys going after the same ball.” The MLB has said, “[it] will remain proactive on concussion and head injuries.” Home plate collisions are no longer allowed and, in 2013, the MLB said it was instituting educational programs and rule changes to protect from concussions. The prior year, the MLB mandated that any player who suffers a concussion must be put on the “disabled list” for at least 7 days.
This year, Major League Baseball established a lobbying office in the District of Columbia. Lobbying is not new for the MLB, as they have always spent time and money lobbying, most notably in the 1998 – 1999 seasons when they spent $1.6 million on it. (In comparison, last year the MLB spent about $320,000 lobbying.) The office is run by Josh Alkin, a lawyer who, before the appointment as Vice President of Government Relations in this office, had been handling issues relating to the MLB for 15 years at the firm BakerHostetler. In 2013, the MLB also stated that it aims, “to remain proactive on concussions and head injuries.”
I don’t think there is a way to entirely eliminate concussions from baseball but the MLB has instituted mandatory educational programs and certain changes to the rules to minimize these injuries. It is a good sign that the MLB, as of this year, has a lobbying office in the country’s capital to address a wide range of key government-facing issues including player safety. With these steps, the MLB hopes to eliminate some concussions, but still keep the excitement of watching a game of America’s pastime.
“Hearing” Concussions
Though they are quite different on the surface, soldiers and college athletes both function in roles that can result in physical injury. Unfortunately, this commonality means that both soldiers and college athletes have a higher likelihood of getting a mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), also known as a concussion. Because of this, the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Agency (USAMMA) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) joined forces in a search to find a better way of detecting mTBI, which may not be immediately recognizable. The project, known as the “Grand Alliance”, is being conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s government-funded Lincoln Laboratory (MIT LL), with the goal of creating “a U.S. Food and Drug Administration-cleared, real-time mild TBI screening app and hardware device which can be used throughout the echelons of care from point of injury to rehabilitation,” said Brian Dacanay, USAMMA product manager. Essentially, they are in the process of creating “a computer algorithm to identify vocal biomarkers” to be used on a portable smartphone-size device that could help identify when someone needs medical help for a concussion. MIT LL hopes to have the device ready for FDA approval by 2018.
Posted in Government/Military, Government/Research, Politics/Sports
America’s BRAIN May Increase In 2017
In 2009, President Obama told the press that his administration will “restore science to its rightful place.” A list of 100 examples of this “restoration”, called the IMPACT REPORT, was published on June 21, 2016 by the White House press office. Example #45 on this list is the April 2013 launch of the BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Neurotechnologies) Initiative, which was begun in order “to develop neuro-technologies [to] uncover new ways to treat, prevent, and cure brain disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and traumatic brain injury.” This Initiative, funded jointly by the Federal government and private enterprises, was news when it first was started, but since then there have been few stories in the news and few statements from Obama himself discussing the Initiative’s studies or its findings.
Despite the lack of discussion about the program in the media, online you can find the benefits of the Initiative and its recent, but limited, successes. In March of this year, Obama proposed to increase the “Federal investment in the BRAIN Initiative from $300 million in fiscal year 2016 to $434 million in fiscal year 2017.” (In fiscal year 2013, when program started, BRAIN’s budget was $100 million.) Though the 2016 budget of $300 million seems high already, for the extensive studies the Initiative does, $434 million may be more appropriate. This funding for BRAIN has been provided by 5 federal agencies, DARPA, NIH, NSF, IARPA, and FDA, who also run the studies. In 2017, the President plans to increase this to 6 federal agencies, by adding the Department of Energy.
In looking through the National Institute of Mental Health, a subset of the NIH, BRAIN Initiative’s Science News page, I found only 4 press releases for 4 studies completed since 2013. Presumptively, that is because comprehensive medical studies often take years to complete and/or more completed study results can be found on other government websites. More financing may mean that the program can start and eventually complete additional studies, perhaps more quickly because it can add more manpower.
The study I found most intriguing was a study funded both by BRAIN and the Human Connectome Project, and completed in 2015, entitled “Our Brain’s Secrets to Success”. This study examines the cortex of 461 volunteers to see “how the human brain contributed to our success.”
As of July 7, the program has reported the results of one study in 2016, “Ketamine Lifts Depression via a Byproduct of its Metabolism,” with the purpose of finding a new, more effective anti-depressant by using metabolite, a byproduct of ketamine. (Ketamine is already being used for this purpose in many hospitals.) The results of this study, published in May, found that ketamine’s use as an antidepressant worked well in rats, but, while human trials with ketamine quickly relieved patient’s depression, it did not have lasting effects.
Posted in Government/Research
Patriotic Day Can Traumatize America’s Patriots
Fireworks may be the signature event of the 4th of July, but for those veterans who showed their extreme patriotism by serving on the front line, it may be the most emotionally painful day of the year. Research findings differ, but up to 20% of the more than 2.5 million veterans and troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are believed to have developed PTSD. “With PTSD, it’s an invisible wound. It’s a real physical change in our brain,” says Jeremy Clark, a former technical sergeant for the US Air Force who has both PTSD and TBI. He served in Iraq and was traumatized by the explosions of 14 roadside bombs during his service. Sam Deeds, a Marine Corps vet, says, “It’s like I’m getting blown up all over again.” A website (Military with PTSD) requests donations to provide free yard signs to veterans that say “Combat veteran lives here, please be courteous with fireworks.”
For non-veterans, fireworks can still be dangerous. The purchase of fireworks is illegal in some states and, even in states where the purchase of fireworks are legal, they should not be lit without proper knowledge on how to prevent injuries. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 230 people a year “celebrate” Independence Day with a visit to the emergency room because of fireworks-related injuries. To prevent injury from happening, the non-profit National Council on Fireworks Safety and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission both have instructions on how to use firework as safely as possible.
(In this post, I have talked about the dangers of fireworks. However, I think most veterans would say that fireworks are both a patriotic and enjoyable way to celebrate Independence Day. They probably wish they could still enjoy the fireworks on July 4th. Clark and Deeds have both found ways to prevent the noise and visuals that lead them to an automatic fight-or-flight reaction. I very much hope that vets with this issue can find ways to enjoy the holiday without exposing themselves to triggers.)
Posted in Government/Military
A brain injury can affect anyone. For this reason, TBI on the Hill strives to be nonpartisan.
Categories Select Category 2016 Presidential Election Awareness – Days/Weeks/Months Donald Trump Federal Law Government/Military Government/Research History Law Links Miscellaneous News Politics/Sports State Law
North Dakota Brain Injury Advisory Council
The Positive Side of Brain Injury (What?)
Follow TBI on the Hill on WordPress.com
Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, established 2001
Chaired by:
Rep. Bill Pascrell (NJ)
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) – Traumatic Brain Injury Information Page
Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC)
Resources by State
Select Patient Information:
Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA)
Kessler Foundation
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1100
|
__label__wiki
| 0.624749
| 0.624749
|
Social Finance Lands $77M From Baseline, Renren To Help Solve The Student Debt Crisis
Rip Empson @ripemp / 7 years
Student debt is a very serious problem that can no longer be ignored. Recently, student debt in the U.S. topped $1 trillion, eclipsing both national credit card and car loan debt. Naturally, a debt crisis of this proportion didn’t grow over night; it’s been coming for years. So, in 2011, a group of Stanford business school grads decided to start Social Finance, with the goal of transforming the student loan industry.
Many companies are addressing this problem, with varying degrees of success. But today, the young San Francisco-based company got a big vote of confidence from investors, as the company announced that it has raised $77.2 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Baseline Ventures, with participation from DCM and Renren, one of China’s largest social networking sites.
This is a huge round for such a young company, but there’s obviously a lot of confidence in SoFi’s leadership, which isn’t your average 20-something co-founding team fresh out of business school. The startup’s leadership is made up of veterans of the financial and software industries, including Nino Fanlo, the former executive vice president and treasurer of Wells Fargo, and Ian Brady, the former director of innovation for Fidelity Investments.
Again, there are a number of exciting startups and companies trying to attack the trillion-dollar student debt problem in the U.S., such as LoanLook, SimpleTuition, Tuition.io, and many more.
Like others in the space, SoFi is developing a lending solution that attempts to give students access to lower loan rates than the federal standards. However, SoFi believes that it can beat those offered by Federal Direct and PLUS loans while still offering quality borrower protections by creating significant social and economic connections with alumni investors. The interest rate on a federal Stafford loan will be 6.8 percent next year (assuming Congress doesn’t intervene) and Direct PLUS is around 7.9 percent, with private loan tools going as high as 16 percent. SoFi, in comparison, looks attractive with rates fixed at 6.49 percent, which can drop to 5.99 percent upon graduation, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Naturally, the startup will use its new infusion of capital to help finance its lending, build on this network base, and ramp up its outreach to student and graduate borrowers, as “it expands beyond 78 schools this fall.” This roster of schools includes Stanford, University of Michigan, Smith, and Swarthmore to name a few.
SoFi CEO Mike Cagney admits that the debt crisis is going to get worse before it improves, but he believes SoFi’s approach can work, because it creates a new market in which students can both finance their education and actually strengthen their connections to their schools’ alumni.
Beyond its “dedicated lending fund,” which aims to offer lower rates, the startup has created a social platform that combines online and offline connections to help educate students on financial literacy while offering career mentoring and “in-school project assistance,” according to the CEO. To date, the company says that it has generated more than $60 million in loan applications and is on track to commit more than $200 million in 2012.
SoFi’s approach aims to create value both for students and alumni. Students benefit from receiving advice on career decisions and, importantly, savings on loans, whereas alumni get to feel like they’re giving back by helping to finance those loans, while seeing better returns and adding value to their school’s community through the startup’s lending engagement model.
That’s SoFi’s value prop — or how it’s selling itself anyway. That it’s doing good for the school community, on top of helping students ease the pain on their wallets, all by leveraging social tech. This is where the interest from Renren (not your average lending investor) enters the picture. Renren CEO Joe Chen said in a statement that the company “closely observes and participates in other online businesses that are leveraging social to create, market, and distribute products at scale” and that SoFi brings the same factors to play on the intersection of finance and education.
What does that look like? One example SoFi has implemented is a “$100/$100 promotion,” wherein each completed refinance application that’s referred by a user means that both they and the person referred get a $100 check. A tried-and-true basic financial incentive. If the startup doesn’t work with a student’s school in particular, they can ask that the institution be added to SoFi’s network.
When the company started out, its inaugural loan program was a $2 million pilot at the Stanford graduate school of business. Thereafter, the startup has worked at becoming a national lender via state registration and has since created a broker dealer and added in-school and consolidation loans. The team hopes to begin offering a loan option for international students as well in the near future.
For more on the specifics, rates and details, check out SoFi’s FAQ here.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1103
|
__label__cc
| 0.742399
| 0.257601
|
About Vanginhoven Kristen
Kristen is co-founder and artistic director of WAM Theatre, a theatre company based in the Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Capital Region of New York State. WAM, inspired by the book “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, uses a unique double philanthropic model to use theatre to benefit women and girls. She is a member of Canadian Actor’s Equity Association and an associate member of the Society of Stage Director’s and Choreographers. Kristen has taught at Emerson College and Queen’s University and is a freelance theatre artist for ISTA, the International Schools Theatre Association.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1104
|
__label__wiki
| 0.872578
| 0.872578
|
A public forum for sports, politics and culture
The Chris Murray Report
Chris Murray on Radio
Photo Gallery: Michael Vick Returns to Atlanta
The Real Decision: Curt Flood’s fight against MLB’s Reserve Clause Opened the Door to Free Agency
Last year, millions of viewers were glued to ESPN for LeBron James’ “The Decision.”
Curt Flood's lawsuit against baseball's reserve clause paved the way for free agency in sports
When James, who was a free agent at the time, announced that he was going to join the Miami Heat, his “decision” was met with scorn and derision from sports fans, especially those from Cleveland who thought his departure from his old Cleveland Cavaliers squad was the ultimate betrayal.
Still other sports fans were outraged by him announcing his decision to play in Miami into an nationally-televised spectacle. But I think somewhere in the heavens there was somebody nodding his head in approval for James’ ability to pick and choose his own team.
That was something that the late Major League Baseball great Curt Flood could not do during his playing days with the St. Louis Cardinals. But his valiant, yet unsuccessful fight against the baseball’s reserve clause, in which a player was not free to negotiate with another team, ultimately paved the way for free agency not just in baseball, but in all sports.
The story of Flood’s fight against baseball’s reserve clause and his outstanding career was the subject of a recent HBO documentary, “The Curious Case of Curt Flood.” It’s something that I hope that sports fans of this era can put into a historical context the move that James made to join the Heat even if you weren’t happy with his decision.
What made Flood’s fight for free agency came at the cost to what was an outstanding career. He is one of the top center fielders of his era (1956-1971) when he challenged the legality of baseball’s reserve clause. He was a three-time All-Star, a seven-time Gold Glove winner, and batted .300 or better six times. He left the game with a .293 life-time batting average. As far as I am concerned those numbers definitely warrant Hall of Fame consideration.
The doors to Coopers town for Flood have been closed because he dared to challenge the baseball establishment. It’s also the reason why he should be in the Hall of Fame.
Flood’s place in baseball and sports history goes beyond what he did on the field. His legal challenge against baseball’s system of binding players to just one team for the life of their career galvanized the Major League Baseball Players Association to insist that free agency be included in the collective bargaining agreement with the owners. Five years after Flood challenged MLB in court, the reserve clause was lifted and free agency became the norm in baseball and in all sports.
In October 1969, Flood, along with three other players, were traded to the Phillies for legendary slugger Dick Allen and two other players. Because Philadelphia at the time was a team with a poor record and a fan base with a reputation for being belligerent and racist, Flood refused to report to the Phillies. In a letter he wrote to then MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn:
“After twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several States. . . . “I have received a contract offer from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decision. I, therefore, request that you make known to all Major League clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season.”
Rather than play for the Phillies, Flood, 31 at the time, courageously pursued his legal battle against MLB and sat out the 1970 season. In his legal challenge, Flood’s attorneys asserted that baseball’s reserve clause kept wages down and bound a player to just one team and violated the Sherman Anti-Trust Act . Kuhn said what Flood was doing was not good for the game.
The case eventually went all the way to U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 5-3 with one abstention in favor of Major League Baseball. Oddly enough, Flood’s challenge of the reserve clause exposed the exploitative relationship that existed between the baseball owners and its player. It spurred people like then MLBPA executive director Marvin Miller tho aggressively push for free agency in baseball.
Flood’s courageous fight against MLB was about athletes having some control over their destiny. His fight was also a reminder to the professional sports establishment that the fans come to see the players perform at a high level and the players should be treated not just as devalued property, but as a viable partner Athletes like James owe a great deal to Flood because he radically redefined the relationship between players and owners. And that’s the reason that Flood should be enshrined in Cooperstown.
While many of you, especially those who live in Cleveland, may despise James for jilting the Cavaliers, it was ultimately about his freedom of choice to find the best place for him to enhance his career.
That’s something Flood would definitely appreciate.
Categories Blogroll, Politics, Sports, Uncategorized
← Vince Young Wants to Take Advantage of Second Chance with the Eagles
Hall of Fame Selectees Should Be Chosen For What They Did on the Field →
76ers Basketball
Army-Navy
Baltimore Raven
College Footbal
Jim Caldwell.
Penn Relays
Phillies baseball
Race and Sports
Women's Final Four
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1109
|
__label__wiki
| 0.544375
| 0.544375
|
In Melendez v. S.F. Baseball Associates LLC, the California Supreme Court provides a good review of LMRA premption
I know. I know. There is no such thing as a “good” review of LMRA preemption. Or any form of preemption come to think of it. You’re right. Don’t read this case. But if you MUST read a case about LMRA preemption, or want a solid backgrounder on it, you could do worse than Melendez v. S.F. Baseball Associates LLC (April 25, 2019), in which the California Supreme Court clearly discusses the two-stage test for determining whether LMRA preemption under Section 301 applies:
Does the claim arise solely from independent state law, or is it based on the collective bargaining agreement (CBA)?
To resolve the merits of the claim, is it necessary to “interpret” a CBA’s terms, or merely “reference” a CBA?
This really is a straightforward discussion of the issue. If you are dealing with this issue for the first time, it is a good place to start.
The prevailing plaintiffs were represented by Dennis F. Moss, of Moss Bollinger (Dennis F. Moss arguing) and Sahag Majarian II.
In Class Actions: New Opinions, Class Actions: Pre-emption Tags California Supreme Court, Wage & Hour, Pre-emption, LMRA, Dennis F. Moss
In Ebner v. Fresh, Inc., the Ninth Circuit affirms dismissal of a putative consumer class action
September 27, 2016 H. Scott Leviant
The Ninth Circuit, by virtue of geography, periodically has to rule on claims based upon California's consumer protection laws. In Ebner v. Fresh, Inc. (Sept. 27, 2016), the Ninth Circuit reviewed a District Court's dismissal with prejudice of a putative class action alleging that the defendant deceived consumers about the quantity of lip balm in the defendant's product line.
In Class Actions: New Opinions, Class Actions: Consumer Issues, Class Actions: Pre-emption, Class Actions: UCL Tags Ninth Circuit, UCL, CLRA, FAL, Sherman Act, Consumer Law
Court of Appeal construes Labor Code section 2810, which authorizes suits against contractors by certain employees of subcontractors
Labor Code section 2810 states that "[a] person or entity may not enter into a contract or agreement for labor or services with a construction, farm labor, garment, janitorial, or security guard contractor, where the person or entity knows or should know that the contract or agreement does not include funds sufficient to allow the contractor to comply with all applicable local, state, and federal laws or regulations governing the labor or services to be provided." Section 2810 is a fairly new statute, and one that had not been the subject of any Court of Appeal decision. But in Castillo v. Toll Brothers, Inc. (July 28, 2011), that changed. I could tell you that this very exciting opportunity to read an opinion in a truly novel area of law prompted my review of the case. But, in truth, it was just the defendant's name that caught my eye.
In any event, the trial court, dealing with summary judgment motions and lots of supplemental briefing, evidently had its hands full with a large number of arguments intersecting Labor Code section 2810. The Court of Appeal commended the trial court's diligent efforts:
The order is a masterful synthesis of a sprawling factual record, reflecting the court's careful work with the parties over the course of several months. We recount the decision in some detail because it forms the foundation for our own ruling.
Slip op., at 6.
A key legal issue addressed in the appeal was determination of whether minimum wage or local prevailing wage sets the standard for insufficiency. The Court also clarified that actual labor cost, and not the base wage, sets the correct standard.
As to the standard for insufficiency, the Court held that the "minimum wage" sets the standard:
Plaintiffs' position is untenable because there is no general law requiring an employer to pay its workers the average local wage for a particular skill or trade, if that average wage is higher than the legal minimum. Merely to pay less than the prevailing wage therefore violates no law. In the absence of a local, state, or federal law requiring the payment of a wage higher than the legal minimum, a contract cannot be insufficient under section 2810 merely because it does not provide sufficient funds to pay that higher wage, since section 2810 imposes nothing more than compliance with legal requirements.
Slip op., at 14. (Note: Earlier in the opinion the Court clarified that "minimum wage" would depend upon the industry and wage order at issue in a particular case.) While this soundbite quote seems clear enough, the opinion goes on for pages, reviewing legislative history and addressing, in detail, the contentions of the plaintiffs regarding the correct measure of sufficiency of funding.
On the second issue, the Court observed that compliance with all laws sets the standard for compliance, which requires analysis of total labor cost, not just the wage that would be paid to employees:
Because an employer is required to pay all of these costs to comply with applicable laws when employing a laborer, it is appropriate to use the total labor cost, rather than the worker‘s wage, in determining sufficiency under section 2810.
The second half of the opinion addresses (1) the sufficiency of evidence for summary judgement purposes on the issue of whether specific contracts were sufficiently funded, and (2) some over-reaching pre-emption arguments by Toll Brothers. If that stuff floats your boat, this is a page turner.
In Class Actions: New Opinions, Class Actions: Pre-emption, Class Actions: Wage & Hour, Complex Litigation: Summary Judgment Tags Court of Appeal, Summary Judgment, Wage & Hour
More on AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion
May 4, 2011 H. Scott Leviant
Unless you've been living in a compound, off the grid with no internet access in a medium sized city outside the capital of a troubled nation in South Asia, you undoubtedly are aware of the Supreme Court's decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (April 27, 2011). For a number of reasons, which I will revisit obliquely in a moment, I decided against providing any immediate analysis. Apparently this silence was disconcerting to some, as several readers actually inquired about my silence. Beginning first with a synopsis, here are some, but not all, of my comments on Concepcion.
The result was all but pre-determined by the way in which the issue was framed: "We consider whether the FAA prohibits States from conditioning the enforceability of certain arbitration agreements on the availability of classwide arbitration procedures." Slip op., at 1. But Justice Scalia, writing for the Court, went ahead with the rest of the opinion. The Court summarized the findings in the courts below:
In March 2008, AT&T moved to compel arbitration under the terms of its contract with the Concepcions. The Concepcions opposed the motion, contending that the arbitration agreement was unconscionable and unlawfully exculpatory under California law because it disallowed classwide procedures. The District Court denied AT&T’s motion. It described AT&T’s arbitration agreement favorably, noting, for example, that the informal disputeresolution process was “quick, easy to use” and likely to “promp[t] full or . . . even excess payment to the customer without the need to arbitrate or litigate”; that the $7,500 premium functioned as “a substantial inducement for the consumer to pursue the claim in arbitration” if a dispute was not resolved informally; and that consumers who were members of a class would likely be worse off. Laster v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 2008 WL 5216255, *11–*12 (SD Cal., Aug. 11, 2008). Nevertheless, relying on the California Supreme Court’s decision in Discover Bank v. Superior Court, 36 Cal. 4th 148, 113 P. 3d 1100 (2005), the court found that the arbitration provision was unconscionable because AT&T had not shown that bilateral arbitration adequately substituted for the deterrent effects of class actions. Laster, 2008 WL 5216255, *14.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed, also finding the provision unconscionable under California law as announced in Discover Bank. Laster v. AT&T Mobility LLC, 584 F. 3d 849, 855 (2009). It also held that the Discover Bank rule was not preempted by the FAA because that rule was simply “a refinement of the unconscionability analysis applicable to contracts generally in California.” 584 F. 3d, at 857. In response to AT&T’s argument that the Concepcions’ interpretation of California law discriminated against arbitration, the Ninth Circuit rejected the contention that “ ‘class proceedings will reduce the efficiency and expeditiousness of arbitration’ ” and noted that “ ‘Discover Bank placed arbitration agreements with class action waivers on the exact same footing as contracts that bar class action litigation outside the context of arbitration.’ ” Id., at 858 (quoting Shroyer v. New Cingular Wireless Services, Inc., 498 F. 3d 976, 990 (CA9 2007)).
Slip op., at 3. At this point, I parenthetically comment as follows: "Right."
After describing the "liberal" federal policy favoring arbitration agreements, the Court described the savings clause of the FAA thusly:
The final phrase of §2, however, permits arbitration agreements to be declared unenforceable “upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” This saving clause permits agreements to arbitrate to be invalidated by “generally applicable contract defenses, such as fraud, duress, or unconscionability,” but not by defenses that apply only to arbitration or that derive their meaning from the fact that an agreement to arbitrate is at issue. Doctor’s Associates, Inc. v. Casarotto, 517 U. S. 681, 687 (1996); see also Perry v. Thomas, 482 U. S. 483, 492–493, n. 9 (1987). The question in this case is whether §2 preempts California’s rule classifying most collective-arbitration waivers in consumer contracts as unconscionable. We refer to this rule as the Discover Bank rule.
Slip op., at 5. California law includes an unconscionability defense to any contract. The consumers in Concepcion argued that this generally applicable defense, and California's general policy against exculpation, are not arbitration-specific, and even if they are, the same principles apply to any dispute resolution contract. The Court commented:
When state law prohibits outright the arbitration of a particular type of claim, the analysis is straightforward: The conflicting rule is displaced by the FAA. Preston v. Ferrer, 552 U. S. 346, 353 (2008). But the inquiry becomes more complex when a doctrine normally thought to be generally applicable, such as duress or, as relevant here, unconscionability, is alleged to have been applied in a fashion that disfavors arbitration. In Perry v. Thomas, 482 U. S. 483 (1987), for example, we noted that the FAA’s preemptive effect might extend even to grounds traditionally thought to exist “ ‘at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.’ ” Id., at 492, n. 9 (emphasis deleted). We said that a court may not “rely on the uniqueness of an agreement to arbitrate as a basis for a state-law holding that enforcement would be unconscionable, for this would enable the court to effect what . . . the state legislature cannot.” Id., at 493, n. 9.
Slip op., at 7-8. Before this decision was rendered, I knew that the outcome is dependent upon how you choose to look at the situation. It is very subjective. If one views a policy against exculpation as a policy applicable to all contracts, it is arbitration neutral. If one views a policy against exculpation as directed at arbitration agreements, it would be invalidated under just that logic. When the outcome is so subjective, the result is highly dependent upon the predilictions of the majority.
The Court then did something that I find highly inconsistent with Justice Scalia's professed refusal to consider legislative intent and other indicia of legislative meaning. The Court restricted the FAA's savings clause to preclude any generally applicable contract defense that might interfere with the FAA (which begs the question of what defense that overcomes an arbitration agreement does not do so):
Although §2’s saving clause preserves generally applicable contract defenses, nothing in it suggests an intent to preserve state-law rules that stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the FAA’s objectives. Cf. Geier v. American Honda Motor Co., 529 U. S. 861, 872 (2000); Crosby v. National Foreign Trade Council, 530 U. S. 363, 372–373 (2000). As we have said, a federal statute’s saving clause “ ‘cannot in reason be construed as [allowing] a common law right, the continued existence of which would be absolutely inconsistent with the provisions of the act. In other words, the act cannot be held to destroy itself.’ ” American Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Central Office Telephone, Inc., 524 U. S. 214, 227–228 (1998) (quoting Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U. S. 426, 446 (1907)).
Slip op., at 9. After spending some time criticizing the dissent for disputing the majority's characterization of the legislative purpose in passing the FAA, the Court rejected the Discover Bank rule as a rule interfering with the FAA. In doing so, the Court candidly declared all consumer contracts to be contracts of adhesion:
California’s Discover Bank rule similarly interferes with arbitration. Although the rule does not require classwide arbitration, it allows any party to a consumer contract to demand it ex post. The rule is limited to adhesion contracts, Discover Bank, 36 Cal. 4th, at 162–163, 113 P. 3d, at 1110, but the times in which consumer contracts were anything other than adhesive are long past.
Slip op., at 12. Troubling comment pepper the Court's opinion. For instance the Court observes, "And faced with inevitable class arbitration, companies would have less incentive to continue resolving potentially duplicative claims on an individual basis." Slip op., at 13. So what this evidently means is that, if a company faces only sporadic, individual challenges to its misconduct, it will have some incentive to buy those few people off, but if it faces a whole class, it will fight tooth and nail to retain its ill-gotten goods. Charming. What a great reason to favor arbitration agreements and bar class actions.
Wrapping up, the Court said, "States cannot require a procedure that is inconsistent with the FAA, even if it is desirable for unrelated reasons." Slip op., at 17. One might observe two things at this point: (1) There is a notable absence of conservative protection of federalism where the federal government is imposing dispute resolution procedures on state law claims in state courts, and (2) setting aside the unconstitutionality of federal interference in state dispute resolution procedures related to their substantive law, the federal government can certainly impose procedures that are inconsistent with the FAA.
Justice Thomas "reluctantly" concurred. In his view, "As I would read it, the FAA requires that an agreement to arbitrate be enforced unless a party successfully challenges the formation of the arbitration agreement, such as by proving fraud or duress." Slip op., concurrance, at 1-2.
Justice Breyer delivered the dissenting opinion, crisply defining the subjectivity of this debate in his summary of the issue:
The Federal Arbitration Act says that an arbitration agreement “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” 9 U. S. C. §2 (emphasis added). California law sets forth certain circumstances in which “class action waivers” in any contract are unen forceable. In my view, this rule of state law is consistent with the federal Act’s language and primary objective. It does not “stan[d] as an obstacle” to the Act’s “accomplishment and execution.” Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941). And the Court is wrong to hold that the federal Act pre-empts the rule of state law.
Slip op., dissent, at 1. The dissent found good support for its position in other California decisions:
The Discover Bank rule does not create a “blanket policy in California against class action waivers in the consumer context.” Provencher v. Dell, Inc., 409 F. Supp. 2d 1196, 1201 (CD Cal. 2006). Instead, it represents the “appli cation of a more general [unconscionability] principle.” Gentry v. Superior Ct., 42 Cal. 4th 443, 457, 165 P. 3d 556, 564 (2007). Courts applying California law have enforced class-action waivers where they satisfy general uncon scionability standards. See, e.g., Walnut Producers of Cal. v. Diamond Foods, Inc., 187 Cal. App. 4th 634, 647–650, 114 Cal. Rptr. 3d 449, 459–462 (2010); Arguelles-Romero v. Superior Ct., 184 Cal. App. 4th 825, 843–845, 109 Cal. Rptr. 3d 289, 305–307 (2010); Smith v. Americredit Financial Servs., Inc., No. 09cv1076, 2009 WL 4895280 (SD Cal., Dec. 11, 2009); cf. Provencher, supra, at 1201 (considering Discover Bank in choice-of-law inquiry). And even when they fail, the parties remain free to devise other dispute mechanisms, including informal mechanisms, that, in context, will not prove unconscionable. See Volt Information Sciences, Inc. v. Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 489 U. S. 468, 479 (1989).
Slip op., dissent, at 2-3. The dissent then questioned the majority's asseration that individual, rather than class, arbitration is a "fundamental attribute" of arbitration:
When Congress enacted the Act, arbitration procedures had not yet been fully developed. Insofar as Congress considered detailed forms of arbitration at all, it may well have thought that arbitration would be used primarily where merchants sought to resolve disputes of fact, not law, under the customs of their industries, where the parties possessed roughly equivalent bargaining power.
Slip op., dissent, at 6. If fact, the dissent spent a good deal of time challenging the assertions of the majority, which appear thinly supported in some areas:
the majority provides no convincing reason to believe that parties are unwilling to submit high-stake disputes to arbitration. And there are numerous counterexamples.
Slip op., dissent, at 8. And the dissent also observed:
Because California applies the same legal principles to address the unconscionability of class arbitration waivers as it does to address the unconscionability of any other contractual provision, the merits of class proceedings should not factor into our decision. If California had applied its law of duress to void an arbitration agreement, would it matter if the procedures in the coerced agreement were efficient?
Slip op., dissent, at 9. It is with irony not lost on me that the dissent concluded as follows:
[F]ederalism is as much a question of deeds as words. It often takes the form of a concrete decision by this Court that respects the legitimacy of a State’s action in an individual case. Here, recognition of that federalist ideal, embodied in specific language in this particular statute, should lead us to uphold California’s law, not to strike it down. We do not honor federalist principles in their breach.
Slip op., dissent, at 12. So Concepcion ends with the "liberal" justices decrying the death of federalist principles. I think we need to revisit the "strict constructionist" labels that get tossed around. Maybe Posner really has it right when he says, essentially, that every judge does whatever they damn well want, reverse engineering a justification that makes them feel good about their decision.
I've seen a number of theories floated around for responding to Concepcion. In Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188 (1977), the Supreme Court oexplained how the holding of a case should be viewed where there is no majority supporting the rationale of any opinion: “When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of [the majority], the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.” Marks, 430 U.S. at 193. I don't think it likely that California courts will parse the holdings of the Court and the concurring opinion for a narrower holding. Justice Thomas said that, even though he differs slightly in the reasoning, the result will generally be the same. Marks isn't going to accomplish what plaintiffs would like it to accomplish.
Calling for legislative action is just silly. Either something gets through Congress or it doesn't. If it does, it may moot all of this, but the assumption must be that it won't. With that in mind, non-legislative responses to Concepcion should occupy the plaintiffs' class action bar.
I've suggested on several occasions that I favor the argument that the FAA is unconstitutional when applied to state law claims in state courts. I believe, and will believe even if a Court says otherwise, that the FAA is exclusively a procedural statute regulating how substative claims are to be resolved. Unless the federal government would purport to pre-empt contract law of the states, a dubious effort in its own right, I believe the Commerce Clause goes too far when it treads upon the sovereignty of states deciding their own dispute resolution procedures. Procedural rules are no place for some form of partial pre-emption. But I also doubt that any Court would have the stomach to declare the FAA unconstitutional as applied to state law claims in state courts.
I have a project in the works that may affect how far Concepcion applies in, at least, the wage & hour context. Once it is in the can and safe from intermeddlers, I'll report in detail on that project and what I view as better ways to keep Concepcion in its proper place.
In Civil Procedure: California Courts, Civil Procedure: Federal, Class Actions: New Opinions, Class Actions: Arbitration, Class Actions: Consumer Issues, Class Actions: General, Class Actions: Pre-emption Tags Arbitration, Discover Bank, FAA, Gentry, Preemption, United States Supreme Court
Breaking News: Supreme Court invalidates Discover Bank in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion
Today, in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion (April 27, 2011), the Supreme Court held, 5-to-4, that California's Discover Bank rule is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. What a thing to wake up to after sleeping extra to try and recover faster from being sick. I'll write more about the deaths of class arbitration and state's rights later. So much for federalism. This is truly the era of the Central Planning Bureau.
In Civil Procedure: California Courts, Civil Procedure: Federal, Class Actions: Arbitration, Class Actions: Pre-emption Tags Arbitration, Discover Bank, Preemption
Chinese Wang decision is big news
October 6, 2010 H. Scott Leviant
Wrong, but necessary somehow. A little later than promised, but Wang v. Chinese Daily News, Inc. (9th Cir. Sept. 27, 2010) has too much going on not to receive some additional attention. At the outset, Wang was a basic wage & hour case. The plaintiffs alleged that employees were made to work in excess of eight hours per day and/or forty hours per week. They alleged that they were wrongfully denied overtime compensation, meal and rest breaks, accurate and itemized wage statements, and penalties for wages due but not promptly paid at termination. The subsequent procedural twists and turns were anything but standard. But despite the many moving parts in the decision, the Ninth Circuit summarized the case in a few sentences:
The district court certified the FLSA claim as a collective action. It certified the state-law claims as a class action under Rule 23(b)(2) and, alternatively, under Rule 23(b)(3). In the state-law class action, it provided for notice and opt out, but subsequently invalidated the opt outs. It granted partial summary judgment to plaintiffs; held jury and bench trials; entered judgment for plaintiffs; awarded attorney’s fees to plaintiffs; and conducted a new opt-out process. CDN appeals, challenging aspects of each of these rulings, as well as the jury’s verdict.
Slip op., at 16393. After the trial court certified a narrowed class under Rule 23(b)(2) (finding that injunctive relief was on "equal footing" with monetary relief), the trial court approved a notice that authorized class members to opt into the FLSA action and out of the state law-based class action. The notice precipitated the first major upheaval in the case:
Forms were mailed to 187 individuals, and notice was posted and forms made available at CDN’s Monterey Park facility. Plaintiffs received back about 155 opt-out forms, including 18 from individuals not on the original list of class members. Plaintiffs filed a motion to invalidate the opt outs, for curative notice, and to restrict CDN’s communication with class members. On June 7, 2006, the court granted the motion, finding that “the opt out period was rife with instances of coercive conduct, including threats to employees’ jobs, termination of an employee supporting the litigation, the posting of signs urging individuals not to tear the company apart, and the abnormally high rate of opt outs.” Wang v. Chinese Daily News, Inc., 236 F.R.D. 485, 491 (C.D. Cal. 2006). The district court deferred any future opt-out procedure until after the trial on the merits.
Slip op., at 16395. Facing cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court then ruled that news reporters were not exempt professionals. Next, the matter proceeded to a trial. The defendant contended that only the FLSA claims should be tried and that UCL claims were pre-empted by the FLSA, but the trial court elected to retain supplemental jurisdiction, rejected the pre-emption argument and tried the state law claims as well.
The Court of Appeal first tacked the exemption analysis. After examining decisions from other Circuits, the Court concluded that the reporters did not satisfy the creative professionals exemption.
Although the evidence submitted revealed disputes over how to characterize CDN’s journalists, we agree with the district court that, even when viewing the facts in the light most favorable to CDN, the reporters do not satisfy the criteria for the creative professional exemption.
Slip op., at 16400. Next, the Court examined whether the trial court had applied the correct criteria for determining whether certification under Rule 23(b)(2) was appropriate. The Court concluded that, although the matter was decided prior to Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 603 F.3d 571 (9th Cir. 2010) (en banc), the trial court applied essentially identical standards and correctly decided the issue.
The Court then turned to the invalidation of opt-outs. The Court first held that a trial court's authority to regulate class communications and the notice process implicitly confers that power to take corrective action when that process has been tainted. The Court then considered whether the evidence submitted was sufficient to support the trial court's decision. The Court noted in particular the evidence submitted by a class action notice company regarding normal opt-out rates:
Finally, plaintiffs submitted a declaration from the president of a class action notice company explaining that ordinarily opt-out rates do not exceed one percent. In this case, the district court found that current employees opted out at a 90 percent rate, whereas former employees opted out at a 25 percent rate.
Slip op., at 16407. After concluding that the decision to invalidate the opt-outs was supported, the Court examined whether deferring a new opt-out period until after the trial was appropriate. Again the Court noted the trial court's broad discretion to regulate the notice process: "The ordinary procedure is to give notice at the time of class certification. But the rule does not mandate notice at any particular time. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(2)." Slip op., at 16408. The Court then affirmed the trial court's conclusion that it was necessary to delay a new notice and opt-out process in order to avoid the taint imposed during the initial process.
Finally, after observing that the evidence supported the jury verdict regarding meal periods under either the "provide" or "ensure" standards currently up for review by the California Supreme Court, the Court ended its Opinion by explicitly holding what most courts in the Ninth Circuit had already concluded: the FLSA does not preempt state law claims like the UCL.
In Civil Procedure: Federal, Class Actions: New Opinions, Class Actions: Certification, Class Actions: FLSA, Class Actions: General, Class Actions: Pre-emption, Class Actions: UCL, Class Actions: Wage & Hour Tags FLSA, Ninth Circuit, UCL, Wage & Hour
Breaking News: Ninth Circuit issue two class action opinions addressing novel issues in the Ninth Circuit
After a bit of a lull on the class action front, the Ninth Circuit had a busy morning. Two major opinions on class action issues were just issued by Ninth Circuit panels, and both opinions are sure to generate a good deal of discussion. Both address areas of unsettled law among various federal courts. The first is of interest to wage & hour practitioners and the second addresses the argument that large statutory damage awards defeat "superiority" of the class action procedure:
Wang v. Chinese Daily News, Inc. (9th Cir. Sept. 27, 2010) is something of a kitchen sink of class action issues. Among other things, the Ninth Circuit affirmed (1) the concurrent prosecution of a FLSA opt-in collective action and a Rule 23 opt-out class action, (2) the invalidation of Rule 23 opt-outs due to coercion, (3) the decision to conduct a corrective opt-out process after the trial, and (4) certification under Rule 23(b)(2). The Court also held that the UCL was not preempted by the FLSA.
Bateman v. American Multi-Cinema, Inc. (9th Cir. Sept. 27, 2010) concerned the singular issue of a class certification denial on superiority grounds. The Ninth Circuit concluded that none of the three grounds relied upon by the district court — the disproportionality between the potential statutory liability and the actual harm suffered, the enormity of the potential damages, or AMC’s good faith compliance — justified the denial of class certification on superiority grounds.
Both opinions are substantial, and I will try to give both an extended treatment this evening. Full disclosure: Greg Karasik of Spiro Moss represents Plaintiff Bateman.
In Civil Procedure: Federal, Class Actions: Damages, Class Actions: New Opinions, Class Actions: Consumer Issues, Class Actions: FLSA, Class Actions: General, Class Actions: Pre-emption, Class Actions: Superiority, Class Actions: UCL, Class Actions: Wage & Hour Tags Consumer Law, Ninth Circuit, Wage & Hour
California Supreme Court activity for the week of September 1, 2010
September 1, 2010 H. Scott Leviant
The California Supreme Court held its (usually) weekly conference today. Notable results include:
A Petition for Review was granted in Parks v. MBNA (May 12, 2010) (whether state statute establishing a disclosure requirement for preprinted checks constitutes an impairment of the power of the issuing bank sufficient to trigger preemption under the National Bank Act)
A Request for Depublication was denied in Bomersheim v. Los Angeles Gay And Lesbian Center (May 26, 2010) (reversed denial of class certification in a negligence class action)
In Class Actions: Consumer Issues, Class Actions: General, Class Actions: Pre-emption, Court News Tags California Supreme Court
Ninth Circuit: Court faced with question of first impression when asked to construe CCRAA
August 23, 2010 H. Scott Leviant
In a suit alleging violation of the California Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act (“CCRAA”), Cal. Civ. Code § 1785.1 et seq., the Ninth Circuit, in Carvalho v. Equifax Information Services LLC (9th Cir. Aug. 18, 2010), faced a question of statutory interpretation not yet answered by a California Court. Explaining its task, the Court said:
The California courts have yet to consider whether a plaintiff must demonstrate that a disputed item is inaccurate to obtain relief for a violation of the CCRAA’s reinvestigation provisions. However, because the CCRAA “is substantially based on the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, judicial interpretation of the federal provisions is persuasive authority and entitled to substantial weight when interpreting the California provisions.” Olson v. Six Rivers Nat’l Bank, 3 Cal. Rptr. 3d 301, 309 (Ct. App. 2003) (internal citations omitted).
Slip op., 12117. After examining how federal courts approached the same question under the FCRA, the Court concluded that "inaccuracy" would be a requirement of a claim arising under California's CCRAA:
“We generally adhere to the maxim of statutory construction that similar terms appearing in different sections of a statute should receive the same interpretation.” United States v. Nordbrock, 38 F.3d 440, 444 (9th Cir. 1994); see also Chiang v. Verizon New Eng. Inc., 595 F.3d 26, 37 (1st Cir. 2010) (deeming the term “inaccurate” in section 1681i(a) to be “essentially the same” as the term “incomplete or inaccurate” in section 1681s-2(b)). Moreover, we operate under the assumption that California courts would interpret the FCRA and CCRAA consistently. See Olson, 3 Cal. Rptr. 3d at 309. Accordingly, in considering whether Carvalho’s credit report was inaccurate within the meaning of the CCRAA, we are guided by Gorman’s “patently incorrect or materially misleading” standard.
Slip op., at 12119.
The Court also rejected a preemption argument, finding that the savings provision of the FCRA would not have saved a state law violation statute if the state law remedy were not also available.
In Class Actions: New Opinions, Class Actions: Consumer Issues, Class Actions: Pre-emption, Ninth Circuit Tags CCRAA, Constitutional Law, FCRA, Ninth Circuit
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1112
|
__label__wiki
| 0.965616
| 0.965616
|
Arms trade, Politics
Fife arms firm wines and dines UK ministers
A US arms firm based in Fife has held 84 meetings with the UK government since the Tories came to power.
Raytheon has wined and dined powerful MPs and treated a minister at the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to a traditional Burns Supper.
The US multinational, which has been linked to alleged war crimes in Yemen, has had 11 hours of meetings with the Prime Minister’s office, according to Campaign Against Arms Trade.
Raytheon produces guidance systems for Paveway IV smart bombs at its factory in Glenrothes, which have been supplied to Saudi Arabia and used in Yemen’s war.
The Saudis have been accused of dozens of war crimes piling pressure on the UK government to suspend arms sales to its ally, as Germany did recently.
But the government has refused to stop selling bombs, prompting widespread criticism and allegations of UK complicity in war crimes.
Ministers have now been accused of kowtowing to corporate interests after intense lobbying by Raytheon.
Yemen: hundreds of alleged war crimes but only 79 investigations
The firm’s meetings with government included 41 when the Defence and Security Organisation was present, a body that exists solely to promote arms exports.
In August 2018 Raytheon hosted a dinner with Stuart Andrew MP, the Minister for Defence Procurement, while in July they met with former Minister for Defence Procurement, Guto Bebb.
These meetings followed a Burns Supper in January when Raytheon hosted Mark Lancaster, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces.
Three senior MoD officials have ended up working at Raytheon, including the former acting director of the ministry’s Saudi Armed Forces Project. The board chairman of Raytheon UK is a Tory peer, Lord Strathclyde.
Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said: “Raytheon is a disgraceful and morally bankrupt company. Its weapons have been used in atrocities and have had a devastating impact around the world. Its bombs and missiles are playing a central role in the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen.
“Despite its long and shameful history of arming and supporting human rights abusing regimes and dictatorships, Raytheon enjoys extremely high level access to the corridors of power.
“The company can only get away with the terrible things it does because of the complicity and support of arms dealing governments. It’s time to end the cozy relationship between Westminster, Whitehall and those that fuel and profit from war.”
Scottish Greens international relations spokesperson, Ross Greer MSP, said: “It’s no surprise that a Tory government at Westminster treats arms dealers and the brutal regimes they supply like dear friends. That does not make these new revelations any less appalling though. It’s time the intimate access these dealers of death receive to the UK government is cut off completely and their sales licenses revoked.”
Raytheon is one of the sponsors of an international arms fair in Britain this week with the Royal Saudi Land Forces listed as a guest,
Other states with dire human rights records due to attend the International Armoured Vehicles Conference at Twickenham Stadium in London include the UAE and Turkey.
Raytheon has received £200,590 in grants from Scottish Enterprise in recent years. In 2016 The Ferret reported the company’s previous hospitality for ministers.
US arms firm linked to alleged war crimes had 57 private meetings with UK Government
The firm employs more than 700 engineers, programme managers and scientists in Glenrothes and its contribution to the UK economy is around £700 million each year.
A UK government spokesperson said: “It is entirely normal for ministers to meet with suppliers to the government.”
Raytheon declined to comment.
A version of this story was published in the Sunday Mail on 20 January 2019.
US arms firm linked to war crimes taught in schools 81 times
Fife arms firm fails to boycott Saudi summit over journalist murder
Arms sales to Yemen slammed as report claims war crimes cover-up
Italian arms firm linked to ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Syria has visited Scots schools 17 times
Campaign Against Arms Trade
Ross Greer
Call made for improved out-of-hours mental health care in prisons
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1113
|
__label__wiki
| 0.909667
| 0.909667
|
Articles, Film, Pop Culture
Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters Resurected
January 16, 2019 Carl Roberts Leave a comment
Jason Reitman to direct secret Ghostbusters sequel with his father, Ivan Reitman serving as Producer for a 2020 release
Fantastic news has hit the wires today. Jason Reitman, son of the famous writer/director Ivan Reitman has confirmed that in 2020, the world will finally get to see the long-gestating Ghostbusters III. Freed from development hell after what seems like an eternity, the world of the Proton pack wearing scientists will again grace our screens worldwide.
Jason Reitman will be taking over the directorial reins from his father and will co-write the upcoming film. Reitman has stated that the film will be the next chapter of the original 1980s franchise and will have nothing to do with the derided 2016 all female attempted reboot. The film will be set in the present day. Reitman has stated his respect for the 2016 version, saying that director Paul Feig and actresses Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Leslie Jones and Kate McKinnon created a wonderful version and he would love to see more stories set in their franchise. However, he feels that he is more tied to the original franchise (Having made a cameo in the second film as the kid who says the Ghostbusters are full of crap) and will follow the trajectory of the original film.
It’s too soon to know the plotline of the new film or if any of the original cast will return in their respective roles (Harold Ramis sadly died in 2014) in any capacity, whether they will pass the torch to a new generation or if they pop up in crowd-pleasing cameos as they did in the 2016 reboot. Also, no news yet on who the new characters will be or who will be playing them. News on that will follow soon hopefully.
I enjoyed the 2016 version for what it was. I’m not one of those people who derided the film for having a female cast as it was a fresh take on the theme in my opinion (and Kate Mckinnon is one of the finest comedic actresses around today), it’s just a shame it wasn’t a bit more. It had the potential but was slightly lacking. However, it was a pretty good film in its own right. But then again, I’m one of the people who grew up in the 80s watching the original films so I may be slightly biased on any reboot or remake.
In my opinion, this is a great piece of news. And it would be fantastic to have what remains of the original cast front and centre of this third instalment, even if it’s only to pass the torch to a younger generation. I’d love to see Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts and Rick Moranis return for another go around. Sadly though, those dreams may be dashed. Rick Moranis has retired from acting after a tragic family bereavement and it’s been well documented about Bill Murray’s reluctance to return as Peter Venkman. It was a coup for the 2016 version to get him to make a cameo appearance in the film, however, I fear he will decline an invitation to return and the filmmakers will have to work around that.
All I can ask and hope for is a return to the original comedic, fun tone the original films had. CGI will inevitably play a huge part in the special effects needed for the film but hopefully will not rely on them too much. Go back to using purpose-built creatures like the cab driver from the original film. It would also be to the advantage of the film if they asked Dan Aykroyd to contribute to the screenplay, either with new material or use any of his material he has written for his own take on a third film. To have one of the original writers involved will enrich the script and help nail the tone and content of the new film. And get actors and actresses that will nail the roles and believe in the work who can carry the franchise forward to greater heights. In addition (and this could be considered controversial), attempt to bring in the female cast of the 2016 version as their respective characters. Have the two franchises combine forces, even if it’s just for a brief scene or a crowd-pleasing final showdown with the main villain may even elevate the film higher. And this is a must-have, get the films score composer to use Elmer Bernstein’s score from the 1984 original film as the main basis for the music. Obviously, they add their own music to it but Bernstein’s score SHOULD be the heart of the new film.
More details will become available as and when they are released to the media and to the world. But this is the news we have long hoped for. Finally, the Ghostbusters will return where they belong, on the big screen and all we can hope for is that the film is done right, brings back the charm and sheer enjoyment of the original and is the film the franchise and we, the audience deserve.
Until next time…We’re ready to believe you!
EntertainmentGhostbustersGhostbusters IIIIvan ReitmanJason ReitmanMoviesSony Pictures
Previous PostStar Wars | Should Anakin Skywalker Return in Episode IX?Next PostStar Wars: Episode IX | The Plot Thickens
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1114
|
__label__wiki
| 0.591309
| 0.591309
|
How Cancer Unleashed a Dog Book for Children That Features a Same-Sex Couple
March 21, 2016 By The Next Family
By Geri Gale/ The Seattle Lesbian
I am a poet and have been told that people take my work out like they would a snifter of Grand Marnier and sip it because it’s so rich. But everything changed on December 6, 2012, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer – the same day Seattle issued its first same-sex marriage licenses.
I’ve been with my partner, Patty Kunitsugu (a.k.a. PK), for 36 years. When we first met in Seattle, being a lesbian on Capitol Hill was an underground existence, and living the lives of lesbians was a struggle that we navigated through together via the strength of our love and commitment to each other.
The synchronicity of life has a way of creating stories.
My children’s story, Alex: The Double-Rescue Dog, came to life during my 24 chemo treatments at Swedish Cancer Institute. For six months, every Friday, I sat in a chair looking out a window with a view of the city, while a nurse manually administered the chemo into my body via a catheter tube connected to a port attached to a large vein. It was an intimate experience, and when she was done, there was a period of silence. I was left alone, waiting for the liquids to flush out and hydrate my system and waiting for any negative reactions to the chemo.
People seldom talk about a condition called chemo brain, but it most definitely exists. For everyone it’s different. For me, it was a change in my writer’s voice. Poet and novelist Jack Remick tells me that all true artists follow their various veins. As the chemo shot through my veins, the esoteric, poetic voice had drifted away and an unadorned, softer writer’s voice emerged.
The story is based on true events that unfolded a few years ago when people began losing their jobs and abandoning their dogs on the streets. Alex was one of those dogs. Homeless, he sought refuge in a wobbly box by the river – until he was picked up and transported thousands of miles. Landing in the parking lot of a Chinese restaurant in Seattle – he was the last dog to be rescued – by his two moms.
I’ve always joked about lesbians and their overwhelming love for their dogs. While there are themes of love, hope and overcoming obstacles, it also comes from a place of humor. There are not a lot of books for children of same-sex partners, let alone including four-legged friends, and I’m happy to introduce this story to the world. It’s not only for children of same-sex partners, but also for dog lovers, those coping with cancer, and everyone in between.
As I underwent my cancer treatment, it became clear while PK and I rescued our scruffy, pink-eyed dog, Alex made his own rescue in return, with his unmitigated love and affection helping me find my way through such a difficult time.
Illustrator Pamela Farrington of Velvet Design Studio and I thank you for your support. In turn, we are delighted to donate a portion of the proceeds from this book to PAWS and the Swedish Cancer Institute.
Find the book here: Alex: The Double-Rescue Dog.
Geri Gale’s book, Patrice: a poemella, was awarded the 2015 Silver IPPY Award for GLBT Fiction. Pamela Farrington, owner of Velvet Design Studio, illustrated Alex: The Double-Rescue Dog. Geri and her partner PK were issued marriage license #357 on December 6, 2012.
Gay Couple Continues Traditions With Parents in Hershey’s Holiday Commercial
The Pope, Disabled Super Heroes, & a Trans Novel Make Children’s Books News
The Next Family Goes Christmas Tree Shopping
Financial Assistance for LGBT, Single, Modern Prospective Parents
Supreme Court of Arkansas Says Non-Bio Lesbian Moms Can’t Be Listed on Birth Certificates
Filed Under: Entertainment, Featured Tagged With: #childrensbooks, #lesbianmoms, #modernfamilies, #samesexcouples, books, cancer, Dogs, Family, LGBT, reading
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1119
|
__label__wiki
| 0.666287
| 0.666287
|
Top 10 Ex-Gay-Related Events of 2009
Wayne Besen December 31, 2009
Wh ile 2009 will be remembered for the worldwide economic recession, for the ex-gay industry, it will be known as The Great Moral Depression. It was a dreadful year for such programs, as they showed themselves to be a global menace run by reprobates, such as Exodus’ Randy Thomas and Alan Chambers, who combined a dangerous dose of arrogance and incompetence. Much like the Roman Catholic Church, these men ignored a credible allegation of abuse for more than six months and engaged in a dangerous game of denial.
Whatever shard of credibility this industry had was stripped away in 2009. It was a year where such programs were harshly rebuked by the mental health establishment. An important new study showed that their retrograde methods of shame and blame harmed LGBT people. The old, outdated research that they stubbornly latched onto for dear life seemed to betray them and then vanish into thin air.
Several “ex-gay” heroes turned out to be zeros and slithered away into the mist. The past 12 months, if anything, unmasked the facade of “love” this industry cynically showers on potential clients and an often gullible media. In 2009, the world saw ex-gay programs for what they are: A sugar coated excuse for homophobia.
Exodus was revealed as a front for international hate groups, who used the group’s credulous leaders as pawns in an international struggle for theocracy. PFOX stepped forward and showed, time and again, that it was just plain nuts.
NARTH put out an embarrassingly shoddy “study” that was so pathetic it was virtually ignored by the media. By the end of 2009, NARTH had solidified its place as a cabal of embittered and irrelevant quacks on the far outer fringes of psychology. Homosexuals Anonymous was, well, anonymous. The Catholic ex-gay group Courage also had a meager profile and had little impact on popular culture. And, JONAH, the Jewish ex-gay group, continued to humiliate itself through its affiliation with crackpot Born Again sexual reorientation coach Richard Cohen.
May 2010 bring the same abundance of truth and light regarding the ex-gay fraud we had in 2009. Here are the Top 10 ex-gay related stories of the year. Please feel free to comment on any major items I may have missed.
10) The Passing of The Old Guard
Focus on the Family co-founder James Dobson announced that he was stepping down. He was an arch-homophobe who once claimed allowing gay people to marry would end the earth. Under Dobson’s leadership, this mega-ministry started the ex-gay roadshow Love Won Out. Dobson’s retirement represents the winding down of the old guard. This includes the passing of other ex-gay proponents or anti-gay preachers such as Rev. Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy and Oral Roberts. A new generation of Evangelicals will hopefully join the reality-based community and break with the past. However, there is reason to be skeptical, considering the leader of the pack is Rick Warren, who isn’t too much better than his predecessors.
9) The Fizzling Out of Michael Glatze and Stephen Bennett
Michael Glatze (left) was formerly co-editor of XY Magazine and YGA Magazine, publications directed at LGBT youth. He and his partner of ten years, Benjie Nycum, also co-authored the book XY Survival Guide.
Glatze’s ventures went belly-up and he seemed to disappear from LGBT activism. He reemerged in July 2007 with a disgusting op-ed on the extremist website WorldNetDaily, where he announced he was “ex-gay” (although he had no experience with women)
Glatze alleged sexual conversion seems, in part, to have come from a sort-of nervous breakdown. He reported that he suffered from frequent panic attacks and that he obsessed about death.
In late September, Glatze contacted me, hoping that I would interview him and reinvigorate his flagging career as an “ex-gay”. I refused to oblige his publicity stunt, and so did LGBT advocates at other sites.
Glatze’s downfall came when he opened an incoherent vanity blog and wrote:
“Have I mentioned lately how utterly *disgusting* Obama is? And, yes, it’ because he’ black. God, help us all….It’ a shame Obama is black. He could end up setting back race relations decades.”
Condemned for his idiotic comment about President Obama, Glatze sent out a rambling e-mail announcing his career as an ex-gay spokesperson had fizzled and he was retiring. Chalk Glatze up to a pitiful flash in the pan.
Similarly, 2009 was the year that big haired ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett (left) completely vanished from the scene. And, Anthony Falzarano’s (founder of PFOX) attempted return to the spotlight also petered out.
8) The Lisa Miller Kidnapping and Abduction Case
Lisa Miller broke up with partner Janet Jenkins (Right) after becoming a born again “ex-gay”. In a fit of holier-than-thou zeal, Miller went on the lam and absconded from Vermont with their child, Isabella, that the couple was raising together after having a Civil Union.
As a result of Miller’ poor parenting and criminal behavior (she was cited for contempt of court), a Vermont court transferred custody to Jenkins (after a five year legal ordeal that will surely leave emotional scars on their child Isabella) and refused a motion to delay transfer, as requested by Miller’ law team.
People for the American Way’ Right Wing Watch reports that the location of Miller and 7-year-old Isabella Miller are presently “unknown”. This is highly problematic because the court order takes effect on New Year’ Day.
Janet Jenkins filed a missing person report in Virginia on Wednesday in hopes of finding her 7-year-old daughter, according to her lawyer. Unfortunately, Miller’s outlaw behavior has been cheered on by ex-gay activists who want to pretend they are martyrs, rather than criminal miscreants.
7) The Caitlin Ryan Study
The January 2009 issue of Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics reported on a new study by San Francisco State researcher Caitlin Ryan. Her research concluded that, “Teens who experienced negative feedback (when they came out as LGBT) were more than eight times as likely to have attempted suicide, nearly six times as vulnerable to severe depression and more than three times at risk of drug use.”
This definitive study was hugely important because it contradicted the claim by “ex-gay” activists that homosexuality was the root cause of such problems. Indeed, it was ex-gay programs – the epitome of negative feedback – that led to the destruction of LGBT people.
6) Exodus Bungles Corduroy Stone Scandal After TWO Exposes Abuse
Exodus International officially cut ties with its Lansing affiliate Corduroy Stone after charges were made by an ex-gay survivor that the sessions included harmful and bizarre therapy.
In August, Patrick McAlvey made the charges against Corduroy Stone’s Mike Jones in a Truth Wins Out video. At the age of 19, McAlvey, who came from a religious background, was terrified that he might be gay. Feeling vulnerable and desperate to change, he placed his trust in Mike Jones and Corduroy Stone.
“He asked how large my penis was,” McAlvey explained of Jones’ therapy. “He asked if I shave my pubic hair. He asked what type of underwear that I wore.
He wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him and the type of men I’m attracted to. On one occasion, he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do.”
Tragically, it took Exodus until December to take action and cut ties with this renegade ministry. Exodus’ dithering in the face of scandal cost precious time and may have placed additional youth in harm’ way. This was a key episode in 2009 because it underscored how Exodus has little control over its satellite ministries and each one is an independent fiefdom with its own rules and techniques. Exodus is no more than a Wild West and an unprofessional hodgepodge of fundamentalist pop-psychology combined with spiritual warfare and efforts to pray away the gay.
5) Ex-Gay Charlatan Matthew C. Manning Unmasked As A Fraud
A report by the website, “Ex-Gay Watch” cast a dark cloud of skepticism over “ex-gay” activist Matthew Manning’ tale of being “delivered” from homosexuality and AIDS. According to the report, Manning has been repeatedly dragged into court for allegations of inappropriate behavior and was even banned from a popular gym after improper sexual advances were made on a 22-year-old heterosexual male. Manning, a frequent television guest and the founder of Lighthouse World Evangelism Inc., based in Santa Rosa, California, has yet to comment on the allegations made in the investigative report.
4) Focus on the Family Abandons “Love Won Out” Road Show
Focus on the Family held its final Love Won Out conference in Birmingham, AL, after pawning the program off on Exodus International. The notorious road show was sold under duress, in the midst of financial trouble for the mega-ministry based in Colorado Springs. Love Won Out was started by “ex-gay” organizer, John Paulk, who I photographed in a Washington, DC gay bar in Sept. 2000.
Although Focus on the Family will still work with Exodus, the sale of this conference suggests disenchantment with the ex-gay message. If it were working and people were still being fooled, there is little chance that Focus on the Family would have dumped a program so central to its anti-gay work. This development does not bode well for the long-term future of Exodus and may signal that ex-gay propaganda is losing sway and in decline with larger fundamentalist ministries.
3) Infamous Masters & Johnson Study Debunked
For decades, anti-gay organizations have gleefully pointed to Masters & Johnson’s 1979 book, “Homosexuality in Perspective”, that claimed to cure homosexuality. Indeed, Dr. William H. Masters and Virgina E. Johnson, the husband and wife sex research team, went on Meet the Press on Sunday, April 22, 1979, to discuss their finding that homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals. The book has since been used by the so-called “ex-gay” industry to “prove” gays could go straight, if they just tried hard enough.
In his groundbreaking new book, “Masters of Sex”, author Thomas Maier discovered through investigative reporting that the results of Masters & Johnson’s study were entirely fabricated. Virginia Johnson acknowledged that the results were fake. She had actually argued in 1978 that book should never have seen the light of day – but it was already too late in the publishing process to undo the damage. One can not overstate the importance of Maier’s findings. They undo the very underpinnings of the so-called “ex-gay” therapy movement, further showing that there is no scientific evidence or data to support the outdated idea that gay people can become heterosexual through therapy. Indeed, many people who have undergone such “treatment” claim the experience was harmful and that they were psychologically damaged. The American Psychiatric Association says that attempts to change sexual orientation can lead to “anxiety, depression and self-destructive behavior.”
2) Landmark American Psychological Association Report
The American Psychological Association adopted a resolution and released a historic report that explicitly says that “there is insufficient evidence” for therapists to claim conversion therapy works. The APA report also admonished so-called “ex-gay” counselors to not mislead clients by telling them that their sexual orientation can be changed.
The APA report cast doubt on efforts to change sexual orientation and said, “Enduring change to an individual’ sexual orientation was unlikely.” It also questioned the objectivity of some counselors promoting “change” programs and cautioned them to not “prioritize one outcome over another.”
1) Ex-Gays Directly Tied To Uganda Anti-Gay Death Bill
(Ex-Gay Activists Living Large In Uganda)
In the history of the “ex-gay” industry – Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009 is a defining event. It is a grotesque tragedy that lives in infamy and will eternally tarnish and haunt America’s “ex-gay” activists – even if the bill does not pass. The role of so-called “ex-gays” highlights how such programs are cynically used by hate groups to justify bigotry, oppression and even violence against LGBT people.
Exodus leaders, Randy Thomas and Alan Chambers, are either complicit in the Ugandan witch hunt or they are silly dupes, easily manipulated and exploited by their more cunning fundamentalist friends. Either way, both men should resign immediately for their role (witting or unwitting) in this potential blood bath.
In March, American anti-gay activists traveled to Uganda for a conference that pledged to “wipe out” homosexuality. Seven months later, a draconian bill has been introduced that pledges to make good on this threat. The “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009” is so severe that it is designed to shred the spirit and suffocate the soul of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Ugandans. If it passes, Uganda will become a predator state that actively hunts down GLBT people to destroy them.
Uganda already punished gay intimacy with life in prison. But, apparently that was not harsh enough, with this bill penalizing anyone who “attempts to commit the offence” with up to seven years in jail. Additionally, a person charged will be forced to undergo an invasive medical examination to determine their HIV status. If the detainees are found to be HIV+, they may be executed.
This barbaric legislation stifles free speech by threatening anyone who is accused of “promoting” homosexuality with five to seven year prison sentences. Snitching on gay friends and family members is strongly encouraged because “failure to disclose the ‘offence’ within 24 hours of knowledge makes somebody liable to a fine or imprisonment of up to three years.”
Sadly, this witch-hunt has the blood stained fingerprints of leading American evangelicals. The Fellowship, (aka The Family) one of America’s most powerful and secretive fundamentalist organization’s, converted Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni to its anti-gay brand of Christianity, which is the “intellectual” impetus behind the anti-gay crackdown.
The origins of this disgusting murder bill are traced back to a notorious anti-gay conference held in Kampala last Spring. The seminar featured Scott Lively, author of The Pink Swastika, who blames the holocaust on gay people.
The hate forum also featured Don Schmierer, a board member of the “ex-gay” organization Exodus International, and Caleb Lee Brundidge, who works with discredited ex-gay “reorientation coach” Richard Cohen. These American “ex-gay” activists clearly left their stamp on this evil legislation, giving Ugandan officials a way to justify the abuse because they can claim that “sinful” gays can choose to change.
“This legislation further recognizes the fact that same sex attraction is not an innate and immutable characteristic and that people who experience this mental disorder can and have changed to a heterosexual orientation,” the bill said. “It also recognizes that because homosexuals are not born that way, but develop this disorder based on experiences and environmental conditions, it is preventable, especially among young people who are most vulnerable to recruitment into the homosexual lifestyle.”
If this is not a smoking gun, than what is?
Following the infamous conference, a Kampala newspaper named local gay people, placing their lives in immediate danger. Now, the government may soon declare it open season on GLBT individuals.
The Uganda legislature is currently debating this evil bill. The lives and freedom of tens of thousands of LGBT Ugandans hang in the balance – thanks to America’s “ex-gay” industry.
** Manifested Glory Ministries Excorcism
** Box Turtle Bulletin’s excellent coverage of events in Uganda
** Porno Pete Anthem by the Cross Eyed Iguanas
** Focus on the Family Slammed For Distorting research
** Actor Glenn Shaddix Comes Out About Experience With “Ex-Gay” Shock Therapy
** The Catholic Church’s increased involvement with Anti/Ex-Gay Activity
** The Manhattan Declaration
Alan ChambersAmerican Psychological AssociationAnthony FalzaranoAnti-Homosexuality BillAPABox Turtle BulletinCourageDon SchmiererExodus InternationalFocus on the FamilyGreg QuinlanHomosexuals AnonymousJerry FalwellJohn PaulkLove Won OutManhattan DeclarationMasters of SexMatthew ManningMichael GlatzeNARTHPeter LaBarberaPFOXRandy ThomasRobert GeorgeStephen BennettUgandaWayne Besen
Wayne Besen is the Founding Executive Director of Truth Wins Out and author of “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the Ex-Gay Myth” (Haworth, 2003). In 2010, Besen was awarded the “Visionary Award” at the Out Music Awards for organizing the American Prayer Hour, an event which shined a spotlight on the role American evangelicals played in the introduction of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1121
|
__label__cc
| 0.543316
| 0.456684
|
Tag: tallest
Rare Color Footage from the 1930s of the Tallest Person in Recorded History
Robert Wadlow (1918-1940) stood 8 feet 11 inches (2.72 m) and weighed 491 pounds
Putting Big Things in Perspective by Comparing Them To Something More Familiar
Prehistoric scorpions the size of a house cat? Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope
First-Person POV: Climbing the Tallest Skyscraper in Korea
Daredevils Vitaliy Raskalov and Vadim Makhorov scale the 555 m (1,821 ft) Lotte World Tower in Seoul, South Korea
Picture of the Day: Just the Base of an Oil Platform Being Towed Out to Sea
Nicknamed ‘Bullwinkle’, the steel base alone is 1,352 ft tall and is regarded as one of the greatest engineering feats of the 20th century
Troll A – The Tallest Structure Ever Moved by Mankind
Located about 80 km off the west coast of Norway is ‘Troll A’, a colossal natural gas platform and the tallest structure ever moved by mankind.
Teton Gravity Debut First-Ever Ultra HD Footage of Himalayas Above 20,000 ft
The aerial cinema experts at Teton Gravity Research release the first ultra HD footage of the Himalayas shot from above 20,000 ft. with the GSS C520 system, the most advanced gyro-stabilized camera system in the world. Filmed from a helicopter with a crew flying from Kathmandu at 4,600 ft. up to 24,000 ft. on…
This is What an 81 degree, 325 ft Drop at 95 mph Looks Like
An incredible first-person POV of the first test run on the Fury 325 roller coaster at Carowinds Park. Debuting this spring, Fury 325 will be the world’s tallest & fastest ‘giga’ coaster (a type of roller-coaster with a height or drop ranging from 300 ft to 399 ft and completes a full circuit). The…
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1125
|
__label__wiki
| 0.503678
| 0.503678
|
Latest Alumni Stories & News
Alumni Couple Serve Cat Lake First Nation Community
Alumni Spotlight Author: J.R. Fehr ('09)
Love began in the cafeteria
When Jonathan Larsh (’04) and Katie Symonds (’05) met for the first time as students working in the cafeteria, it was clear they had something special. In addition to the many things they had in common, both of them dreamed of working in ministry.
They fell in love, and the summer after Jonathan graduated, they were married. But because Katie was still a student with two years to go, Jonathan took the role of sole provider. It wasn’t easy, but Jonathan stayed positive as he worked whatever jobs he could find.
“The jobs I had after university were not the best, but they were what God provided,” says Jonathan. His first job after graduating was essentially a summer job at Vanderpol’s Eggs, where he was a receptionist and helped with miscellaneous things. It wasn’t glamorous, but he did what he needed to do.
The struggle to be content
A few years into their marriage, Jonathan and Katie were still unsure where God was calling them. Both had a heart for missions, but they never really felt like the right door had opened.
“It was hard to take jobs that were not in ministry,” says Jonathan. It was a confusing season. But he and his wife felt confident that God was providing these experiences for a reason and that He was equipping them for a time when they’d finally be called to the mission field.
“The biggest struggle was learning to be content where God had placed us,” says Jonathan.
The Call to Missions
One day, while on a call with Jonathan’s mother, they discovered that Cat Lake First Nation in Ontario was planning to start a Christian school and needed someone to run it. Jonathan and Katie shared a look, then asked for more information.
After spending some time in prayer, they felt confident this was where God was calling them.
“People were saying it wouldn’t be safe, especially for the three and one year old children that we had,” says Jonathan. “We thought and prayed about it all and realized that the safest place to be is in the will of God and if we were to make sure that we were in His will, we would be safe.”
Six months later, they were moving to Cat Lake.
The Christian school was funded by the remote First Nation, and when the Larsh family first moved there, it was just to help get things going. But they quickly fell in love with the community there and started to get involved in leading church services. This led to Jonathan becoming a pastor under the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, Western Ontario District, Aboriginal Pentecostal Ministries.
In addition to being a teacher and a pastor, the Larsh family were invited to become missionaries through International Messengers, an organization that has been incredibly helpful in supporting their work in Cat Lake.
The Heavy Workload
Monday to Friday, Jonathan gets to school around 8 AM and doesn’t get home until after 5 PM. He sets aside some intentional time for family. He takes every Friday evening off, but most weekday nights he needs to work in the evening on administration stuff.
Saturday’s are equally busy, with him doing about 6-8 hours of administration work for the school. After that, he preps for church the next day. Sunday’s he preaches, then takes the remainder off.
It’s a heavy workload, but Jonathan and Katie are happy in Cat Lake and love serving the community there.
“I teach some kids how to learn to read and also work with fractions,” says Jonathan. “I get to minister to them when they are having a bad day. I have the opportunity to speak into some lives that we would never get the chance to do in a public system. I get to pray with the children and for them. Some of the kids come from homes that are pretty scary. Having the opportunity to speak into their lives is so incredibly rewarding—more than anything else that I can think of.”
Learning from Every Situation
“I believe God has called me to all the roles that I’m currently doing,” says Jonathan. “Being a father (most important), a teacher, a pastor, and a missionary. It is a lot of work, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Jonathan believes that God has entrusted him and his wife with many responsibilities. He also believes that God has equipped him for the skills needed to do it all.
“So much of what we are able to do is from doing what God has asked us and staying in his will—the safest place to be.”
When asked about sharing advice to others who have recently gradated and are struggling with what to do, Jonathan says, “Don’t give up, and learn from EVERY situation in life. Whether it be at a job you don’t like (or love, but still isn’t your long term goal in life), a church you don’t like (but God still wants you to be there), or anything else, make sure that you learn to be content in all situations constantly searching out the will of God for your life.”
This attitude that kept Jonathan and Katie from getting discouraged before having the opportunity to live out their dream of working in ministry, and it’s this attitude that keeps them from getting burned out with the many responsibilities entrusted to them as they continue to serve the people of Cat Lake.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1126
|
__label__wiki
| 0.852016
| 0.852016
|
DJ Khaled Wants Peace, No Beef & Hit Records
By smokey fontaine
When DJ Khaled speaks about himself, three words usually come into play: “love, hits and energy.” The recently appointed head of Def Jam South Records said that he refuses to let controversy — whether between 50 Cent and Rick Ross, or anyone else — distract him.
“I don’t deal with negative energy, it’s a waste of my time and my time is valuable,” he said last week in New York of his upbeat nature. “I keep negative away and stay positive.”
Khaled’s name has been in the middle of the ongoing verbal battle between Rick Ross and 50 Cent. 50 accused Khaled of inciting Ross to start the beef, and the back-and-forth escalated last week when Fif made a video called “A Psychic Told Me.” In it, 50 threatened Khaled’s mother; the video has since been removed from 50’s Web site.
Khaled declined to address the situation, saying that he wants to focus on music.
“At Def Jam, we promote music,” he added. “We promote hit records. That’s what I respect. I’m always going to represent the music; Rick Ross is gonna represent the music. If controversy comes with it, it comes with it. And boy, ‘Magnificent’ — Rick Ross featuring John Legend, that’s Ricky Ross’ first single — it’s a monster. It’s gonna be on and poppin’.”
Khaled is working more closely with his friend Ross than ever before. He served as the A&R rep for Ross’ forthcoming LP Deeper Than Rap, and in his new role as label president, he’ll be overseeing the album’s release as well. Also under his watch will be albums from Young Jeezy, Ludacris and his signee Ace Hood. (Ace is also signed to Khaled’s Def Jam-distributed imprint, We the Best Records.)
“This is what I’ve always wanted to do, is be an executive and take it to another level,” Khaled said. “L.A. [Reid] just hit me one day. He was like, ‘We should bring Khaled onboard. He makes hits, he has relationships.’ I got a team of producers and we go in hard. My job is to bring hits to the table and work with new artists and work with established artists. I’m bringing new energy to the game and to the building.”
Of course, Khaled garnered headlines of another kind last week, when a man who resembled Khaled led police on a chase in Los Angeles before taking his own life. Khaled said his phone was ringing all night.
“It wasn’t me, but you gotta give thanks for life,” he smiled.
SOURCE: MTV
50 Cent , def jam , DJ Khaled , l.a. reid , rick ross
More By smokey fontaine
Rihanna’s Unapologetic Triumph [REVIEW]
REWIND: 9 Most Expendable Rap Group Members
5 Independent Songs For The 4th Of July
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1131
|
__label__cc
| 0.621745
| 0.378255
|
5/10/15: A Real Wild Child
2015 Academy Awards, 87th Annual Academy Awards, abusive childhood, Art Alexakis, based on a book, based on a true story, Best Actress nominee, Best Supporting Actress nominee, brother-sister relationships, casual sex, Cathryn de Prume, Cheryl Strayed, cinema, Dallas Buyers Club, dead mother, director-editor, dramas, drug addiction, dysfunctional marriage, film reviews, films, flashback narrative, flashbacks, Gaby Hoffmann, grief, hiking, infidelity, isolation, Jean-Marc Vallee, Keene McRae, Kevin Rankin, Laura Dern, Martin Pensa, memoir, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, multiple editors, Nick Hornby, Oscar nominee, overcoming adversity, Pacific Crest Trail, Reese Witherspoon, self-discovery, self-help, self-improvement, set in 1990s, sex addiction, Wild, Yves Bélanger
Author C.S. Lewis once described grief as “like a long valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape.” While this is certainly a poetic and serene way to look at it, I’ve always equated the emotion with something older and a bit more mythological, personally. As far as I’m concerned, grief is a hydra: cut off one head and numerous ones sprout up to take its place. In order to truly overcome grief, one needs to get right to the heart of the matter…trying to tackle each individual feeling, each moment of pain, sorrow and heartbreak is as pointless a task as Hercules trying to sever each individual head, only for two more to grow back. In order to truly overcome grief, one must confront the inciting incident head on: emotional honesty, no matter how painful, is the only true way out.
When Cheryl Strayed started out on her 1,100-mile trek down the Pacific Crest Trail, from Mexico to Canada, she was motivated by grief: after losing her beloved mother to cancer, Strayed spiraled into a mess of drug addiction, marital infidelity and self-destructive behavior, culminating in the realization that she either had to get better or risk a complete and total meltdown. Her intensely arduous undertaking (difficult for an expert hiker, all but impossible for a complete novice like Cheryl) would begin as a way to find some sort of peace in her life but would end with her finding something more important: herself. In the hands of French filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallee, Strayed’s journey comes to vivid life with Wild (2014), based on her memoir of he experience. While the story is an interesting rumination on grief, the film ends up being disjointed and rather rote, a decided step down from Vallee’s previous effort, the similarly Oscar-nominated Dallas Buyers Club (2013).
Employing a flashback structure, Wild starts us in the “present day” (June 1995), as Cheryl (Reese Witherspoon) is just beginning her incredibly long hike, before jumping us backwards to get a sense of the events that led up to her decision. We see her relationship with her hard-working, single mother, Bobbi (Laura Dern) and younger brother, Leif (Keene McRae)…we see Cheryl and Bobbi taking college classes together…we see Bobbi diagnosed with a particularly vicious form of cancer…and, of course, we see Cheryl’s life collapse around her after the death of her mother. Falling into a toxic combo of drug addiction (first smoking, then snorting, finally shooting smack), casual sex with strangers (particularly troublesome given her current married status) and self-hatred, Cheryl seems doomed, burning alive by the intense heat of her own grief.
After hitting rock bottom, Cheryl makes the spur of the moment decision that would end up changing her entire life: she decides to hike all 1,000+miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, alone, with no previous hiking experience. Her (now ex-) husband, Paul (Thomas Sadoski), is cautiously supportive. Her best friend, Aimee (Gaby Hoffmann) thinks she’s nuts. Regardless, Cheryl sets out on her journey with no idea of what she’s doing, a pack that’s at least five times heavier than it should be and more determination than a small city. Along the way, Cheryl will see plenty of natural beauty, run into a few natural hazards and meet lots of interesting folks, including fellow hikers, a kindly farmer, a reporter for the “Hobo Times,” sinister hunters and a Grateful Dead cover band. She’ll learn to rely on herself and the kindness of strangers but she’ll also learn an even more important lesson: no matter how white-hot the pain of grief may be, life does, in fact, go on. Sometimes, all we can do is go along for the ride and see where it takes us.
As a story, Wild has an almost irresistible pull: there’s something primal and inherently satisfying about watching a damaged, fractured human being take a healing journey, especially when the backdrop is the awe-inspiring beauty of the great outdoors. Witherspoon does a great job bringing Cheryl to life, making the cinematic version feel like a real, flesh-and-blood person as opposed to just a character. As usual, Witherspoon is an all-in performer: in order to fully appreciate Cheryl’s redemption, we need to see her degradation and Witherspoon holds nothing back, whatsoever, resulting in one of her rawest roles since Freeway (1996). While I didn’t think that her performance in Wild was the very best of last year, it certainly deserved the Oscar nomination and proves, if nothing else, that she continues to defy the expectations imposed on “mainstream” Hollywood starlets by the industry, as a whole.
While Witherspoon’s performance is typically strong, however, the film is a lot more problematic, in general. My biggest complaint comes via Vallee’s flashback structure, which ends up doing two things, neither of which seems desired: it tends to make the narrative unnecessarily confusing (in particular, the timeline seems all over the place) and makes the film feel like more of a series of vignettes than a cohesive whole. For the most part, the film breaks down thusly: Cheryl walks around, flashes back to drug use and orgies, meets interesting folks, lather, rinse, repeat. In short order, Wild begins to seem distressingly formulaic, which certainly robs the film of much of its tension: even during presumably high-stakes moments like the redneck hunters, Wild seems constrained by its structure.
There’s a sparse, spare quality to much of the film that’s both lovely and thematically important (Cheryl is, after all, desperately searching for some sort of stillness within herself, the same stillness echoed by the natural landscape) but this spare quality is constantly dashed by the endless flashbacks. Perhaps if the peeks into the past had felt more organic and motivated, as opposed to part of a regimented structure, they would have retained more impact and had less (negative) effect on the film’s tone. As it stands, however, Wild ends up feeling more disjointed and piecemeal than it does cohesive.
I also had a problem with the relationship between Cheryl and her mother, at least as depicted in the film. While I’m not familiar with Strayed’s actual memoir, I have to assume that the intense connection between her and her mom is better delineated on the page than it is on the screen. As depicted, however, we really don’t get a clear sense of this devotion: Bobbi seems quirky, positive and fun-minded, sure, but the flashbacks to her and Cheryl don’t seem to hint at an on-screen relationship that’s any more intense than any other cinematic mother-daughter pairing. Losing her mother seems to be the catalyst for Cheryl’s spiral into a drug and sex-fueled hell but, prior to her death, the pair just seem to get along okay: for me, at least, this ended up being a bit of a disconnect from the film.
Acting-wise, Wild is full of good performances, although the vast majority end up being short, bite-sized little bits as opposed to more substantial scenes: this is very much the story of Strayed and Witherspoon is, for the most part, always the focal point. Despite garnering a Best Supporting Actress nomination, I wasn’t particularly impressed by Dern’s performance as the doomed Bobbi: despite being a big fan, her transition from happy-go-lucky to hair-pulling felt too abrupt and nothing really stuck out for me. Ditto for Gaby Hoffmann, who ends up with a few minutes of screen time as Cheryl’s friend, which seems a bit of a waste given Hoffmann’s ability to handily steal focus. Kevin Rankine is personable as Greg, the hiker that Cheryl keeps bumping into on the trail, but Keene McRae is fairly awful as brother Leif…it’s a real “six of one, half-dozen of the other” scenario.
Ultimately, I enjoyed Wild but was never blown away: considering how great I thought Dallas Buyers Club was, this definitely struck me as a bit of a disappointment. While I think the core story is a fascinating one (if the notion of a complete novice hiking over a thousand miles to “find” herself doesn’t strike you as fascinating, the core issue definitely doesn’t reside with the movie), the actual film never really clicked for me. To each their own, of course: while the actual film ended up being a bit of a let-down, Strayed’s story is interesting enough to make this worth a watch, even if it’s decidedly more run-of-the-mill than it could have been.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1132
|
__label__wiki
| 0.811559
| 0.811559
|
Tag Archives: Khmer Rouge
12/25/14 (Part Three): Missing Pieces
86th Annual Academy Awards, Academy Award Nominee, archival footage, autobiographical, autobiography, Best Foreign Film nominee, Cambodia, cinema, clay figures, documentary, film reviews, films, Jean Baptiste-Phou, Khmer Rouge, massacres, Movies, Pol Pot, Rithy Panh, The MIssing Picture, writer-director
The human capacity to bounce back from tragedy is, perhaps, one of our most necessary traits: while we may be initially flattened by disasters, wars, crime, disease and violent death, something about the human animal compels it to stick its chin out, put one foot before the other and continue marching forward into the face of adversity. Without this natural resilience, after all, it’s unlikely that any of us would have made it past the caveman stage, let alone the 20th century. You may push a human down but you can’t keep a human down, unless that’s where they choose to be: we’ll always find a way to come back stronger than before.
When the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia in 1975, it set the stage for one of the worst, most flagrant displays of evil in the entire history of the human animal. Over two million people became refugees, over night, and famine, death, disease and torment became rampant in the Southeast Asian country thanks to leader Pol Pot’s iron-fisted regime. At the time of the take-over, Rithy Panh was a typical 13-year-old: happy-go-lucky, obsessed with movies and close to his family. During the Khmer Rouge’s four-year reign of terror, however, Panh would lose everything and go from a typical teenager to a beaten-down survivor scrabbling together his existence from whatever he could get his hands on. Over thirty years later, Panh’s remarkable tale of struggle and survival forms the basis of the immensely powerful documentary The Missing Picture (2013), a film which gives a personal voice to the millions of disenfranchised Cambodian victims of the ’70s massacre.
While Panh’s story would make a fascinating documentary regardless of the format, The Missing Picture is unique in that it mixes archival footage of pre and post-revolution Cambodia with dioramas that Panh creates using hand-crafted clay representations of his family, friends, neighbors and countrymen. At times, Panh combines both types of footage together and the results are nothing short of dizzying: there’s a remarkable degree of reality to his clay figures and he’s able to imbue their features with a startling amount of expressiveness. It may seem odd to think that immobile clay figures can have overly expressive faces but Panh works some sort of magic and, at times, I was hard-pressed not to see the whole thing as a crude, if effective, form of stop-motion animation. Subject-matter notwithstanding, it’s a really cool, fascinating effect and Panh pulls it off flawlessly.
One of the most powerful aspects of The Missing Picture ends up being the way that narrator Jean Baptiste-Phou’s calm, mannered voice relates any manner of atrocities and hardships that befell Panh. There’s something soothing about Baptiste-Phou’s voice that creates a jarring contrast with much of what we see and hear: there’s an almost mournful quality to it that really suits the film’s elegiac mood, especially once we get into the heart-breaking section where Panh watches his father starve to death, little by little.
Lest The Missing Picture seem like an unrelenting tragedy, however, Panh manages to mix in some truly joyful pre-revolution scenes, scenes which focus on the vibrant music, night-life, dancing and filmmaking of the Cambodian people. There’s one amazing moment where Panh clay avatar goes “flying” over a crowd of dancing clay people and the effect is absolutely wonderful: for the briefest of moments, we get to feel some of the joy and love that filled Panh’s life before the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot summarily destroyed it all.
Ultimately, however, The Missing Picture’s message is one of hope, not horror or defeat. The very fact that Panh could survive such trials, at such a young age, and go on to such important work is testament to that aforementioned resilience of the human spirit. Rithy Panh’s journey from starving youth to Academy Award-nominated filmmaker (he ended up losing to The Great Beauty) is an inspirational one and The Missing Picture stands as a work of no small importance.
As Panh’s words state near the end, “This missing picture, I now hand over to you.” We’ve all been given this “missing picture,” and this film, so that we may never forget the innocent victims of the Cambodian massacre. We owe the survivors nothing less than to honor their memories and continue to shine a light into the darkest corners of our collective history. As the incomparable George Santayana once said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Rithy Panh has done his part to ensure that we’ll never forget: it’s now time for the rest of us to do our part.
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1133
|
__label__wiki
| 0.707012
| 0.707012
|
1 in 3 South Africans is mentally ill
By Khanyo Olwethu Mjamba on July 7, 2014 — A new study has revealed the shocking statistics of mental health in South Africa
A member of Cape Mental Health and the Cape Consumer Advocacy Body protests in St Georges Mall, Cape Town, against the lack of adequate resources. Photo: Halden Krog
The investigation published by the Sunday Times says that of the 33% of South Africans who are mentally ill, 75% of them will not get any kind of help.
More than 17 million people in South Africa are dealing with depression, substance abuse, anxiety, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia – illnesses that round out the top five mental health diagnoses, according to the Mental Health Federation of South Africa.
Why, then, do they not get help? The reasons are depressing.
Among some of the reasons is that juvenile psychiatric patients housed in state-owned facilities run the risk of being raped or being held incarceration-style.
In South Africa’s biggest hopsital, Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto, women in psychiatric wards are squeezed in a dormitory environment – up to 55 women at a time.
Dr Yusuf Moosa, head of clinical psychiatry at the University of the Witwatersrand, confirmed that such conditions are not conducive to proper recovery.
“You only have two nurses on duty and there’s little or no stimulation for these women. Now, if you’re struggling with depression, these conditions are not ideal”
Despite the high figures, the government health departments breaks off only 4% of its budget to address the crisis.
The limitation of available beds in state institutions means that only those at the “severe’ end of the mental health spectrum get admitted.
The situation is maddeningly dire.
Currently, 85% of psychologists in the country are in private practice, which means they service only 14% of the country’s population.
Dr Melvyn Freeman, head of non-communicable diseases at the Department of Health attributes this to money. He says a professor of psychiatry could earn R1.5-million ($150,000) a year working for the government – but such a professional’s annual salary in the private health sector could be as much as R5-million ($500,000)
He added that the most effective way to deal with the problem would be implementation of the National Health Insurance (NHI), which will probably only come into effect after 2025.
Source: Times Live
Tags: mental healthSouth Africa
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1135
|
__label__cc
| 0.568006
| 0.431994
|
James Evans – Future of the Left
The title of this post is ‘James Evans – Future of the Left’. Part of me really wants to leave it at that. But bereft of a crystal ball and a towering arrogance (… OK, maybe just the crystal ball), I don’t feel that’s a prediction I can confidently make.
Alas, that is not what this post is about. Instead, it’s simply a redirect to a collection of interviews I conducted over the last year, which have recently been republished.
I was lucky enough to interview various leading lights of the left for The Student Journals. I spoke to Polly Toynbee, Owen Jones, Sunny Hundal, Natalie Bennett, Helen Lewis, Paul Flynn MP and John McDonnell MP.
You can enjoy them all here. And I’m sure you will.
NB. I should like to take this opportunity to thank Siraj Datoo and Amy Ashenden from TSJ for helping me with this series of interviews. Without them, there would be no ‘Future of the Left’. And who’d want to live in a world like that?
Posted in: Future of the Left, Interviews, Journalism, Politics Tagged: Future of the Left, Helen Lewis, James Evans, John McDonnell MP, Natalie Bennett, Owen Jones, Paul Flynn MP, Polly Toynbee, Sunny Hundal
The Future of the Left – Interview with Natalie Bennett
I recently interviewed leader of the Green Party and prolific journalist, Natalie Bennett, as part of a collection of interviews I am conducting for Warwick-based publication, The Student Journals on ‘The Future of the Left’.
We discussed the environment, renationalising the railways and getting people a living wage. Do check it out on the TSJ website.
Posted in: Future of the Left, Interviews, Politics Tagged: environment, green party, living wage, localism, public transport
The Future of the Left – Interview with Owen Jones
I was lucky enough as part of an interview best-selling author of ‘Chavs’ and Independent columnist, Owen Jones, as part of a series of interviews I am conducting for Warwick-based publication, The Student Journals on ‘The Future of the Left’.
We talked class, the Lib Dems, and personal political ambition. You can check out the interview out here.
Posted in: Future of the Left, Interviews, Politics Tagged: class, labour, Tories, welfare
The Future of the Left – Interview with Polly Toynbee
I am currently conducting a number of interviews with prominent left-leaning activists and commentators for Warwick-based publication, The Student Journals on ‘The Future of the Left’.
The first of these to be published is an interview with the prolific Guardian columnist, Polly Toynbee.
I will also be interviewing Independent columnist, Owen Jones and leader of the Green Party, Natalie Bennett amongst others.
It has also been bought to my attention that ‘The Future of the Left’ are actually a very cool band. Do check them out – as well as my article!
Posted in: Future of the Left, Interviews, Politics Tagged: Jobs, labour, Lib-Dems, youth
Talk to Frank
Originally written for publication in The Boar, Warwick University’s student newspaper. This piece was co-written with Rebecca Myers.
It’s 5.30pm and doors are in just under two hours. We are sat in Tammy Wynette’s old trailer (if you don’t know, look her up!) which now has pride of place in the bizarre backstage of The Assembly. Someone is cooking a fry-up and there is a techie duelling a motorized dalek. It’s all pretty surreal.
We are grinning like two cats inundated with cream when Frank walks in. For a man who tours most nights each year, he doesn’t look particularly tired or world-weary. All in all, he’s pretty laid back. We exchange pleasantries and get talking about Leamington Spa. “What do you think of the … er … bustling metropolis?”. Not the best opener, but enough to set Frank off on a roll for twenty minutes – and the man can talk. He has never been before which is unusual, “given how much we’ve toured … but it’s important that we keep coming to new places, even smaller ones”. We ask whether he prefers playing these sort of intimate venues, reminiscent of his earlier gigs – as opposed to say, Wembley. “It’s good to have a mix”, he tells us.
Over the past couple of years, Frank’s career has gone from strength to strength. He has sold out Wembley Arena and played to a television audience of a billion at the Olympics opening ceremony. The crowds he draws, however, are still pretty diverse. “It’s great, we get old people, young people …”. We interject – both our families are attending the gig. Frank lights up, “That’s fantastic!” Have the crowds changed at all? “I may have lost a few of the scene kids that don’t come anymore because I’m too popular or whatever.” Frank shrugs. A price worth paying perhaps.
We get talking about his time as a student. He studied History at LSE. “I love the subject and there are a lot historical references in my lyrics. I wasn’t at uni much though, always touring with Million Dead [his former punk outfit]. I’d get a call and be asked ‘Where were you Tuesday?’ and I’d reply, ‘Belgium’.”
Steering the conversation back to the present day, we get chatting about Frank’s most recent solo album, England Keep My Bones. The tracks make it clear that his national identity is important to him. But he stops us when we describe it as a ‘patriotic’ album. “I don’t think England is better than anywhere else”, he says. Playing international gigs just reminds him what he loves about the country he grew up in. The best thing about about England? He hesitates and then grins, “Greasy spoon cafés”.
Being big fans ourselves, we are keen to hear about the new album (out in March). He talks about it openly and candidly, expressing worries about that awkward album stage – having done three, he says, musicians often have a lapse – and this will be his fifth. “You get comfortable and that’s how artists like U2 – and don’t get me wrong, I’m saying this as a U2 fan – can go from make a song like Sunday Bloody Sunday and then years later, make a song where the chorus is ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah’.” To get past this this, Frank says he’s decided to push himself, producing a “raw and uncomfortable” album. “Art should be uncomfortable”, he tells us.
The subject of England has been put to bed. It’s back to basics. “I wanted to write it as if I were just a kid in my bedroom – I’m not thinking about a worldwide audience or whatever.” He likens the new record to, “A whiskey. At 3am. Full of tears.” Much of it centres around a break-up – something that Frank is still clearly a little shaken up by. A cheery one then? Frank laughs. It’s clear his success hasn’t gone to his head.
Frank is witty, articulate and increasingly popular. It’s no wonder so many people want to see him as something of a political figure. Last year he was subject to what he describes as a “pretty nasty witch hunt” for some disparaging comments he made about the left – which many assumed he would associate himself with. We tentatively ask him about his (regularly criticised) libertarian politics. “To some extent, when you become a ‘public figure’ you expect to be asked about this stuff. I’m getting thicker skin … but after a while I just can’t be fucked to keep defending and explaining myself.”
We press for his views on the coalition government. He isn’t keen to compare them to the New Labour regime, either favourably or unfavourably. He does say, “I spread my hate equally between the Conservatives and the Lib-Dems. I was never one of these people who liked the Lib-Dems before the coalition. They once proposed a register of journalists … they’re a thoroughly illiberal party.” This is a man who hated Nick Clegg before it was cool.
We bring the interview to a close, He and his music have come a long way, but it’s clear he still loves being on the road. “I’ll slow down a bit at Christmas”, he tells us. “It’s a time when I can remind my family what my face looks like.” Students can relate.
Posted in: Interviews, Music, Politics Tagged: art, England, Frank Turner, libertarianism, music, touring
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1136
|
__label__cc
| 0.597385
| 0.402615
|
Today in Madonna History: August 8, 1984
August 8, 2017 By Jay in 1984, August Tags: Arthur Pierson, Christopher Ciccone, Erica Bell, Jellybean Benitez, Lucky Star, Reggie Lucas 1 Comment
On August 8 1984, Madonna’s Lucky Star was released. Lucky Star became Madonna’s first U.S. top five hit (No. 4), and the first in a string of 17 consecutive U.S. top fives. The video was directed by Arthur Pierson, a stark performance piece bringing together her brother Christopher Ciccone and Erica Bell as backup dancers. The clip was filled with black rubber jelly bracelets, lace and a certain gyrating belly button.
Lucky Star was written by Madonna and produced by Reggie Lucas and Jellybean Benitez.
« Today in Madonna History: August 7, 1991
Today in Madonna History: August 9, 1986 »
Rabbit Bunny says:
A brilliant Madonna song that one! Even more so, Lucky Star is a eulogy tribute to her mother!
The sadness gives its game away!
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1140
|
__label__cc
| 0.627992
| 0.372008
|
Tag Archive: Terrelle Pryor
NFL Weekly Picks: Week 3
Filed under: NFL Weekly Picks — Leave a comment
Hey guys, sorry I didn’t have time to get my weekly picks post up last week. I just moved back to Minnesota so now that I am settling in hopefully I will be able to get into a groove with all of these weekly posts that I want to do. So, without further ado, here are my NFL Weekly Picks!
Eagles over Chiefs- I think the Eagles’ offense will be too much for the Chiefs to slow down, but it may come down to whether or not the Eagles defense can stop anyone. Thus far the answer to that question is no. Still, I’m going with Chip Kelly and the home team Eagles in this match-up, especially since the Chiefs have Dunta Robinson on their roster.
Packers over Bengals- The Bengals got a solid win against the Steelers last week but the Packers offense looked borderline unstoppable last week against the Redskins. The Bengals defense is a significantly better unit, but I think the Packers will be able to put up enough points to win this one. If Andy Dalton plays well he could make things interesting though, and I’m not sold on the Packers defense yet. Still, it’s tough to bet against Aaron Rodgers in this match-up even on the road.
Rams over Cowboys- This might surprise some people, but the Rams are a good football team and they gave my Falcons a run for their money last week. The Cowboys couldn’t quite figure out the Kansas City Chiefs, and while the ‘Boys have a lot of talent on offense the Rams are a talented defensive football team that I think has a chance to match-up with the Cowboys on offense. Of course, if Dez Bryant goes off for 180 yards and a touchdown like Julio Jones did last week then I would be completely wrong on that. Still, I have a feeling the Rams will play well in this game and I think they can beat Tony Romo and the Cowboys on the road.
Chargers over Titans- I’m realizing I’m picking a lot of road teams here so far, but I think the Chargers are the better football team in this match-up and it’s tough not to go with Philip Rivers over Jake Locker here. If Locker can pass accurately and use his legs effectively they could give the Chargers defense some problems, but most of us know the likelihood of both of those things happening consistently for four quarters is not likely.
Vikings over Browns- This would have been a more interesting game prior to the Trent Richardson trade, and there is something funny about the Browns making this trade with the Colts just days before they travel up to Minnesota to play the Vikings given that the Vikings are the team that traded down with Cleveland to allow them to move up to number three overall and select Richardson in the first place. The Browns offense has been struggling even with Richardson in the lineup, and it’s hard to imagine them being better without him even with Josh Gordon returning from suspension. The Browns do have a good defense though, so I expect both teams to score less than 20 points. The Vikings have the offensive advantage in this match-up though thanks to Adrian Peterson and a solid game from Christian Ponder, Greg Jennings, Kyle Rudolph and Jerome Simpson should be enough to win this one for the purple. However, it is worth mentioning that this is the kind of game the Vikings traditionally find a way to inexplicably lose.
Patriots over Buccaneers- The Buccaneers aren’t in great shape right now and while the Patriots have barely managed to defeat two rookie quarterbacks in consecutive weeks I don’t think Tom Brady and that offense are going to stay out of synch for more than a couple weeks. That should play to the Bucs advantage this week, but I don’t think it will be enough to get them a victory.
Saints over Cardinals- Originally I had the Cardinals winning this game, but it’s tough to travel into the Superdome and get a victory, particularly since the Saints defense looks significantly better through two weeks than it ever did last season. Carson Palmer has reinvigorated the Cardinals offense, and their defense is still respectable despite the loss of defensive coordinator Ray Horton, but I don’t think it will be enough to go into the Saints’ house and beat Drew Brees on his home turf.
Redskins over Lions- The Lions have shown plenty of flashes through the first two weeks, but I think they are going to come up short against a Redskins team that will likely be very motivated and focused after starting 0-2. It remains to be seen if the ‘Skins defense can get on track, but going up against the Eagles and the Packers in the first two weeks isn’t exactly a fair barometer for a defense, especially since they were essentially the NFL’s guinea pigs against Chip Kelly and his up-tempo offensive scheme. I think the Redskins will be motivated and hungry this week, so I’m giving them the edge over the Lions.
Giants over Panthers- I definitely didn’t expect the Giants to start the season out 0-2, but if Eli Manning can’t stop throwing interceptions they may be in for a long year. However, I am well aware that not all of those turnovers are his fault and I expect he and the Giants to get back on track against the Panthers. It would be really nice if David Wilson would get his act together and stop fumbling the ball, but the addition of Brandon Jacobs back into the fold should help provide at least a little stability in the running game. Maybe Cam Newton and the Panthers will surprise me, but I think the Giants are going to be motivated after starting 0-2 just like the Redskins are. I’m not sure if I can say the same thing about the Panthers yet or not.
Texans over Ravens- The Ravens offense has been ineffective thus far this season and I don’t anticipate them getting back on track against the talented Texans defense. If Andre Johnson can play the Ravens will get to see the Texans explosive combination of Arian Foster, Ben Tate, Andre Johnson AND DeAndre Hopkins who was one of my favorite wide receivers in last year’s loaded draft class. He caught the game-winning touchdown last week against the Titans, so I think the Texans are ready to beat the Ravens on the road this week.
Dolphins over Falcons- It pains me to do this, but the Falcons got way too banged up last week to go on the road and beat the Dolphins in my opinion. I think Ryan Tannehill is about to go off, and Lamar Miller may have a big day as well. Not only that, but Brent Grimes is a sure bet to pick off Matt Ryan in this game and I just don’t think the Falcons will be able to overcome Roddy White not being at 100%, Steven Jackson being out (though Jason Snelling will hopefully get a lot of touches), Kroy Biermann being out for the year, Bradie Ewing being out for the year, AND Sean Weatherspoon being out until Week 11. That’s a lot to replace and account for in one week, and while I think they will be able to survive those set-backs long term I’m not sure they can get away with it this week, so I give the advantage to the Dolphins at home.
Bills over Jets- In the battle of rookie quarterbacks EJ Manuel and Geno Smith I’ve got to give Manuel and the Bills the edge in this one. The Jets defense is still a quality unit despite the departure of Darrelle Revis, but Geno Smith made some questionable decisions and poorly executed throws in the elements against New England last week, and I have been shocked by how well EJ Manuel has been playing thus far. The Bills coaching staff has done a great job managing him thus far, and I trust Nathaniel Hackett to gameplan well more than I trust Marty Mornhinweg to do the same, so I am going with the Bills in this one. May the best rookie QB win. I must say, I was shocked and critical of the Manuel pick at 16 overall, but defeating Geno Smith (who I expected to come off the board first of all the quarterbacks) would be a pretty big vindication for EJ Manuel and the entire Bills organization. It would also make me look stupid, so that’s probably why it will happen.
49ers over Colts- This is an interesting one and it will be worth monitoring just how involved Trent Richardson will be in this game given that he is unfamiliar with the system and has no chemistry with the team at all, but the 49ers are the better squad and are likely very pissed off after the way they lost that game to division rival and offseason Cold War opponent Seattle on Sunday Night. The 49ers should come out firing and it will take a terrific performance from Andrew Luck to leave Candlestick with a victory.
Seahawks over Jaguars- #BecauseJaguars and #AllRussellWilsonEverything
Bears over Steelers- I thought Marc Trestman might give the Bears offense a tune-up and he appears to have done just that, and it makes me happy to see Jay Cutler playing well. The Steelers offense is completely devoid of playmaking at this point and I don’t anticipate they will be able to take advantage of the Bears defense enough to come away with a victory even at home.
Broncos over Raiders- The Broncos are playing some terrific football right now and they are looking especially sharp on the offensive side of the ball so far. They simply have more talent than the Raiders do at this point, though I think Terrelle Pryor and Darren McFadden may give the Broncos defense a few headaches. It would be a truly fantastic upset if the Raiders were able to come away with a victory against the Broncos on the road, I just don’t see it happening.
Thanks for reading, hopefully I do better this week than I did during the openers. Enjoy the games this weekend!
Current 2013 Pick Record: 9-6
Tags: #AllRussellWilsonEverything, #BecauseJaguars, Aaron Rodgers, Adrian Peterson, Andre Johnson, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton, Arian Foster, Arizona Cardinals, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Ben Tate, Bradie Ewing injury, Brandon Jacobs, Brent Grimes, Buffalo Bills, Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers, Carson Palmer, Chicago Bears, Chip Kelly, Christian Ponder, Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys, Darrelle Revis, Darren McFadden, David Wilson, DeAndre Hopkins, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Dez Bryant, Drew Brees, EJ Manuel, Eli Manning, Geno Smith, Green Bay Packers, Greg Jennings, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Jake Locker, Jason Snelling, Jay Cutler, Jerome Simpson, Josh Gordon, Julio Jones, Kansas City Chiefs, Kroy Biermann injury, Kyle Rudolph, Lamar Miller, Marc Tresman, Marty Mornhinweg, Matt Ryan, Miami Dolphins, Minnesota Vikings, Nathaniel Hackett, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, New York Jets, NFL Weekly Picks, Oakland Raiders, Philadelphia Eagles, Philip Rivers, Pittsburgh Steelers, Ray Horton, Robert Griffin III, Roddy White, Ryan Tannehill, San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, Sean Weatherspoon Designated For Return Week 11, Seattle Seahawks, St. Louis Rams, Steven Jackson injury, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans, Terrelle Pryor, Tom Brady, Tom Melton, Tony Romo, Trent Richardson Trade, Washington Redskins, Week Three
Filed under: NFL Quick Hits — Leave a comment
This is a feature I’m going to try every week where I post some hopefully brief thoughts on the past weekend of NFL games. I don’t know if I’ll have time to do the same with College Football games, but I will post them if I have time to write them all up. Hopefully you guys enjoy this segment.
1- The Falcons Are Who We Thought They Were- I’m sure most of you guys know I’m a Falcons fan by now, and that loss to the Saints was tough. The Falcons scored on their opening drives in both halves, but otherwise were very inconsistent on offense. I’m wondering why they ran the ball so infrequently despite Steven Jackson having solid success on the ground, and I’m also wondering how they managed to hold Drew Brees and the Saints to 23 points despite a lackluster pass rush. I’m not too worried about the offensive line yet, I think they will gel and become a stronger unit, but the amount of pressure in Matt Ryan’s face and the inexplicable avoidance of the run game and quick-hitting pass game to try to counter the pressure was frustrating. Brees was on point as always and I was impressed with the Saints dramatic improvement on defense. Rob Ryan has done a great job with them up to this point, and the pressure they got on Ryan and the looks they were showing him pre-snap stuck out to me. The Falcons will be fine, but I don’t think they are a 13-3 team like they were a year ago. Maybe I’m overreacting, but I think they are in the 10-6/11-5 area. We shall see.
2- Peyton Manning Needs To Stop Playing On Rookie- The way Manning was playing on Thursday night it is evident to me he was just playing Madden on a rookie setting, and a veteran with his resume should be playing on All-Madden at least, and preferably with a number of the sliders raised manually beyond that. Manning was obviously masterful, and that was despite having no running backs with a yard per carry average over 3.8 and only gaining 65 total yards on the ground. Joe Flacco came down to Earth after his fantastic playoff performances and it’s clear to me that he is missing Anquan Boldin and Dennis Pitta right now. Torrey Smith is a stud, but he can only do so much without a significant threat to take some pressure off of him. Dallas Clark surprised me with 7 catches for 87 yards, and if he can keep that up the loss of Pitta shouldn’t be quite as significant. I am a huge Demaryius Thomas fan and had a top 20 grade on him out of Georgia Tech and he has completely lived up to my expectations for him. I definitely expected Decker to be the #2 guy and Welker to be the 3rd option, but if the first week is any indication then Welker is going to get a lot of love from Manning this year. I don’t think 2 catches for 32 yards will be a typical week for Decker by any means, but I think I definitely underrated Welker’s potential impact coming into the year. I was also blown away by how well Duke Ihenacho and Shaun Phillips played. I liked Ihenacho out of San Jose State but realized some of his athletic limitations, however he had 12 tackles (including ELEVEN solo stops), 1 tackle for loss and 3 pass deflections as well as some pretty nice hits in this game. Phillips had 2.5 sacks and 3 QB hits on the night and definitely helped make up for the absence of Von Miller for at least one night. The Broncos looked like they were in mid-season form, but I don’t think the Ravens are going to have that much trouble on offense or defense for the entire season. They have lots of new faces on their roster and they need time to gel, and Manning took full advantage. Don’t hit the panic button yet Ravens fans.
3- EJ Manuel Is Making Me Look Stupid- I was pretty clear that I was not a fan of EJ Manuel at FSU and while it is still very early in his career my analysis of him is looking quite foolish right now. I have been very impressed with how Doug Marrone and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett have managed Manuel starting from his first pre-season snaps. They haven’t asked him to go out there and be Tom Brady, but much like Cam Newton his rookie season they will likely open up the playbook and let him attack more as he becomes more comfortable. I was happy to see Robert Woods get his first NFL catch and his first NFL touchdown, but Manuel got to see first hand that there’s almost nobody better than Tom Brady when the game is on the line. He may not have had a great day statistically, but when it counted he took the Pats down the field and got them in position to win the game. Danny Amendola predictably had a good game, I loved what Shane Vereen did and I was very sad to see that he is going to miss significant time due to a broken wrist (which he apparently suffered on the first play of the game!). I am hoping that Spiller was given limited touches because of his lost fumble, and not because he is inexplicably being mismanaged again in 2013. Regardless, Bills fans should be very encouraged by the early returns on EJ Manuel.
4- “Same Old Bungles”- That is for my good friend Ryan Koons who is now an active duty marine. He is a die hard Bengals fan and whenever they manage to lose a game like this that is what he would always say. I have to say I really thought those days were behind Cincinnati because on paper I thought they were ready to win the AFC North. However, Andy Dalton continues to make me wonder about just how far the Bengals can go with him as a quarterback even in spite of the absolutely fantastic play of AJ Green. The Bengals have tons of talent on defense, they’ve got weapons on offense, but if they are going to win close games and go deep in the playoffs they need Dalton to play better and limit his turnovers. The run game deserves some ire as well as the Bengals only averaged 3 yards per touch and totaled 63 yards on the ground. On the other side I thought Jay Cutler, overall, had a good game and Brandon Marshall was fantastic. The Bears running game was sluggish as well, and hopefully that offensive line will slowly gel and improve over the course of the season. I know that probably makes Bears fans nervous because they’ve been waiting for that offensive front to improve for years, but I’m hoping this is the year for their sake.
5- Reggie Bush Is Dangerous, Christian Ponder Is Not- The Lions put up 38 points on the Vikings defense and a lot of that is due to Reggie Bush totaling 90 yards on the ground (4.3 ypc) and 101 yards and one touchdown as a receiver (with a long of 77). That’s very impressive production, and it comes despite only hauling in four of his eight targets on the day. Matt Stafford had another high attempt, high yardage day and while it wasn’t the most efficient performance it certainly got the job done. I wouldn’t expect too many four catch, 37 yard days for Calvin Johnson, but Bush, Nate Burleson and Joique Bell took the pressure off of him this week. On the other side Christian Ponder continues to prove his doubters right as he threw 3 interceptions, got sacked three times and lost a fumble on the day. He also spoiled a fantastic game for Jerome Simpson who had 7 catches and 140 yards which I certainly didn’t expect from him. Adrian Peterson had a 78 yard touchdown run on his first carry but gained only 15 additional yards on his next 17 carries, but still managed 93 yards and two touchdowns rushing as well as 18 yards and another touchdown receiving. I will be the first to admit that I liked Ponder out of FSU (clearly I’m 0/2 on scouting Florida State quarterbacks right now) but he doesn’t have the same velocity he had prior to the injuries he sustained his senior year, he isn’t making good decisions and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised to see Matt Cassel start at some point this season for the Vikings. That’s not a good sign, and it likely means the Vikings will be looking to draft a quarterback early in the 2014 NFL Draft. I have been patient with Ponder and he occasionally shows signs of life, but unfortunately now that he’s in his 3rd year these kinds of struggles won’t be tolerated anymore. He’s got to step up his game and quick.
6- Pryor Makes Oakland Offense Almost Competent- I really feel like I am ruining any credibility I have as a quarterback scout but I liked Tyler Wilson a lot out of Arkansas and I didn’t like Terrelle Pryor out of Ohio State, but I am glad the Raiders elected to start Pryor over Matt Flynn. Pryor’s legs gave the Raiders life in this game and while I don’t think it will get them to the playoffs it should make them more competitive than they would have been with Flynn at the helm. I didn’t get to see as much of this game as I wanted to because the feed went out for it multiple times at the bar I was watching the games at (for some reason it was streaming online, not sure why), so outside of Pryor impressing me as a runner and Andrew Luck being a stud I don’t have too many thoughts on this game. Sorry guys.
7- Nolan Nawrocki Your Crow Is Ready- I know it’s early, and I know it’s only his first start, but it was fun to see Geno Smith rally the Jets to an unlikely win against Tampa Bay week one. I’m not going to say he made some unbelievable plays on that final drive to steal victory from the jaws of defeat, but if Sanchez was the QB on that final drive I don’t think the Jets would have won that game. Smith isn’t known for his scrambling, but his athleticism was obvious at the NFL combine and he gave the Jets a chance to get lucky thanks to his skill set. He wasn’t mind-blowingly efficient by any means, but it was definitely a solid first start based on what I was able to see. Unfortunately for Bucs fans Josh Freeman struggled (though the Jets do still have a good, well-coached defense) and despite 154 yards from Vincent Jackson he only managed 210 yards on 31 attempts, was sacked three times and threw one touchdown and one interception. I wasn’t a Freeman fan coming out and his first season it really looked like he might make me eat my words, but he seemed to plateau after that rookie season and hasn’t quite been the same since.
8- Kaepernick Is The Truth- I wasn’t wild about Kaepernick’s throwing motion or accuracy coming out of Nevada, but Jim Harbaugh has done a fantastic job with him and that offense is now tailor made for him. It certainly helps having weapons like Anquan Boldin and Vernon Davis (even though Davis had a drop or two that he shouldn’t have) while Michael Crabtree and Mario Manningham are injured, but his athleticism, pure arm strength and seemingly improving accuracy really stood out to me against the Packers. Green Bay had absolutely no answer for the Kaepernick-Boldin connection and while they managed to keep him bottled up as a runner he shredded them for 412 yards and three touchdowns as a passer. The Packers will have to go back to the drawing board now to try to figure out how to slow Kaepernick down if they meet again in the playoffs. I thought Aaron Rodgers was great as usual even if he did come up just short, I still love Randall Cobb, and I was happy Jermichael Finley bounced back from that drop that led to Rodgers only interception with some solid catches, good yards after the catch and that impressive touchdown. The Packers should be fine and I think they will be a playoff team, but I’m sure they and their fans are annoyed that another referee controversy led to a do-over for the 49ers that led to an Anquan Boldin touchdown. Maybe I’m alone here, but I think the NFL downgrading Bill Leavy for that mistake is ridiculous. Leavy is a veteran official and while he made a mistake this just reeks of an overreaction to me.
9- RGIII Was Rusty, The Eagles Offense Wasn’t- The Eagles defense made this interesting in the second half as RGIII and the Redskins started to knock some of the rust off, but in the first half RGIII had a lot of issues fading away from throws and not stepping into his passes. He still did some of that in the 2nd half, but he was definitely much more crisp and effective once his receivers stopped dropping passes and Kyle Shanahan adjusted to get him into a rhythm with quicker, easier throws. Michael Vick was impressive, though he’s still the same Michael Vick that will hold onto the ball too long and take unnecessary risks with his body at times. LeSean McCoy looks like an ideal fit for Chip Kelly’s offensive scheme and he should have a huge year. I was also happy to see that one of my favorites from a couple years ago Mychal Kendricks looked much better (based on what I saw live) and was pressuring RGIII pretty consistently. I’m not sure he’s great in coverage, but it was fun to see him rushing some of Griffin’s throws. Additionally, that interception Cary Williams made on that out route that Griffin threw was nothing short of fantastic. What a terrific play.
10- Oh Philip Rivers, You Poor Bastard- Rivers was absolutely fantastic in the 1st half and he started off the 2nd half in the same fashion. He had the Chargers up 28-7 and seemed poised for a statement victory in week one of the 2013 season. Unfortunately, much like he and the Bolts have in the past, they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Rivers and the offense began to sputter, the Texans woke up on offense, and the rally was complete once Brian Cushing read Rivers’ eyes beautifully and made a diving interception that he then returned for a game-tying touchdown. The Texans would go on to move the ball down the field and position Randy Bullock for a game winning 41 yard field goal. Andre Johnson continued to show why he is one of the best in the game with a 12 reception, 146 yard performance, Owen Daniels chipped in 67 yards and two touchdowns, and Deandre Hopkins added five receptions and 66 yards. I thought Arian Foster seemed determined to make a big play all game and didn’t seem focused on doing the little things. He was palming the ball and holding it away from his body, he dropped multiple catchable balls, and almost seemed to be showing off and looking to make someone look foolish. Maybe that’s just me over-extrapolating, but he seemed off tonight. I’d be surprised if Gary Kubiak doesn’t talk to him about how he’s holding the ball after he and the other coaches watch film.
Alright, so that was a LOT less brief than I expected it to be. I guess I had more to say than I anticipated, though I shouldn’t really be surprised since I am so long winded anyway. Sorry that was such a long post, hopefully you enjoyed it anyway!
Tags: 2014 NFL Draft, Aaron Rodgers, Adrian Peterson, AJ Green, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton, Anquan Boldin, Arian Foster, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Bill Leavy Downgraded, Brandon Marshall, Brian Cushing, Buffalo Bills, C.J. Spiller, Calvin Johnson, Cam Newton, Cary Williams, Chicago Bears, Chip Kelly, Christian Ponder, Cincinnati Bengals, Colin Kaepernick, Danny Amendola, DeAndre Hopkins, Demaryius Thomas, Dennis Pitta, Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions, Dirk Koetter, Doug Marrone, Drew Brees, Duke Ihenacho, EJ Manuel, Eric Decker, Florida State, Gary Kubiak, Geno Smith, Green Bay Packers, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Jay Cutler, Jermichael Finley, Jerome Simpson, Jim Harbaugh, Joe Flacco, Joique Bell, Josh Freeman, Kyle Shanahan, LeSean McCoy, Madden Rookie, Mario Manningham, Mark Sanchez, Matt Cassel, Matt Flynn, Matt Ryan, Matt Stafford, Michael Crabtree, Michael Vick, Minnesota Vikings, Mychal Kendricks, Nate Burleson, Nathaniel Hackett, Nevada, New England Patriots, New York Jets, NFL Quick Hits, Nolan Nawrocki, Oakland Raiders, Owen Daniels, Peyton Manning, Philadelphia Eagles, Philip Rivers, Playcalling, Randall Cobb, Randy Bullock, Reggie Bush, Rex Ryan, RGIII, Rob Ryan, Robert Griffin, Robert Woods, San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, San Jose State, Shane Vereen, Shaun Phillips, Steven Jackson, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Terrelle Pryor, Tom Brady, Tom Melton, Torrey Smith, Tyler Wilson, Vernon Davis, Vincent Jackson, Von Miller, Washington Redskins, Week 1, Wes Welker
Supplemental Draft: Terrelle Pryor Scouting Report
Filed under: NFL Draft Prospect Scouting Reports — 2 Comments
Scouting Report:
Everyone knows that Pryor has upside because of his size and athletic ability, but I don't think he has it in him to be a quality NFL quarterback.
Pryor has a lot of upside because of his size and athletic ability, but I am not sold on him being a NFL quarterback despite Drew Rosenhaus’ claims to the contrary. I think he should consider moving to receiver in the NFL, but obviously I understand if he wants to give quarterback a legitimate shot. I just don’t think he has it in him to play QB at the NFL level based off of what I’ve seen. He’s not a bad college quarterback, but a lot of his tendencies translate very poorly to the NFL. I will explain those more in depth in my scouting report below, but I have to say I would be surprised if Pryor was drafted any earlier than the 4th or 5th round in the NFL Supplemental Draft. Any earlier and he is being drafted for his athletic potential and his possible switch to receiver, not because of his ability and upside as a quarterback.
Size: Pryor’s combination of size and athletic ability is rare for the quarterback position. He is listed at 6’6”, 233 pounds according to what I can find, which is pretty incredible. I would like to see him hold a “pro-day” of sorts just to get official measurements as well as a relatively accurate 40 time, but I would be surprised if that happened for the Supplemental Draft. He has more than enough size to play QB in the NFL, but his size and athleticism also makes him an intriguing player for a conversion to WR.
Arm Strength: Pryor has natural arm strength, not a lot of it, but he can get the ball downfield. However, he rarely has good zip on his throws, especially intermediate or deep passes. He has the arm strength to play in the NFL but he doesn’t have the zip on his throws to consistently threaten defenses on intermediate throws, if that makes sense.
Accuracy: This is one of the major problems with Pryor’s game. He shows the occasional (and I have to emphasize that word) flash to be accurate, but far too often his passes are inaccurate. He struggles with ball placement, doesn’t regularly throw to the right shoulder on deep passes, doesn’t do a good job of hitting his receivers in stride consistently and far too often his receivers are trying to dig out low throws, diving/reaching to get to throws behind them, etc. His accuracy could be improved with significant mechanical improvement, but he will never be a very accurate passer and currently his accuracy is poor.
Mechanical: This is another significant issue with Pryor’s game. His mechanics are not consistent in any positive aspect. At times he doesn’t have a clean drop from under center, he has happy feet in the pocket regularly as you can almost sense that he is itching to run, and while his throwing motion is solid it could use some tweaking. He doesn’t dip it down to his waist or anything though, to his credit. He consistently throws off balance however, he doesn’t square his shoulders up to the line of scrimmage when scrambling to his left, he throws across his body back to the middle of the field in rare instances, and routinely throws without resetting his feet. However, even in a clean pocket his mechanics and accuracy are less than impressive.
Mobility: This is perhaps the highlight of Pryor’s game and the part of his game that gives him the most upside in the NFL as a possible quarterback and as a receiver. I would expect him to run something around the 4.5 range if he did run a 40 yard dash time. He has impressive quickness for his size, he has a good burst, and he just has a good feel for running in the open field. His ball security needs work as he will neglect to tuck the ball away sometimes, but he has the straight line speed (thanks to his long strides) to threaten teams as a receiver as well.
Pre/Post Snap Reads: Pryor struggles in this aspect of the game as well. He does make two reads fairly consistently but he rarely scans the field and delivers the ball, rather he will go through a couple of his progressions (sometimes in a rush it seems) and then take off, so I question if he is actually scanning the field to throw or whether he is just waiting until he inevitably takes off scrambling. I am also not very convinced that he has a good sense of making reads pre-snap, which leads to him being surprised by blitzers that come free off the edge at times.
Pocket Poise: As you can probably guess, I was not impressed with Pryor’s pocket poise. He regularly looks antsy in the pocket and drops his eyes too quickly in the face of pressure, and looks to scramble out of the pocket instead of stepping up to remain in the pocket to continue scanning the field. He also doesn’t deal well with pressure, and seems to panic and look to escape instead of standing tall to deliver a throw downfield.
Intangibles: I am not convinced Pryor is a great leader and I don’t think he is clutch. He has made plays late in games before, but he is just as likely to make a play that helps your team as he is to hurt your team, and a lot of that has to deal with his inconsistent mechanics and poor decision making. He takes so many risks, makes so many off balance throws, and participates in so many broken plays that when he takes a chance late in a game he can make a play and get a completion on a throw or a 1st down running or he can throw an interception. I don’t think his good plays are a reflection of any kind of clutch demeanor, but I also don’t think his interceptions are a reflection of him wilting under pressure necessarily. I think he is indifferent to the pressure to some degree, and just makes the same decisions that he makes when there isn’t pressure. Unfortunately he doesn’t regularly make good decisions then either, so bad plays happen late in games as well.
Character: Pryor’s character has to come into question because of the investigations going on at Ohio State, and while I don’t think he is a serious character concern I do think that he comes off as arrogant at times, and clearly didn’t show the best decision making in reference to the tattoos and cars he has been linked to as a result of those investigations. It will be interesting to see just how good or bad his character is, but he clearly thinks highly enough of himself that he wasn’t willing to consider very legitimate options such as the CFL and UFL, which plenty of other players have had to consider in lieu of the NFL lockout. I don’t want to say he is being arrogant for refusing to consider playing receiver, but depending on how long he refuses or resists that possible transition it might come off that way.
Tags: 2012 NFL Draft, Jim Tressel, NCAA Allegations, NFL Lockout, NFL Supplemental Draft, Ohio State, Scouting Report, Terrelle Pryor, Tom Melton
North Carolina Ticket Issue and Pryor Thoughts
Filed under: NCAA Football News — 3 Comments
I just found this out from an ESPN alert but it is not up on the website yet, but it is being reported that a group of 11 UNC Football players received 395 parking citations totaling about $13,185 from 3/07 to 8/10 by this ACC Blog. I can’t really believe this is happening two years in a row, but it sounds like UNC is going to have NCAA investigators sniffing around and leveling sanctions and suspensions against my favorite team for a second year in a row. Hopefully most of the players involved in this group of 11 players have graduated or moved on to the NFL, but I don’t know if my luck is good enough for that to be the case. This is obviously just being reported, so I’m sure I’ll be shaking my head frequently as more details come out about this. I can’t imagine how a group of individuals would go about getting that many tickets, but apparently it is possible. I’m hoping for the best, but it’s not looking good for UNC again this year. Let’s hope we can persevere again.
I also want to give my thoughts on Terrelle Pryor. I have not been very hard on him in the past, but it is pretty clear he has some off-field character concerns and the impression I have gotten from everyone I have heard and talked to is that he is fairly arrogant. Obviously I don’t know him and I have never talked to him, but that is the impression I have gotten. I don’t think there is any way he will get selected in the 1st round of the NFL Supplemental Draft should it actually occur, and I’m even more sure that he will never develop into a “great NFL Quarterback” like his agent Drew Rosenhaus proclaimed he will. He survived largely on his athleticism in college and did not progress nearly enough as a passer during his three years as a starter at Ohio State as he would have needed to to be picked in the first three rounds strictly as a Quarterback. He has potential because of his intriguing size and athleticism, but his arm strength and accuracy is nothing special and his mechanics need significant development still. Obviously he can work and improve on all of this, but his college statistics and winning percentage won’t mean much in the NFL, especially because his athleticism won’t get him nearly as far in the NFL as it did in college. I think he could be a Wildcat quarterback in the right scheme, but I am willing to say that he will never be a quality NFL starter in the NFL without incredible improvement as an overall passer, and I don’t think that will ever happen. If he was drafted before the 4th round in the Supplemental Draft I would be quite surprised. However, if he runs a fast enough 40 at a workout maybe the Raiders will waste a 3rd rounder on him.
I’ll post my thoughts on these stories and others throughout the summer, so keep an eye out for those and for more rankings and pre-season scouting reports in the coming days, weeks and months! Thanks for reading!
Tags: "Great NFL Quarterback", $13, 000 in citations, 11 players, 1st round pick, Drew Rosenhaus, Jim Tressel, NCAA Sanctions, North Carolina Football, Ohio State, Parking Tickets, Press Conference, Suspensions, Terrelle Pryor
Sugar Bowl Notes: Arkansas-Ohio State
Hi everyone, sorry my posts have been a bit infrequent lately. I am currently in Mexico on vacation with my family and I don’t have internet in the house I am staying at. I didn’t bring my phone with me either, so in a way it is nice to get away from it all for a while. However, I watched the Sugar Bowl at a restaurant that had a TV and paid attention to some specific players and also noticed some who performed well. So despite not having internet where I am staying here are my notes on Arkansas and Ohio State from the Sugar Bowl!
Ryan Mallett, QB, Arkansas– Mallett had a bit of a tough night. He had his ups and downs and his receivers dropped at least five catchable balls, some of them which would have been big plays, but he had his share of very inaccurate throws himself. He was routinely pressured, so credit Ohio State’s defensive line and blitz packages for that, but he did not do a good job of finding hot reads and getting the ball out quickly in this game. He held onto the ball too long and eventually had to take a sack or throw an off balance pass that was either somewhat catchable or in the dirt. He has a pretty good sense of when to move up in the pocket when the pressure is getting there, but once the pressure forces him out of the pocket he was not accurate in this game. He had no interceptions all season when throwing outside of the pocket until this game when he threw his only interception of the night late in the fourth quarter after being forced outside the pocket yet again. He had a number of impressive throws in this game though, particularly on fade routes. He showed nice touch, good arm strength and impressive accuracy to put the ball on the right shoulder and where only his receiver could make a play on it a number of times on fade routes. However, he had a few bad decisions too like he always does. He isn’t afraid to throw into double coverage and even without his feet set he is sure he can throw the ball pretty much wherever he wants, which isn’t always the case. His footwork still leaves a lot to be desired for this reason, because when he sets his feet he can put the ball wherever he wants it thanks to his terrific arm strength and good (but inconsistent) accuracy.
Like Jay Cutler, when he is on he is really on, and can sling the ball all over the field. But he was noticeably frustrated against Ohio State because his receivers dropped some passes they really should have caught, and it culminated with Mallett forcing a pass into coverage and getting picked off by a defensive end dropping into coverage. Suffice it to say, I’m still not a Ryan Mallett fan. I think his ceiling in the NFL is a Jay Cutler type of QB who can really sling it when he is having a good day, but unless he improves his footwork he will always be inconsistent from game to game and season to season. However, Mallett’s floor is also a low one in my opinion, because I have no idea what kind of character he possesses and I have heard there are a number of scouts and GM’s who have significant enough problems with his character to not have him on their draft board at all. If these rumors are true and Mallett turns out to have character issues (not because of off-field incidents, but more like Jimmy Clausen’s character issues about being too cocky/arrogant, etc.) then I think it will hurt him on draft day like it did Clausen.
I’m still unimpressed with Mallett as a leader and as a “clutch” player late in games because I still don’t think I have seen him get the ball late in a game and methodically drive his team down the field for a late touchdown or field goal to take the lead. The announcers mentioned a three play, 73 yard touchdown drive before the punt block occurred, but that is a misleading statistic. The first two throws on that drive were pretty easy throws to open receivers, and the third throw, while impressively placed between the cornerback and the safety down the sideline, was caught by Greg Childs who made the safety miss and then was clear to jog into the end zone for the final 30+ yards of the drive to take the lead. Not exactly a magical drive from Mallett I wouldn’t say. Anyways, I was wondering if he had it in him to make a couple of good decisions and throws in this game to win it late (even though they got really lucky with the short field from the punt block) but a dropped pass and then an off balance throw that was easily intercepted by a defensive end took care of that threat. Because Mallett is not a proven “winner” in my opinion I don’t see him developing into one once he gets to the NFL. There are too many things going against him: Poor footwork, inconsistent accuracy/ball placement, inconsistent decision making, potential character concerns, little experience leading come-backs late in the 4th quarter and significant evidence to say that he is a “System Quarterback” given the fact that none of the QB’s Petrino has coached in his system have gone on to have NFL success. I said earlier this year that I thought Knile Davis was the best prospect on Arkansas’ offense and I still feel that way. It will be interesting to see how the draft process unfolds for Mallett, and even though I’m not a fan I would feel like a jerk if I didn’t wish him good luck the rest of the way. Honestly, he may need it.
Terrelle Pryor, QB, Ohio State– I have probably not hidden the fact that I am not a Terrelle Pryor fan either, so I have to start this post off by saying that even though he had a great statistical performance in this game I am still not a fan at all. He had a ton of production in this game, and like he usually does he converted some huge first downs for Ohio State with his legs and I believe he ended up with well over 100 yards rushing, which is impressive considering Arkansas’ ability to create sacks and negative plays (for those who don’t know, in college when the quarterback is sacked the yards lost are considered a negative rushing play and taken out of their rushing total. That is why some pocket passers will end games with negative yards rushing even though they rarely, if ever, crossed the line of scrimmage). He even looked pretty good as a passer in the first half. I was surprised how well he handled some of Arkansas’ pressure, but I can’t say I have a lot of faith in their secondary so it’s not a surprise that some of his receivers were getting separation. I’m still not sold on him as a passer, but he got the ball out under duress better than I thought he would. Like last year in the Rose Bowl he impressed me by saving his best performances for big games, so you have to give him credit for that. I may not be sold on him as a NFL QB, but I will always like players who despite all the things that may happen leading up to a game (such as getting suspended for the first five games of your senior season for selling old memorabilia from your career) can still put on a show when it counts.
That’s not to say he locked this game up with his arm, he was really ineffective in the second half, probably because Arkansas started to mix in more zone instead of pressuring him. Scrambling QB’s are tricky to prepare for because sometimes if you blitz them and you get to them you can force turnovers, but if they can escape pressure (like Pryor was able to for the entire first half and even in the second half) then there will usually be a lot of room to run or a wide open receiver as a result of a broken play. Mike Vick was great at escaping from pressure (especially against average or worse defenses), as is Pryor, and at picking up first downs because of his legs. Despite some of the impressive throws Pryor had in this game I am still not sold on him as a passer. When it was crunch time he converted with his legs, not his arm, and he didn’t seem comfortable reading zone coverage and had to exit the pocket and scramble to buy more time so one of his receivers could come open. I’m not sure how good his anticipation is as a QB, and because I watched this live I won’t be able to evaluate it until I re-watch it later, but it seems to me he wouldn’t have struggled to find receivers to throw to against Arkansas’ more zone-heavy scheme in the 2nd half if he could anticipate where his receiver would be and throw him open in the hole in the zone. Because he wasn’t able to do that he had to extend plays with his legs and I can think of probably three or four horrible throws that were off his back foot with tons of air under them that he had to thank God that they went out of bounds. He had a couple of potential interceptions dropped by the Arkansas’ secondary additionally, and at least one of them was an absolute “gimme” where two defenders went for it and neither came away with it.
So, while Pryor played well overall and had a very productive game with what was probably about 350 yards of total offense by himself I am still not sold on him as a NFL QB. He is a great athlete and he has good arm strength but very inconsistent accuracy. He just isn’t a very good passer from the pocket when it comes down to it. His pocket presence is not very good because his tendency is always to run or scramble when pressure comes instead of stepping up into the pocket, keeping his feet set and throwing his receiver open. He seemed to struggle reading zone coverage, I’m not sure how well he does finding his hot reads and I still don’t trust his decision making. So while he had a great game and got Ohio State (and the Big 10) a much needed BCS win against an SEC team he still hasn’t impressed me as a passer. For his sake I hope he comes back next year and serves his suspension just on the off chance he develops some more.
Knile Davis, RB, Arkansas– I am a huge fan of Knile Davis. He had a good game against Ohio State even though he had a costly fumble in the 2nd half. He was fighting for extra yards and even though he had the ball tucked away safely in one arm he should have covered it up with two to make sure it didn’t get stripped. I believe Arkansas recovered it anyway, but still it was a mistake on his part. Other than that I thought he played great. He showed impressive burst, acceleration and pretty good vision all game. He tried to bounce one or two runs outside (that I can remember from just watching it live) that I didn’t think he should have but mostly he was good at getting North and South from what I remember. He had another 100 yard game, his sixth of the season even though I believe he only started nine games all year. He really helped take Arkansas from a dangerous passing offense to a juggernaut balanced offense this year with his emergence, and though Mallett had a huge hand in making big plays in the passing game a lot of it was set up by Davis forcing teams to creep up and respect the run.
If Mallett leaves as I expect him to I am really excited to see if Davis can have a huge season next year even though Tyler Wilson will be stepping in at QB. Wilson showed some flashes of what he can do in Petrino’s offense against Auburn with a 400 yard, four touchdown performance in a loss but I think it’s clear that even though Mallett is extremely physically talented a player with less physical gifts like Wilson (who actually showed some pretty nice zip on his passes in that game from what I remember) can still operate the offense and make it explosive. So congratulations to Knile Davis on a fantastic season and I really hope he has a great junior season and that he stays healthy so he can end up being picked in the 1st round next year. The SEC should have a ton of talented RB’s to watch next year by the way: Knile Davis at Arkansas, Marcus Lattimore and Kenny Miles at South Carolina, Trent Richardson at Alabama (assuming Ingram leaves), Brandon Bolden at Mississippi, Vick Ballard at Mississippi State, Tauren Poole at Tennessee, and Washaun Ealey at Georgia. It should be fun to watch as some of those programs start to feature those running backs a lot, especially now that the conference has some young, promising talent at QB.
Joe Adams, WR, Arkansas– Adams had a huge game statistically but it could have been even bigger if he didn’t drop three catchable passes. I love his speed in the slot so that he can turn a short drag route into a twenty yard gain and his speed to challenge down the seam or down the sideline vertically. Plus he is elusive after the catch and plays with a feisty attitude which I like. However, his hands just aren’t quite what you want in a wide receiver yet. The first deep shot of the game was to Adams and it bounced right off his hands which really set the tone for Arkansas in the first half. The whole time the announcers talked about how Ohio State has been good at preventing the big play all season which is why they don’t give up a lot of yards but they had an early opportunity to make a big play and get some momentum but Adams let it bounce right off his hands. He dropped two other passes that I can remember, one that would have been for a touchdown, and that really hurts his grade for his overall performance in this game. If he didn’t have those three costly drops I would have said he is exactly what the Falcons needed at wide receiver because of his ability to stretch the field, make guys miss for yards after the catch and because of his tendency for explosive plays.
However, I think he should go back to school, work on his hands all summer and hopefully he will come back with Tyler Wilson to form a new big three of Wilson, Davis and Adams now that Mallett and Childs should both be gone. This kid has a ton of potential but as stupid as it sounds for a wide receiver, he just has to improve his hands. He has the speed and burst to improve as a route runner (I’m not sure how good he is at this point) and that can be coached up, but if he wants to improve his hands that is on him. There are plenty of examples of receivers who didn’t have great hands who came into the NFL and improved them over their first three seasons, and if Adams wants to be one of those guys all he needs is the work ethic. However, there are even more guys who had tons of potential because of their speed and play-making ability in college who never capitalized on it in the NFL because their hands held them back. I really hope Adams doesn’t end up being the latter.
DeMarcus Love, OT, Arkansas– Love had a tough game. I can honestly say I didn’t pay too much attention to him because I was trying to see how Mallett, Davis, Adams and D.J. Williams were doing but when I did notice him it was usually bad news. He had a lot of trouble with Cameron Heyward and that isn’t surprising, I think Heyward is a top 20 lock, and probably the #2 3-4 DE prospect after Marcell Dareus in this entire draft. His strength and power gave Love a lot of issues, and routinely Love got beaten by Heyward which led to pressure on Mallett before the play could really develop. That’s not good for Love’s draft prospects because I’m not sure he has the lateral agility and athletic ability to stick at left tackle, but at right tackle teams are going to be looking for a guy who can be a road-grader in the running game and take away whatever pass rushers they are up against, unless of course they have to face a guy with good/great speed off the edge. I will have to re-watch this game closely to see how Love does, but depending on his athletic ability and how well he gets to the second level I have a feeling his NFL future may be inside at guard. But like I said, I need to re-watch this game before I come to any conclusions about Love as a prospect. I just noticed that he struggled mightily at times in this game.
D.J. Williams, TE, Arkansas– I like D.J. Williams as a prospect, and I think he has developed into a solid blocker. I don’t know that he will ever be a great blocker but being able to be solid blocker will really help his value as a prospect, because without that ability he would be a horrible fit in an offense that asks their TE’s to block a lot like Atlanta’s. Now he is a potential fit because of that ability, and he seems to have a good work ethic so there is reason to hope that he could improve with coaching. His real value comes as a receiver though. I have heard him be compared to Tony Gonzalez which is a comparison I don’t like at all, but he is a good receiver. His hands are pretty good even though it was his drop that preceded Ryan Mallett’s game ending interception for Arkansas. I see him let passes into his pads at times though which is a bad habit, but he has good hands overall in my opinion. I’m not sure how much he will be able to challenge down the seam in the NFL because I don’t really buy that he has 4.6 timed speed, but he is good at finding holes in the zone and he catches the ball effectively in traffic. He is also very hard to bring down after the catch, and he routinely picks up extra yardage not with speed and great elusiveness but by lowering his shoulder and running through tacklers. I personally think Lance Kendricks is a better TE prospect but that probably has something to do with me seeing a lot of him over the past three years, and I think that if Rudolph declares he will still get picked before Kendricks and Williams. I would be surprised if those two were not the next TE’s off the board barring additional junior declarations.
Cameron Heyward, DE, Ohio State– I am a big Heyward fan and I really think he should be off the board in the top 20 selections. He is the perfect 3-4 DE in my opinion and if a team in the top 20 needs one he should be high on their wish list. He has great size, he’s really strong and he has great hand usage to shed blocks. I’m not sure he has the best motor, but he stands up well at the point of attack versus the run and is quick enough that he can penetrate into the backfield with one move and close on the ball carrier. He seems to be a pretty good tackler, though I haven’t scouted him enough to be sure of that. However, when it comes to the basics of playing DE in a 3-4, he has them down. He is strong enough at the point of attack to control two gaps, he is very good at shedding blocks because of his strong and active hands, he is at least a solid tackler and he has good quickness for his size to penetrate and make plays in the backfield when given the opportunity. And if that 3-4 team goes into a nickel defense and has four down lineman he can play LE or DT depending on whether it is a running or passing situation, potentially making him even more valuable.
I just think he is a very well-rounded player and he had a great game against Arkansas. He was pretty much a one man wrecking crew and he could not be blocked with just one guy, regardless of whether he was playing outside at DE or inside at DT. Like I said before, I like players that show up big in big games and Heyward certainly did that against Arkansas. He was constantly pressuring Mallett, penetrating versus the run and generally wreaking havoc whenever he was in. And perhaps even more impressive was the fact that it was extremely noticeable when he came out because of his elbow that was bothering him. Arkansas moved the ball much better as soon as he came out, and when he came back in his impact was immediately felt. It is rare for a defensive lineman to have that kind of impact on a game, but Heyward did and it really impressed me. If I was a big fan before I am an even bigger fan now. I’m not sure he will test all that well as far as 40 time and what not, but he has great size, good short area quickness and he is really strong, so even if he doesn’t run the fastest 40 for a guy his size he shouldn’t be docked too much for it. I look forward to seeing him at the Senior Bowl if he does indeed go. I imagine it will be more of the same of him dominating blockers one on one for the most part if he does.
Thanks for reading, hopefully you can watch and enjoy the remaining bowl games! I will do what I can to put up predictions for the Cotton Bowl and the National Championship game, but internet access is infrequent for me. That is why I wasn’t able to put a prediction post up for the Sugar Bowl. For the record I did predict their comeback in the second half, just ask my Mom (who watched the game with me and lost a 50 cent bet about Arkansas’ potential comeback).
Tags: 2011 NFL Draft, Alabama, Arkansas, Big 10 versus SEC, Brett Favre, Brian Brohm, Chicago Bears, Greg Childs injury, Jay Cutler, Kenny Miles, Knile Davis, Louisville, Marcus Lattimore, Mike Vick, Ohio State, Ohio State suspensions, Quarterback, Running Back, Ryan Mallett, Scouting Reports, Sugar Bowl, Terrelle Pryor, Trent Richardson, Tyler Wilson
QB Rankings- 11.7.10
Here are my current QB rankings as of early November. This list does not indicate the order that I think they will come off the board in April, but rather which I like the most at this juncture. Enjoy!
1- Andrew Luck, QB, Stanford- Luck has a great combination of size, good arm strength, accuracy and he is a very intelligent QB. I don’t think he will come out this year but if he did I think he has the football IQ to transition effectively to the NFL, much like Mark Sanchez.
2- Jake Locker, QB, Washington- Yes, I have Jake Locker #2 even though I have Mallett going #1 overall in my mock draft. I personally think Locker will be the better NFL player, though he will need more coaching than most probably thought after his incredible progression from his sophomore to junior year. His intangibles are just so special that a good QB coach could really make him a quality NFL starter.
3- Ryan Mallett, QB, Arkansas- Mallett has as much potential as any QB I have ever scouted because of his amazing arm strength and great size, but how good of a leader is he? How dependable is he late in games to make the right decisions and not turn the ball over? I don’t like his intangibles and his leadership ability and that combined with the offense he plays in, which is not preparing him for the NFL, make me doubt him as a prospect. However, that is just my opinion, and I still believe he is the odds on favorite to go #1 if Luck stays in school.
4- Kirk Cousins, QB, Michigan State- I really like Cousins’ game so he stays high on my rankings. He has been effective this year, but I am a little concerned about how he played against Iowa. That was a huge game for Michigan State and he made some mistakes that led to three interceptions. However, I think he has the tools to be a good starting QB in the NFL.
5- Christian Ponder, QB, Florida State- Ponder has disappointed me in the little that I have seen him this year, but it’s not enough to drop him out of the top 5 of my rankings. I still think he will be a solid starter in the NFL, but he doesn’t look like a franchise QB to me. He is a fringe first rounder in my opinion at this point, so we will see how he does the rest of the year.
6- Greg McElroy, QB, Alabama- McElroy has been very efficient this year but I am not sure he is much more than a solid NFL starter. I think he will be a solid mid-round pick and he seems to be very intelligent and if he had a good running game and some quality targets to throw to I think he could be an effective QB. Like Ponder I think he may be a product of the players around him rather than a Franchise QB/leader that makes the rest of his teammates better.
7- Nathan Enderle, QB, Idaho- Enderle was one of my favorite QB’s coming into the season but he has had a very down year so far involving a lot of turnovers. I’m not willing to drop him down in my rankings yet since I haven’t scouted him in any of them specifically yet. However, I have definitely been disappointed with how he has played statistically thus far this year.
8- Cam Newton, QB, Auburn- It is hard not to rank Newton in the top 10 even though he hasn’t shown me as much as I would like to see as a passer. In my opinion Newton is performing at a level that everyone expected Terrelle Pryor to perform at. He has shown the ability to throw the ball well, but his athletic ability and smoothness as a runner is what sets him apart from other QB’s. He has a lot of improvement to make as a passer, but to produce like he has as a first year starter in the SEC is absolutely amazing to me. I really hope there isn’t anything to these allegations of taking money for signing a LOI (Letter of Intent) because he is a fun player to watch.
9- Pat Devlin, QB, Delaware- I haven’t ever seen much of Devlin, but from what I have seen he doesn’t seem to have a very strong arm but he does have pretty good accuracy. I don’t think he would be getting the same attention he has gotten from draftniks if it wasn’t for Flacco’s early success in the NFL out of Delaware, but he looks like a solid draft prospect to me.
10- Ricky Stanzi, QB, Iowa- Stanzi has been statistically impressive this year and currently has the second best QB rating in the entire nation. I have not scouted him much this year, but he has had a strong statistical showing this year to be sure. In his last three important conference games against Michigan, Wisconsin and Michigan State he has thrown a combined nine touchdowns with no interceptions which is incredibly impressive.
11- Stephen Garcia, QB, South Carolina- Garcia has shown some really incredible flashes, such as his 17/20 performance when the Gamecocks upset Alabama, but he has not been as consistent as I would like. In his three games since the Alabama upset he has thrown a combined five touchdowns with four interceptions and for the first time all season he completed less than 65% of his passes in a game in two of those contests. It will be interesting to see if he bounces back to finish the season strong, because right now he is a mid-round pick in my opinion.
12- Blaine Gabbert, QB, Missouri- Gabbert is definitely on my radar but I would be surprised if he declared this year. He has impressive arm strength and accuracy along with good size, but he doesn’t have much in the way of mobility and I don’t like how often he is in shotgun and how much Missouri runs sets with four or five wide receivers. He definitely has NFL potential, but I think he needs to stay for his senior year to have a shot at the first round.
13- Landry Jones, QB, Oklahoma- Jones has had an incredibly productive season in his first full season as a starter and he is only a sophomore. He is playing much more efficiently, but he hasn’t been tested by many great defenses. I really wish I could see him play against Nebraska’s defense this year because they have made some really good QB prospects look like mid-round draft picks this season. He definitely has a lot of potential, but I have the same concerns about the offense he is playing in that I had with Sam Bradford.
14- Andy Dalton, QB, TCU- Dalton has had a good statistical season but he really hasn’t played anyone outside of Oregon State in the first week, and he struggled in that game statistically. I was not impressed with Dalton at all after seeing him play against Boise State last year, so in my opinion he is a mid-late round pick in the NFL Draft. He has some redeemable talent and ability, but his ceiling is an average NFL starter. I think he may be better suited for a back-up role in the NFL, but I still need to scout him based off of his senior year tape.
15- Jerrod Johnson, QB, Texas A&M- I have a really good feel for Johnson’s game and I think he is a 4th round pick at this point, perhaps a 5th rounder, but he has good size, athletic ability and a strong enough arm to warrant development. He just puts too much touch and air under his passes, he has a hitch in his throwing motion where he dips the ball below his chest near his hip, and he has poor footwork and pocket poise. With a couple or three years of development he could potentially be a solid starter, but I think he will have a longer road to starting in the NFL than a number of QB’s that I have ranked ahead of him.
16- Tyrod Taylor, QB, Virginia Tech- Taylor has had an impressive statistical season but he has not been tested much other than the first week against Boise State and potentially against NC State. It will be interesting to see how he performs against potentially tougher ACC teams like Georgia Tech, North Carolina and Miami, but if he continues to play well he will have a chance at the middle rounds, especially if he demonstrates some patience and pocket poise.
17- Mike Hartline, QB, Kentucky- Hartline has been making me regret not naming him my pre-season sleeper at QB for the majority of the season. He played very well against Auburn, South Carolina and Georgia combining for over 900 passing yards and nine touchdowns with only one interception. He is having an impressive season overall, and I look forward to watching tape of him to see if he has improved on some of the things I saw him struggle with when I watched him against Alabama last year. Hopefully he keeps this up.
18- Ben Chappell, QB, Indiana- Chappell has had a pretty solid statistical season, however those numbers are padded by games against teams like Arkansas State, Towson, Western Kentucky and Akron. He produced about 1,250 passing yards, a completion percentage of around 68% and 13 touchdowns with no interceptions in those four games. He torched Michigan for an astounding 480 yards passing with three touchdowns and one interception, but he had disappointing games against Ohio State, Illinois and Northwestern where he threw only two touchdowns with a combined six interceptions. He is a late round pick right now, and from what I noticed in the little I have seen him he seems to have a bit of a hitch in his throwing motion.
19- Colin Kaepernick, QB, Nevada- Kaepernick is a true dual-threat QB. He is just as likely to beat you with his legs as he is with his arm. He has a strong arm, but I have never been very impressed with him as a passer. I haven’t scouted him yet this year, but I imagine his athletic ability and arm strength will warrant at least late round consideration when the Draft finally rolls around. However, I am not sold on him ever amounting into a solid starter in the NFL, therefore he will be down towards the bottom of all of my rankings.
20- Nick Foles, QB, Arizona- Foles should be back from his injury this weekend, so it will be interesting to see how he finishes his junior season out. When I have seen him play I have noticed him staring down his receivers quite frequently which worries me as far as his transition to the NFL is concerned. He has good size and a nice arm, but I worry about the offense he plays in and how often he stares down his primary receiver.
21- Terrelle Pryor, QB, Ohio State- Pryor is an incredibly gifted player, but he still seems like an athlete playing quarterback to me. He has definitely shown signs of improvement this year, but at the end of the day they are just signs. I think if he comes out after his junior season he will get drafted higher than he deserves, but that doesn’t mean he will pan out obviously. He might have a higher ceiling at wide receiver in the NFL than he does at QB, but that is an entirely different can of worms.
22- Mitch Mustain, QB, Southern Cal- Mustain has been residing low on my rankings all year, and it’s hard to say that he should be much higher considering how limited his playing time has been at Southern Cal, but I think he has the tools to be a successful back-up QB and if he is developed for three or four years I think he would have a shot at being a solid starter in the NFL. He has a lot of experience in a pro-style offense and that will help his transition to the next level.
23- Scott Tolzien, QB, Wisconsin- Tolzien is nothing more than a game manager at Wisconsin, but he does a good job of avoiding mistakes and he has shown some added ability to make throws on 3rd down this year when they need a conversion. He isn’t going to be much more than a back-up on the next level in my opinion, but I think he could be a solid back-up who could step in and manage the game should the starter go down.
24- T.J. Yates, QB, North Carolina- Yates is barely on this list and it is only because he has shown flashes of ability this year. I don’t think he deserves to be drafted at this point, and his ceiling is probably a #3 or at best a #2 in the NFL.
25- Justin Roper, QB, Montana- Roper is a guy who has impressive size but I have not been able to see him play. He has pretty impressive stats even though he is playing at the Division II level, but I look forward to being able to see his arm strength, throwing motion and overall mechanics if Montana is ever televised nationally. A guy with his size and production warrants some consideration.
Tags: Alabama, Andrew Luck, Andy Dalton, Arizona, Arkansas, Auburn, Ben Chappell, Blaine Gabbert, Cam Newton, Christian Ponder, Colin Kaepernick, Delaware, Florida State, Greg McElroy, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Jake Locker, Jerrod Johnson, Justin Roper, Kentucky, Kirk Cousins, Landry Jones, Michigan State, Mike Hartline, Missouri, Mitch Mustain, Montana, Nathan Enderle, Nevada, NFL Draft, Nick Foles, North Carolina, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Pat Devlin, Quarterback, Quarterback Rankings, Ricky Stanzi, Ryan Mallett, Scott Tolzien, South Carolina, Southern California, Stanford, Stephen Garcia, T.J. Yates, TCU, Terrelle Pryor, Texas A&M, Tyrod Taylor, Virginia Tech, Washington, Wisconsin
Opening Weekend Thoughts:
Well opening weekend is nearly over after the Sunday games have been played. I am very excited to see Boise State and Virginia Tech square off tomorrow, but I have some thoughts about the games that were played this weekend. I haven’t watched all of them obviously, but I got to catch a few of them. Here are my thoughts about how some specific players did:
-Alshon Jeffrey, WR, South Carolina- I was impressed with how Jeffrey played last Thursday against Southern Mississippi. He is definitely South Carolina’s go-to guy and while he definitely has some things that he needs to work on he has great size, great natural ability to play receiver and he shows up when they need a first down or a big play, which is something that I really like to see in any prospect that I watch. I am excited to see how he develops in his second season on the college level. At this point AJ Green is the only receiver I would grade higher than Jeffrey in the entire SEC, which speaks volumes about him considering he is just embarking on his sophomore campaign.
-Terrelle Pryor, QB, Ohio State- Pryor seems to have continued his run of quality play that, in my opinion, started in the Rose Bowl last season. Obviously he didn’t play a quality opponent, but he did what he was supposed to do and that was play well and beat Marshall badly, which he did. I haven’t watched the game yet, but I saw part of it and he looked effective to me. But all that means is that he is starting to become a good college quarterback, there is not nearly enough evidence in his play to suggest that he is becoming a quality NFL quarterback prospect yet. But still, his performance on Saturday was encouraging.
-Brandon Saine, RB, Ohio State- Saine was one of my sleepers coming into the season, and last season when he was splitting carries with Daniel Herron I kept thinking to myself that Saine looked like the better runner to me. Well on Saturday he ran for over 100 yards on just nine carries and had two touchdowns. I have not yet posted my list of sleepers because I haven’t finished my defensive watch list, but Saine was definitely one of the guys I thought could make himself a lot of money this year, and it looks like he may just make me look smart this year. I am hoping and expecting a big year for him.
-Matt Barkley, QB, Southern Cal- I have been a big fan of Barkley since he first enrolled at USC and was fighting for the starting job, so I always find myself rooting for him to play well when Southern Cal takes the field. Barkley certainly didn’t disappoint me against Hawaii. He went 18/23, had 257 yards and five touchdowns in the game, and though I haven’t rewatched the game yet he impressed me. His receivers did get a lot of yards after catch which benefited his stats, but regardless I thought he played well. I am excited to see how he progresses this year, as I have been high on him for well over a year now.
-Marc Tyler, RB, Southern Cal- Tyler surprised me by winning the starting spot, but he looked very good against Hawaii. He looked fast, he showed good vision, he made nice cuts, he got North and South well, and most importantly he was productive. I think that with Barkley leading the offense and Tyler carrying the ball USC is going to be very difficult to slow down. I was very impressed with what I saw from him, so look for his draft stock to improve this year if he can stay healthy (which has been his issue in the past).
-Ronald Johnson, WR, Southern Cal- You’d probably think that I am a closet USC fan if you are just reading my blog for the first time, but I promise I’m not. USC is a hotbed for NFL talent though, so it is hard to ignore them when you are looking for players to scout, especially when you want to get as much mileage out of the time you spend watching games as possible. Johnson looked explosive against Hawaii and he was also very productive with three touchdowns. As I said earlier I haven’t re-watched this game yet, but I was pleased with what I saw from Johnson upon my initial view, and it’s hard to spin a three touchdown game for any receiver in a negative light, regardless of the competition.
-Nick Foles, QB, Arizona- I am not a big Foles supporter, but he played well against Toledo. He went 32/37 for 360 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. My issue with Foles is that he stares down his first read very frequently, which was my major beef with Sam Bradford, but he produced in this game. It will be interesting to take a look at this game to see how much he was staring down his receivers, but in the little that I saw of it it looked like he was still doing that. But he still played well and was efficient, so he deserves praise for that at least. He just won’t be moving up my QB rankings list before he shows me that he can read a defense and go through his progressions consistently.
-Juron Criner, WR, Arizona- I honestly knew nothing about Criner before this game, but some of the catches I saw him make were just incredible. He had 11 receptions, 187 yards and a touchdown, but he made a couple of highlight reel catches. He has very nice size at 6’4″, 210 pounds and has a reported 40 yard time of 4.62, which is not very good, but he dominated this game. He really caught my eye, so if or when I re-watch this game I will be paying specific attention to him to see how he looks.
-Adam Robinson, RB, Iowa- Robinson ran for 109 yards and three touchdowns on 24 carries in Iowa’s opener, pacing the Hawkeyes on their opening day victory. I haven’t re-watched the game yet, but I am looking forward to seeing how he develops this season. This was a very good start to the year for him.
-Derrick Locke, RB, Kentucky- Locke’s role on Kentucky reminds me a lot of Dexter McCluster’s on Ole Miss last year. It isn’t to the same extent, but their roles are similar in that as Locke goes Kentucky goes, much like how McCluster fueled Ole Miss last year. Locke is a guy I have really liked for a couple of months now, and he is definitely one of my RB sleepers for this year’s RB class. He and Brandon Saine are two of my favorite RB prospects in this senior class, but they haven’t gotten a lot of pub. Locke is very versatile and he honestly reminds me a lot of Warrick Dunn in that he can run up the middle, has the speed to get the edge, and is a very reliable receiver out of the backfield. This week he had 125 total yards (104 rushing) and two touchdowns. Watch out for him.
-Randall Cobb, WR, Kentucky- Cobb is a guy that I think has star potential, he is just so talented and is so versatile. He had 19 yards passing, 80 yards rushing on only four attempts, 19 more yards receiving on only two receptions and 59 yards on two kickoff returns. It’s not his most impressive game, but it shows the versatility he presents. Definitely watch out for him, he’s only a junior.
-Denard Robinson, QB, Michigan- What can you say about this guy other than “wow” to be honest. He had 197 yards rushing in his debut as a starter along with one touchdown rushing, plus he went 19/22 for 186 yards passing with one touchdown and he didn’t turn the ball over. That is about as efficient as it gets, especially when you are averaging 9.8 yards per attempt and 6.8 yards per rush. It will be really interesting to see if he can put up numbers even remotely similar to that against conference opponents this year. But wow, what a debut.
-Greg Jones, MLB, Michigan State- I watched the majority of this game while I was also watching Florida play, but I paid attention to Jones when he was on the field and he was impressive. I don’t know what his stat line looked like, but all I can say is this guy is the real deal. He has great instincts, he is always around the ball and he has just been impressive every time I’ve seen him play. Watching him play almost makes me regret that the Falcons ended up with Sean Weatherspoon, that is how high I am on this guy.
-Andre Ellington, RB, Clemson- Ellington had a good game against North Texas as he went off for 122 yards on just 12 carries with two touchdowns. It will be really interesting to see if he steps up to the plate and replaces Spiller, though he will be hard pressed to replace Spiller in all aspects of the game he should be able to step up and help replace his speed and playmaking ability on offense.
-Jamie Harper, RB, Clemson- Harper is another guy I want to watch out for because he had 102 yards and a score this weekend also. The combination of Ellington and Harper could be lethal this year, especially if Parker starts to come on at quarterback. I haven’t re-watched this game yet, but I am excited to see how both of these players look this year. Hopefully Harper runs as hard as he should at his size, because I was disappointed with how hard James Davis ran when he was the alleged “Thunder” to Spiller’s lightning a couple of years ago.
-Janoris Jenkins, CB, Florida- Jenkins is a guy that I have been impressed with since last year when I noticed him when I was scouting Joe Haden. Haden was a very good corner, but Jenkins might be just as, if not more, athletically gifted. I love how Jenkins supports the run, he is a good tackler, he is very physical, and he is good in coverage. He looked good to me yesterday, though I didn’t watch him on every snap and it was hard to see him at times due to the camera angles on TV. But he had a great break on the ball which ended in a pick six that kept Florida out of trouble while their offense was sputtering. As far as I’m concerned he was far and away their best player on Saturday.
I know there are other players that played well, but it is just too much to go through every game and find players who performed well. These were guys that I was aware of playing well before I started looking through box scores and reading through recaps. Hopefully that is a good enough list for all of you.
Once there are some more competitive games I will start putting up some preliminary scouting reports for that game that will hopefully involve previous viewings of the player if I have been able to see them before. Obviously they won’t be final reports, but they will be something that I take into serious account when I write a final report later in the season.
Thanks for reading! Hopefully it wasn’t too wordy, I try to keep these short but it never works.
Tags: Alshon Jeffrey, Brandon Saine, Ohio State, Quarterback, Running Back, South Carolina, Terrelle Pryor, Wide Receiver
Updated QB Rankings- 8.25.2010
Hey everyone. Sorry it has been so long since my last post. When I got my computer fixed it seems that all of the games I had downloaded from last year that I planned on re-watching to get a better feel for a lot of seniors and juniors before the season started have either been lost or they are in a very different folder or location on my hard drive than they were before. I tend to believe they are deleted, which is too bad. But I have also been very busy because I just got back to college a week ago so I have been adjusting to that, settling in to my new room, and obviously working for my football team here. I attend Beloit College and the football team here is Division III, but I love working for the team filming their games. They’ve come a long way since I got to campus, so I am excited for their season to start as well as Division I ball and the NFL regular season obviously.
Anyways, those are my excuses for not posting lately. Hopefully they are good enough for you so you keep coming back and reading my blog! I am quite unhappy that I lost all of those games that I downloaded, but I’ll get over it.
I figured that I would tide you all over to my next scouting report or game-breakdown with some rankings. Here are my updated QB rankings as of today, August 25th, for Seniors and Juniors that are probable to be in the NFL Draft. That obviously does not include Andrew Luck, a redshirt sophomore QB at Stanford, but I think it would be a mistake if he left even after a great sophomore season, so I won’t involve him in these rankings even though he has 1st round potential. Here you go! Enjoy!
QB Rankings- 8.18.2010
Mallett has as much potential as any NFL QB I have ever seen, and ultimately I think his combination of size and arm strength will result in him being the first QB drafted.
1- Ryan Mallett, QB, Arkansas- I know I am ranking Mallett #1 on my rankings, but I am not on the Mallett bandwagon yet. Mallett has an absolutely amazing arm and he can make just about any throw you ask of him and it will have zip on it. I have seen him throw lasers off balance without his feet set, which speaks to his outrageous arm strength. He can put the ball where-ever he wants it, but sometimes his accuracy will falter and he will sail passes high or miss a receiver. Some think that has to do with his accuracy, but I think his accuracy is quite impressive. I think the issue is with his footwork. He throws off his back foot, without his feet set, his drops don’t look very good to me and he generally gets away with not having polished footwork and fundamentals because of his absurd arm strength and his naturally talented arm for putting passes where he wants to. But if he wants to improve his accuracy and become an elite QB prospect like so many seem to think he already is then he needs to improve his footwork considerably in my opinion. I personally think Mallett will end up being the first QB selected for a few reasons. First, everyone loves a big arm and Mallett has one of the best arm’s I have ever seen. He can make any throw and he can put a lot of zip on anything he wants to. Second, he has great size to go along with his arm strength. Being able to see over the offensive linemen in front of him so he can read a defense at his height and size makes him even more intriguing. The third thing is a combination of the previous two: Potential. He has absolutely sky-high potential, even if I don’t think he’s a very safe prospect at this point. If he can polish up his fundamentals and develop before he declares after his junior year (in all likelihood) then he could very well be the #1 overall pick in the draft. He just has so much potential. But I am always wary of those types of players because it seems that so often players with Mallett’s ceiling get drafted assuming they will get there and then they never do. But he is my #1 QB right now because I think this could very well be where he ends up. Plus I don’t think it will be possible for Locker to live up to the hype he has gotten as the potential #1 overall pick. He is slightly more safe than Mallett in my opinion, but he doesn’t have the same potential. I just doubt that he will progress as much this year as he did between his sophomore and junior season, which makes me think he will inevitably fall.
Ponder is a safe pick in my opinion, but I think he has the potential to be a quality QB in the NFL.
2- Christian Ponder, QB, Florida State- I am a big Christian Ponder supporter despite being a huge UNC Tar Heels fan. He led a pretty amazing comeback against my Heels last year as a Junior, and I think he is going to have a great senior season leading a potentially explosive offense at FSU, and if he improves again between his junior and senior seasons and plays like he did against UNC last year more often this year then I think he will be a top 15 pick. He has the ability to be a very good NFL QB in my opinion. Some will be surprised that I have him over Locker, but I think Ponder is more NFL ready even if he doesn’t have the same potential that Mallett and Locker have. I am very close to sold on Ponder, so I am very excited to see how he plays this year.
3- Jake Locker, QB, Washington- If Locker takes strides similar to what he did last year again this year then I think it will be hard to argue against picking him in the top 5. I just don’t think that is realistic since he looked like a totally different QB last year than he did in his first two seasons. He definitely has things to improve on, like stepping into all of his throws, not taking unnecessary chances and just throwing the ball away, going through his progressions and using his eyes to deceive the defense. I can’t wait to see how he does this year, but it seems to be a trend that the #1 rated QB or prospect in general tends to have an underwhelming senior year. Hopefully that isn’t the case with Locker. Though I could definitely see him “sliding” if he doesn’t improve as much as some expect, but unfortunately that is what I expect will happen. Some prospects get over-analyzed when they come back for another year like Locker did, and while I think it will give scouts more time to nit-pick at his game, he has also been compared to John Elway, he has been deemed the mostly likely #1 overall selection in the draft, and everyone seems to be expecting him to progress as much this year as he did the year before. That isn’t fair, but I don’t think he will be able to live up to those lofty expectations this year. On the plus side for a team in the mid 1st-round that needs a QB, Locker may just be available and he could end up being the best one out of Mallett, Ponder and himself. We will have to see what happens, but I expect Locker’s stock to drop.
Enderle has a lot of potential in my opinion, and I think he uses his eyes as well as any QB in this draft class. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
4- Nathan Enderle, QB, Idaho- I watched a couple of Enderle’s games last season and I was incredibly impressed. He has good arm strength, good accuracy, he is pretty fundamentally sound and runs a pro-style offense at Idaho. He not only showed great ability to use his eyes, go through his progressions and make good decisions in the games I watched, but he led the crucial 4th quarter drive to win the game against Bowling Green with a touchdown with well under a minute left in the game and then a two point conversion to win it. It was truly a spectacle to watch and it made me a believer in him. I can’t wait to see what he does as a Senior. Hopefully he manages to overcome losing four of his five starting offensive linemen from last season and show everyone what I saw when I watched his games from last season. If he was more under the radar he would absolutely be my sleeper, but I’d feel like a cheater since I think he has already demonstrated how good he can be.
5- Kirk Cousins, QB, Michigan State- I really like Cousins but I don’t think he would get drafted before the 3rd round if he came out this season. I am probably much higher on him than anyone else at this point, but that isn’t what matters to me. I’m not afraid to go out on a limb and that is why I have Cousins this high. He runs a pro-style offense and Michigan State, he had 19 touchdowns and only nine interceptions as a sophomore and he wasn’t even the full time starter since Keith Nichol (who has since changed positions to wide receiver) was worked in fairly regularly, even after Cousins got the starting nod. He nearly won the game for Michigan State against Notre Dame with a late touchdown drive, and has shown poise and good decision making when I’ve seen him. He had his ups and downs as a first year starter, but I think he has the potential to be a very good NFL QB. He has mobility to run and extend plays, he has pretty good arm strength and accuracy, he is the leader of the offense and will be a three time captain by the time he is a Senior (assuming he stays) and he has produced. If he can step it up against the big time Big 10 teams this year (like Wisconsin, Iowa, Penn State and in addition Notre Dame) and play better in those games then he will really legitimize himself as a NFL prospect in my opinion. He is definitely my sleeper in the junior QB class, and I have been high on him since last fall when I saw him play against Notre Dame. We will have to see how he does this year, but I expect him to improve quite a bit. That is why I have him so high on my rankings.
Johnson has potential because of his arm strength and athleticism, but he needs to refine his mechanics and streamline his throwing motion.
6- Jerrod Johnson, QB, Texas A&M- I am not the biggest fan of Jerrod Johnson, but I think as a developmental QB he could be well worth a 3rd-4th round pick. I have Devlin rated below him for the time being because I have only seen limited footage of him whereas I have a pretty good feel for what Johnson is capable of since I have seen him play a number of times, both live and when I am specifically scouting him. He has impressive arm strength, good athleticism and good size, but his throwing motion is a little off and he tends to dip the ball below his chest before he releases the ball. He needs to polish his footwork a lot and overall his mechanics aren’t very impressive to me. I have him over Devlin right now because he has more athletic ability and arm strength than Devlin does accuracy and experience as far as scanning the field and going through progressions.
7- Pat Devlin, QB, Delaware- I haven’t seen Devlin play a whole game, but I have watched all the footage of him that I could and he looks like a solid QB prospect to me. He has a clean release, solid arm strength and impressive accuracy. He does a nice job on touch throws, but also shows some zip on passes to the sideline. He throws some nice ropes to the sideline. They aren’t going 100 mph, but they aren’t hanging in the air too long as far as I can tell. I haven’t seen him go through many progressions though, which is concerning. He usually stares a receiver down and either throws it to him, scrambles or checks down from what I have seen of him. Hopefully I will be able to see him play in a couple of full length games during his senior season, but from what I can tell he is going to be a developmental guy because he runs a lot of spread formations, not to mention he doesn’t look like he goes through his progressions well, he doesn’t use his eyes well and I think his footwork needs to be improved. If he had a stronger arm, better footwork or if he scanned the field better I think I might have rated him higher than Jerrod Johnson, but Johnson’s athletic ability and arm strength make him a more valuable prospect based off of what I have seen.
Dalton didn't impress me against Boise State, but he has an opportunity to redeem himself as a senior. Especially now that TCU is ranked high enough that an undefeated season could mean a BCS Championship birth.
8- Andy Dalton, QB, TCU- I’m not very high on Dalton, but from what I understand he is a pretty good leader and he has had a great career at TCU. I was not impressed with him against Boise State at all, but I understand that was one of his less impressive games so I don’t want to judge him just off of that game. I think he has the potential to get drafted in the 4th-5th round right now but I haven’t seen enough of him to evaluate him the way I would normally like. It will be interesting to see how he does this year because TCU will have a chance to get into the National Championship game if they go undefeated. I look forward to seeing how he does against Oregon State in week one.
9- Tyrod Taylor, QB, Virginia Tech- I wrote up a post on Tyrod Taylor earlier in the summer and I have to say I think he has progressed a lot since he had his redshirt taken off and he started to electrify Virginia Tech again. He looks like a QB who can run well rather than a runner who can pass well, which I can’t say I ever thought I would say about Tyrod. He still has progress he can make obviously, but he has come so far in the last few years that it’s hard for me to say that he won’t be drafted in the 5th-6th round range at this point. I think he will have a good senior season, and if he does I would be shocked if he didn’t get drafted. I am very interested to see how he does in arguably the most important season of his career.
Pryor has a lot of potential, but he needs to play like he did in the Rose Bowl more consistently if I am going to buy him as a quality NFL QB Prospect. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)
10- Terrelle Pryor, QB, Ohio State- I would have been hard pressed to put Pryor in my top 15 QB’s before I watched him against Oregon in the Rose Bowl, but he made me pause and actually consider him as a potential QB after I saw that game. If he plays more consistently like that then he will definitely move up on my rankings. However, before that I thought he was an absolute joke of a Quarterback, so I am definitely not ready to say that he has arrived and will take the Nation by storm. He has great size and sky-high potential because of his incredible athletic ability, but he is still a great athlete that can play QB to me, not a great QB with incredible athletic ability for the position. It will be interesting to see how he does this year, but I can’t say I expect him to play consistently well like he did in the Rose Bowl last year, so that is why I have him at 10 as of now.
11- John Brantley, QB, Florida- I know that John Brantley doesn’t have much experience, and I know he hasn’t led his team to a lot of wins like Stanzi, McElroy or Tolzien have, but I think Brantley has the ability to be a quality QB prospect. I have watched all of the footage of him that I can find, from the Spring Game this past summer to any throw I could find of him on YouTube. What I see is a pretty good athlete, a guy with good size, a strong arm with good zip on his throws, good accuracy (in the clips I have seen, which I admit have been limited), and even the ability to go through a couple of his progressions. That impressed me because he did as good of a job, if not better, of doing that than Tebow did. I think Brantley has one of the toughest jobs in the entire Nation this year replacing a local and national legend in Tim Tebow at QB of the Gators, so it will be really interesting to see how he handles replacing him on and off the field, because that is a lot to live up to. I think he can do it though, so it will be interesting to see how he plays this season. I think he will have a good first season as a starter, personally.
Stanzi is a solid QB, but he has never impressed me whether I saw him live or on game tape. (AP Photo/Al Goldis)
12- Ricky Stanzi, QB, Iowa- Some are higher on Stanzi than I, but I am not a big fan of him. He runs a pro-style offense, or something similar to a pro-style, but he throws a lot of shorter throws and I am not very impressed with his arm strength, the zip he puts on throws and he makes some bad reads and forces throws into coverage at times. It will be interesting to see how he does without his security blanket Tony Moeaki lining up with him this year. He has some weapons he can take advantage of, so I expect him to have a good year, but I don’t know how much of a leader he is, how good of an arm he has or how well he reads a defense. To me he is a 6th round pick right now, because he has proved he can win and produce when he has to, especially late in games, which is something that has always impressed me. Delivering when the game is on the line is the ultimate test of a quarterback’s competence in my opinion, or of any other position. We will have to see how Stanzi does this year, but I’m not a big fan.
13- Greg McElroy, QB, Alabama- McElroy has some poise, but to me he isn’t much more than a game manager. He’s a pretty good one though, because without some of the throws he made over the course of the season I don’t think Alabama would have won the National Championship. But in my estimation he was just a cog that had to do it’s job for the team to win, not a key piece. He doesn’t look like he has a very strong arm, he isn’t overly accurate, he isn’t a fiery leader, he doesn’t have great size, and I’ve never seen him take over a game when his team needs him to. He has put some nice drives together, but they aren’t drives that make me say “Wow, now that is a good quarterback.” They are drives that make me say “Wow, that is a good team.” It will be interesting to see how McElroy does this year, but I don’t have very high expectations for him to be honest.
14- Scott Tolzien, QB, Wisconsin- Tolzien is a solid QB, but he is nothing special in my opinion. That certainly endears him to Wisconsin fans though, because he is leaps and bounds better than recent QB’s they have had, like Sherer or Evridge for example. He has solid arm strength and accuracy, he has decent size and athleticism, but he isn’t overly poised and doesn’t read defenses particularly well in my opinion. But that was his first season as a starter, so it will be interesting to see how he looks with a year under his belt as he auditions for a potential job in the NFL. He could make a career out of being a back-up, so it will be interesting to see how he does.
Mustain may not be a starter at USC, but that doesn't mean he isn't talented. I think he is worth a 7th round pick at this point, and if he performs well in mop-up duty and posteason games... he could move up even higher.
15- Mitch Mustain, QB, Southern Cal- Mustain is definitely under the radar, but before he transferred from Arkansas he was a starter as a freshman and he wasn’t half bad from what I understand. He could have been a four year starter had he seen eye to eye with Houston Nutt, but he went to USC and has been a back-up ever since. However, he definitely flashed ability when he threw five touchdowns in USC’s Spring Game, so hopefully he will get to play in garbage time so I can see his mechanics, his arm strength, accuracy, and everything else. Hopefully Matt Barkley doesn’t get hurt, but USC has said that they would be comfortable handing Mustain the reigns to the offense, which is high praise considering how bad Aaron Corp looked in a reserve role last season. Mustain said that he received 10 offers to leave USC after the two year postseason ban was announced, but he elected to stay at USC because he wants to master the pro-style offense they run so he can adjust to the NFL quickly. That kind of maturity is impressive, and that makes me like him. I think he is definitely worth a 7th round pick at this point, and if he looks good in postseason games… he could be worth even more.
16- Ben Chappell, QB, Indiana- Chappell is definitely flying under the radar right now, but I spent a good deal of time figuring out whatever I could about him and seeing all the footage of him I can without having a game on my hard drive to evaluate him. He has a bit of a hitch in his throwing motion which is a little concerning, but I am seriously considering him as my sleeper QB for the Senior class. I think he has the potential to move up boards and get drafted, but I can’t rank him above other QB’s that I have seen and gotten a feel for before I have seen him play an entire full length game. As it stands now I have only seen selective clips of him. But he seems to be a good leader and he has a pretty strong arm along with solid size and production. It will be interesting to see how he does this year, I am excited to see him play an entire game.
Harris needs to learn to put zip on his throws, because he will struggle mightily in the NFL if he puts as much air under his passes as he did last year.
17- Jacory Harris, QB, Miami- Harris is a good QB, but at this point I don’t think he is good enough that I would draft him over any of the Seniors I have ranked ahead of him. He needs to continue to progress and work on some of his issues, like his throwing motion, his release point, and the amount of touch he puts on all of his throws. I don’t know if he will ever stop putting that much touch on his passes, and that really hurts his potential in the NFL in my opinion. There are times that you need to put some zip on a throw to get it completed, but Harris either doesn’t understand that or he can’t do it, and neither is a good thing. It will be interesting to see how well he does this season, but I think that he has a lot to work on and that is why I ranked him so low.
18- Blaine Gabbert, QB, Missouri- Gabbert has good size and solid arm strength and accuracy, but he just doesn’t “wow” me in any aspect to be honest. He plays in a spread, had good production and in general performed decently last year. I don’t think he’s a very special prospect, so as a junior if he came out I don’t think he’d get drafted before any of the guys I listed who, for the most part, have more experience and potential. I look forward to watching him to see if he develops into a better passer as a junior though.
19- Jordan Jefferson, QB, LSU- Jefferson has a lot of athletic ability along with good size and arm strength but his accuracy is inconsistent and something about his throwing motion looks off. It looks slow to me and I wonder how much it can be tweaked to speed it up. He has never impressed me that much, but he still has potential and that is why he made my list. I wonder how he will look this year, but I hope he will continue to develop and learn to make better decisions and place the ball better.
20- Nick Foles, QB, Arizona- I had Foles much higher on this list but then I saw his throws against USC and I lost a lot of confidence in him. He checked down a lot, he stared his receivers down on almost every snap, and he generally looked unimpressive. Perhaps he will prove me wrong for ranking him this low this season if he holds onto the starting spot and learns to read defenses better, but I am not really holding my breath on that. I will still watch him, but I don’t expect to see anything special. He was productive last year, but if he can’t read a defense then it doesn’t really matter how productive he is: he won’t make it on the next level.
Again, I am sorry about the long time between these posts. I’ve been working a lot for the football team here and it has just been a busy couple of weeks for me. Hopefully this will tide you over until my next post. Thanks for reading!
Tags: Alabama, Andy Dalton, Arizona, Arkansas, Ben Chappell, Blaine Gabbert, Christian Ponder, Delaware, Florida, Florida State, Greg McElroy, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Jacory Harris, Jake Locker, Jerrod Johnson, John Brantley, Jordan Jefferson, Kirk Cousins, LSU, Miami, Michigan State, Missouri, Mitch Mustain, Nathan Enderle, Nick Foles, Ohio State, Pat Devlin, QB, Quarterback, Rankings, Ricky Stanzi, Ryan Mallett, Scott Tolzien, Southern Cal, TCU, Terrelle Pryor, Texas A&M, Tyrod Taylor, Virginia Tech, Washington, Wisconsin
RT @chrislhayes: The federal government body that polices racial discrimination at work, uses "Go back to where you came from" as literally… 17 minutes ago
Pete Stauber, January 9th 2019: “Divisiveness must stop.” Pete Stauber, July 16, 2019: Won’t condemn Trump, calls… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… 1 hour ago
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1141
|
__label__cc
| 0.543514
| 0.456486
|
What Is GAT
Objectives and Methodology
Day-to-day / Organization
Casal de Verano – Inclusivo y terapéutico
English Summer Camp
Casal de Cine
How do you recognize a therapist of Tot-Teràpia? By the twinkle in their eyes
Corien Arts Dorotea was born in Curaçao, a Caribbean island and forming part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. After studying speech and language pathology in the Netherlands she returned to Curaçao where she worked 10 years in a rehabilitation center as part of a multidisciplinary team with patients visiting from 0 to 90 years of age. Since then she has worked with children suffering from different varieties of cerebral palsy and multiple syndromes, in addition to adults with different neurological and communication problems.
In 2005 she moved to Spain with her family and after having her third child, Corien decided to work again as a speech and language pathologist. Since then she followed several studies to catch up with effective methods of improving the conditions for communication as well as the typical methods used by speech and language pathologists. Soon the first patients arrived and gradually she started missing her teamwork experience: she wanted to work more holistically.
Communication is a skill that humans possess, but which is greatly affected if our motor or emotional part is misaligned or disturbed.
Corien has personally experienced the effects of a healthy diet. She knew it would be more effective to not only address the communicational skills of the patient but also pay attention to nutrition, movement, emotions and good relations with the people around. Conquering different languages she has sought information regarding effective therapies in Spanish, Dutch and English.
This way the idea of starting an interdisciplinary therapy center was born: Tot Teràpia.
Alba Peña Morillas was born in Granollers, a small town in Vallés Oriental in Catalunya. As a child she was always smiling, and at the same time she was quiet and observing girl.
She always loved interacting with different people. In her adolescence, she worked in two foundations focused on special education, where she participated as a volunteer within the team of professionals. When she met families and kids with their specific needs, she started to feel attracted to help them. For that reason, she decided to study Psychology (2004).
Her passion for people and relationships has made her work in very different areas and this way she gained experience with children, adults and seniors.
Alba has obtained a Master in Clinical and Health Psychology, as well as in Sexual and Couples Therapy. Since 2016 she has obtained a Masters degree in Neuropsychology. She is also specialized in Mindfulness.
As a professional she offers a few very important strengths: she is highly dedicated to her work and has a fighting spirit. Respect is one of her main values. In addition, since 2018, she is highly dedicated parent.
Ainhoa Corbera was born in Barcelona, but lived in the United Kingdom for 10 years where she worked and developed her career as a Clinical Psychologist in a North London NHS Hospital. A fluent English speaker, she is as well the mother of two children.
She grew up in a family of enthusiastic teachers and lecturers, where she could see first-hand the positive impact they often had on their pupils and the way they had touched their lives. This is probably the reason why she has always had a passion for working with people.
She holds a 5-year degree in Psychology with a specialisation in the Clinical branch from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1995-2000) and a 4-year Psychotherapist Post-graduate Doctoral Training, with the ACPP (Catalan Association of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist), as well as a Postgraduate Diploma from the Tavistock and Portman Clinic of London (University of East London).
Ainhoa’s extensive experience in consultation, assessment and treatment of children and adults with various conditions, has brought her to strongly believe that each person is unique and has his or her individual needs. Providing understanding and knowledge, but also practical help in a safe and non-judgemental environment where individuals and families can feel listened to, is a fundamental step towards a more fulfilled, positive and healthier life.
Laura Zaragoza Cruz is from Sant Quirze del Vallès, Barcelona. She is responsible, a perfectionist and loves exploring and understanding the world.
Laura studied speech and language pathology at the University of Manresa between 2010 en 2014. Afterwards she obtained a Master in Dyslexia and Literacy and a double Master in Orofacial Motility. She is specialized in PROMPT and DirFloortime.
Laura loves her job, working in a team and looks for continued education in order to become an expert in helping adults and children with communication difficulties. Being part of Tot Teràpia helps her to achieve her ambitions.
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said”
Ginés Ruiz Amorós was born in Elche, province of Alicante. Since childhood he has been an empathetic person, with a lot of imagination, who always enjoyed to help others.
That is why he decided to start his studies in Occupational Therapy in 2005, obtaining three years later the Erasmus scholarship for internships at Hênry Gabrielle Hospital in France, known for its area of functional rehabilitation of patients with neurological disorders. He continued his professional career in France as an occupational therapist at the Châtillon Clinic in Paris, also dedicated to functional rehabilitation.
To expand his training in other areas he moved to Barcelona, where he was able to deepen in the field of orthoprosthetics. Also, he successfully completed the master’s degree “Rehabilitation in Neurology: practical application of assessment and treatment” at the Gimbernat University Schools. In this master’s degree he was able to deepen the Bobath concept, as well as other neurorehabilitation techniques such as Perfetti, Halliwick (aquatic therapy), or Neurodynamics, among others.
His latest training has been focused on the area of pediatrics: he completed the Bobath course for children with Marisa Frontera at the San Juan de Dios hospital in Barcelona, and also the CLASI certification of sensory integration (certification according to the Jean Ayres program).
Irene Lara Torres was born in Barcelona and from a very young age she has could be described as a very observant and curious of her surroundings.
Her great vocation for the youngest, brought her to the certainty that she wanted to pursue a career related to children but could not decide in which discipline. Therefore, in 2007 she attended the Higher Education Formative Cycle in Pre-School Education, which helped her to discover the world of Speech and Language Therapy. She was then confident to know where she wanted to go as a professional and after completing her first year of the Degree in Translation and Interpretation of Sign Language at the Pompeu Fabra University, in 2010 she began to train in the Autonoma University of Barcelona in what she really was fascinated about, Speech and Language Therapy. The Degree was completed in 2015 with a double qualification: clinical and educational.
She has worked as an Speech and Language therapist in two private centers, working with individuals and groups of children, adolescents and adults. Currently, she collaborates as a Speech and Language Therapist at the Pediatric Neurodevelopment Unit at the Corachán Clinic. She is passionate and eager to continue developing her professional career and to continue training and specializing in the hands of Tot Terapia!
Ester Mesa Muñoz was born in Cornella de Llobregat, where she lived till the age of 8. Afterwards she and her family moved to Sant Just Desvern, where currently resides.
Growing up in a working family with an own business, her parents taught her, from a very young age, the importance of effort, responsibility and self-improvement, values that she has always maintained as the axis of her personality, while giving special value to the role of the family.
As she wanted to help children and adults with disabilities, she decided to study physiotherapy. During her time at the university, she expanded her studies with complementary training, such as Reflexotherapy and Chiromassage. Ester graduated in 2015 as a physiotherapist at the Universitat de Ciències de la Salut, Blanquerna, Ramón Llull.
After her studies she expanded her knowledge in the paediatric field through a Master’s Degree in Paediatric Physiotherapy at the International University of Catalonia (2017).
Ester has since then worked in various environments related to children and adults with various types of disabilities, such as the Hospital de Nens de Barcelona, the Taller Ocupacional ALBA, the horse foundation “Don Caballo” or collaborating with private centres. Ester has focused on different areas of physiotherapy, such as paediatric, respiratory, trauma and neurological areas.
Her motivation to grow at a professional level and the desire to collaborate with different health and education professionals in a holistic way, while helping children and adults, has led her to Tot Teràpia.
Alex was born in Barcelona during the 1992 Olympic Games. As a kid, he stood out for his curious and non-conformist character, so he began his studies in Journalism.
After some experiences in the Communication field, he decided do change his career, studying Psychology, a discipline he fell in love with.
In recent years, Alex has collaborated with several nonprofit organizations, apart from working as a psychotherapist in Sant Cugat (Tot Teràpia) and Barcelona, where he helps young people with all kinds of difficulties.
Currently, Alex is specializing in Giftedness. He has a double Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.
Jack Gaughan was born in London. He graduated with a BSc in Biology in 2009 from University of Sussex, UK. In the same year, he volunteered to teach English and Biology in Tanzania. This voluntary experience gave Jack his first chance to communicate across a language barrier to children, where he had to use his imagination and limited resources to support his teaching. After completing his first Master’s Degree in Human Evolution and Behaviour at University College London in 2012, Jack graduated in Speech and Language Therapy at City University London in 2015.
As a Speech and language therapist in London, he has worked with a range of different learning profiles in the National Health Service in London, including adults with learning disabilities such as autism, ADHD and Down syndrome. He is also trained in dysphagia, and has experience with stuttering, language delay and articulation difficulties. He has collaborated with professional teams and psychiatrists to make health care information easily accessible for patients and families.
Having worked in Barcelona as an SLT in a private centre for Children, he has specialised in reading remediation for dyslexia. He has also had training in Hanen Methodology and in Executive Functioning for people with ADHD by Sarah Ward.
Jack wants to continue to build his clinical skills in a team where he can share his ideas, and also benefit from the professional experiences of others.
Laura Díaz Arráez was born in Albacete, the province of Castilla La Mancha and lived with her parents and sister in a nearby village till the age of 18. She has always been an attentive, cheerful, responsible and aproachable person. Her ambition to help others led her to study Speech Therapy in Murcia.
After finishing her studies in 2009, she decided to pursue a postgraduate specialization in Myofunctional Therapy in Madrid. After completion, she started working at a private center in the Region of Murcia. Afterwards, she was part of the multidisciplinary team of a Center for Neurological Diseases in Albacete, where he learned the value and importance of teamwork. Here she also expanded her experience in the neurological field for 8 years.
Laura´s need to continue to grow both personally and professionally have taken her to the province of Barcelona, where she continues her path as a speech therapist and at the same time keeps specializing in the broad area of speech therapy.
Joseba Koldo Apesteguia was born in Pamplona. Currently he lives in Barcelona.
His interest in life processes led him to study Dietetics and Human Nutrition at the University of Navarra. After completing his studies, he traveled to Barcelona to work at the Hospital de Granollers and Vall d’ Hebron Hospital as a nutritionist. In 1998 he decided to move to Bilbao to establish Elikera – a Nutritional Guidance Office. He combined private consultation with training tasks for different groups at the Consumer Department of the Basque Government.
In 2001, he decided to return to Barcelona and began working as an on-line professor of Master’s studies in Nutrition at the University of Cádiz. At the same time that he carried out his studies of Naturopathy in Heilpraktiker Institut, he amplified his radius of schools and colleges where he offers training and / or advice in Nutrition and Dietetics.
He always tries to combine the various official and unofficial channels, trying to get the best out of each of them, even creating his own method based on eclecticism. From a study of all theories, names and fashions – raw food, veganism, detox diets, therapeutic fasting, paleo-evolutionary diet, integrative nutrition, real food, ketogenic diet, blood group, macrobiotic and a long etc. – he came to the conclusion that nothing has absolute value and everything depends on the context. Everything can be useful sometimes, nothing is useful forever.
Xander is a Dutch national and holds a degree in both Public Administration and Corporate & Business Law from the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, and studied one year of Spanish Civil & Commercial Law at the University of Granada.
Xander worked for an international management and financial services company for over 20 years (1994-2015). He started his career in Curaçao, where he fulfilled various commercial and managerial positions.
In 2005, Xander moved to Barcelona, when he became a member of the Management Board of the company, which position he fulfilled till 2015. Between 1994 and 2015 the company grew from 5 people in Curaçao to over 800 people in approx. 40 locations worldwide.
Currently, Xander is involved in multiple business activities. He is co-founder of Tot Teràpia, where he is also responsible for the operations, financial and legal affairs, as well as human resources.
Xander speaks Dutch, English, Spanish and German.
© Copyright - Tot Teràpia
|
cc/2019-30/en_head_0038.json.gz/line1142
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.