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Saturday, June 15, 2002, Chandigarh, India
M A I N N E W S
India rules out foreign troops for Kashmir
Putting all speculation to rest Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh today categorically ruled out the possibility of allowing troops from the USA or any other country in Kashmir with a purpose of either fighting the Al-Qaida operatives or monitoring the infiltration from across the border.
The Foreign Minister however, confirmed that India was discussing with the USA the proposal to install ground sensors to effectively monitor the movements along the Line of Control (LoC).
“There is no proposal for any forces from any country other than the Indian forces on the LoC, Mr Jaswant Singh said after a 90-minute meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) at the Prime Minister’s residence here.
He said the CCS had taken certain important decisions, but regretted that he was unable to share them with the media. “The situation is pregnant with possibilities...we are waiting for the right moment”, he added.
To a question, the minister admitted that India was discussing with the USA a proposal to put ground sensors for effective monitoring of the border. “The Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the USA are studying the issue...however, no final decision has been taken in the matter,” the minister said.
This is the first meeting of the CCS following the reduction in tension between India and Pakistan after New Delhi lifted the air embargo on Pakistan and recalled its warships in the Arabian Sea to their peace-time positions.
The meeting, presided over by the Prime Minister, was attended by Home Minister, L.K. Advani, Defence Minister George Fernandes, External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman K.C. Pant, Defence Secretary Yogendra Narain and senior civil and military officials.
Mr Jaswant Singh virtually confirmed the appointment of Senior Diplomat Harsh Bhasin as India’s new High Commissioner to Pakistan. Stating that newspapers had already been reporting on the appointment, he said, “no date has been decided” for sending the High Commissioner to Islamabad.
On persistent queries on Mr Bhasin being appointed as the new High Commissioner to Islamabad, Mr Jaswant Singh said: “We have not snapped diplomatic ties with Pakistan...our diplomatic relations are intact...whenever a decision is taken to send the new High Commissioner, he will go to Islamabad.”
On whether infiltration had come down, the Foreign Minister said India was collecting relevant data in this regard. The Defence Ministry was monitoring the situation on a daily basis. “Once we get the full data, we will let you know,” he added.
Referring to Mr Rumsfeld’s suggestion to India and Pakistan to resume talks, the minister said, “ India has always stood for a dialogue, but for it to be held, a conducive atmosphere has to be created.”
In this connection, he recalled that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee had announced a unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir to create a congenial atmosphere for talks. “We are examining all actions and will take appropriate decisions,” he said.
On whether India proposed to take some more confidence-building measures, he said, “the situation is pregnant with possibilities.”
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Campers love to participate in our Theatre Program in Tripp Lake’s own theatre, “Over the Wall” (OTW). Campers have many opportunities to perform and work in the theatre, onstage and off. Each age group, as well as our staff, puts on a show for the rest of the camp during the summer. There is also a camper talent show and a staff talent show for those who wish to take center stage and perform something special for everyone.
The theatre program caters to the budding actress or the more casual participant, as well as girls who are interested in learning set construction, lights, make-up or costumes.
In many ways, Over the Wall is the emotional heart of camp, and campers and counselors look forward to the special evenings there. OTW is one of the oldest buildings at camp. Like generations of TLCers since the early days of camp, before every performance at OTW, the girls sing camp songs written by campers throughout Tripp Lake’s long history, as well other songs that have been sung during past Sing Songs. The newest campers learn the songs sung through the ages, and develop an understanding of the strong connection of Tripp Lakers past and present to the camp and each other.
Select An Activity To Learn More
Tripp Lake has wonderful art classes to inspire the very beginner or the aspiring artist. Campers develop their artistic abilities and learn creative ways to express themselves in TLC’s art program.
A combination of individual and team sports are a part of each camper’s daily schedule. Team sports build skills in leadership, sportsmanship and cooperation in a group setting.
Our beautiful Tripp Lake provides lots of opportunities to enjoy the natural wonders and beauty of Maine. Campers participate in instructional and recreational activities on our expansive mile-long waterfront.
Developing a love for the great outdoors is an important part of the TLC experience. Our Outdoor Living Program will encourage campers to take advantage of the opportunity to challenge themselves, have fun and explore the surrounding countryside of Maine.
Tripp Lake has a dynamic English style riding program including jumping, grooming, tacking and equine safety. We have our own stables with ten horses, two riding rings and access to wooded riding trails.
Campers love to participate in our Theatre Program in Tripp Lake’s own theatre, “Over the Wall” (OTW). Campers have many opportunities to perform and work in the theatre, onstage and off.
We have plenty of Special Events and activities to thrill every camper. From traditional activities that began in 1911 or ones that got their start much later, there is always something to bring laughs and cheers to everyone. Some are team events, some are for each individual to try and some are just for the fun of it.
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VersaBank and PWC Capital Inc. Complete Merger
Dateline City:
LONDON, Ontario–(BUSINESS WIRE)–VersaBank (TSX: VB, VB.PR.A, VB.PR.B) (“VersaBank”) today announced the completion of its previously announced merger with PWC Capital Inc. (TSX: PWC, PWC.PR.A, PWC.PR.B, PWC.NT.C) (“PWC”) and related transactions.
“We are delighted with the support we have received from all of our securityholders in completing this transformative transaction,” said David Taylor, President and Chief Executive Officer of VersaBank. “We believe the combined entity is now better positioned to deliver on its business plans and growth initiatives moving forward.”
Pursuant to the terms of the merger, directly or indirectly, and subject to downward adjustment for fractional shares,
every 54.508758 PWC Common Shares were exchanged for one (1) Common Share of the combined entity, which continues as “VersaBank” (“VersaBank Common Shares”);
each PWC Class B Preferred Share was exchanged for approximately 2.793 VersaBank Common Shares;
each $1,000 principal amount of PWC Series C Notes was exchanged for approximately 137.009 VersaBank Common Shares; and
all of the outstanding VersaBank securities were converted into equivalent securities of the combined entity on a one-for-one basis (other than those held by PWC, which were cancelled).
The VersaBank Common Shares to be issued pursuant to the merger have been approved for listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange (the “TSX”) and are expected to commence trading on or about February 2, 2017, at the opening of the market. In addition, as a result of the merger, the PWC Common Shares, PWC Class B Preferred Shares and PWC Series C Notes are expected to be delisted from the TSX on or about February 1, 2017, at the closing of the market.
Any questions regarding the exchange of securities by former PWC securityholders, including any request for another copy of any of the letters of transmittal, should be directed to Computershare Investor Services Inc. via telephone at 1-800-564-6253 (toll free in North America) or via email at [email protected]. Former PWC securityholders who did not hold their securities in registered form, and VersaBank securityholders, are not required to submit any letter of transmittal or take any other action to affect the exchange of their respective securities in connection with the merger.
Prior to the completion of the merger, PWC completed the redemption of its 7.5% notes maturing on March 31, 2017 and non-voting, non-participating Class “A” preferred shares for cash in accordance with their terms effective as of January 27, 2017 and January 30, 2017, respectively. The PWC non-participating Class “A” preferred shares were delisted from the TSX on January 30, 2017, at the closing of the market.
About VersaBank
VersaBank, a technology based and digital Canadian Schedule I chartered bank, operates using an “electronic branchless model”. It sources deposits, consumer loans, commercial loans and leases electronically. VersaBank also makes residential development and commercial mortgages it sources through a well-established network of brokers and direct contact with its lending staff. VersaBank Common Shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol VB and its Series 1 Preferred Shares and Series 3 Preferred Shares trade under the symbols, VB.PR.A, VB.PR.B, respectively. VersaBank’s head office is located at suite 2002, 140 Fullarton Street, London, ON N6A 5P2.
About PWC Capital Inc.
Prior to the merger, PWC was a holding company that owned 12,615,219 common share of VersaBank, representing approximately 62.8% of the outstanding VersaBank common shares prior to the merger. As a result of the completion of the merger and the related cancelation of all the VersaBank common shares held by PWC pursuant to the merger, no securities of VersaBank are owned by PWC. Prior to the merger, PWC’s head office was located at suite 2002, 140 Fullarton Street, London, ON N6A 5P2.
This news release may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws that reflects the current expectations, estimates and projections of management about the future results, performance, achievements, prospects or opportunities for the combined entity following the merger. The words “may”, “would”, “could”, “should”, “will”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “plan”, “expect”, “intend”, “estimate”, “aim”, “endeavour”, “project”, “continue”, “predict”, “potential”, or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions have been used to identify these forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements are based upon a number of assumptions and are subject to a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond management’s control, and that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that are disclosed in or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such assumptions include, among other things, the strength of the Canadian economy in general and the strength of local economies within Canada in which VersaBank conducts operations, the effects of changes in interest rates; the effects of competition in the markets in which VersaBank operates; capital market fluctuations; and the impact of changes in laws and regulations. Management has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to vary from current expectations or estimates, expressed or implied, by the forward-looking information. However, there may be other factors that cause results, performance or achievements not to be as expected or estimated and that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from current expectations. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those expected or estimated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.
The following factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking information: risks related to the business of VersaBank; risks related to political developments and policy shifts; risks related to amendments to laws; and risks related to the market value of VersaBank securities. Additional risks and uncertainties regarding VersaBank and the combined entity following the merger are described in VersaBank’s most recent management discussion and analysis which is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
This forward-looking information represents our views as of the date of this press release and such information should not be relied upon as representing management’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this document. While we anticipate that subsequent events and developments may cause our views to change, we do not intend to update this forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws.
VersaBank:
David Taylor, 519-675-4206
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Food Crisis Talks Risk Being Overshadowed by Mugabe, Ahmadinejad
Representatives from U.N. member nations are holding an emergency meeting this week to address a global food crisis that has already sparked protests over rising prices and left many of the world's poor unable to feed their families. The gathering, which formally opens Tuesday, has been overshadowed by the presence of the Zimbabwean and Iranian presidents. Sabina Castelfranco has more in this VOA report from Rome.
The summit of around 60 heads of state and government was called in response to soaring food prices, amid growing demand and failing crops.
But discussions risk being overshadowed by the presence of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who both have strained relations with the West. The European Union has imposed a travel ban on Mr. Mugabe, but that does not apply to U.N. meetings. This is Mr. Ahmadinejad's first visit to Western Europe as Iran's president.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Shafer, who is leading the U.S. delegation, said there would be no meeting with Mr. Mugabe.
"I will not be meeting with the president," said
Ed Shafer. "We welcome the discussion, the ideas and the ability to come to some conclusions about how to deal with this food price issue. So, I'm just looking forward to the conversations, and as I mentioned, I will not be meeting with the president."
Human rights activists plan to unfurl a 200-meter-long banner early Tuesday in front of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization building with a message saying that 854 million people worldwide already face food insecurity and that that number could rise in the wake of the current crisis.
USAID Administrator Henrietta Fore said this summit is useful to bring all the players, including world leaders and donors, together to find a way to coordinate action.
"We would like to see the world's conversation focusing on both short-term and long-term solutions, because the challenges that face us will be multi-year and multi-dimensional: education, sanitation, water usage, agricultural inputs, financing, ways that we can encourage the world's agriculture research are all part of a combined solution," said Henrietta Fore.
She says the United States believes results will come if it begins by focusing first on West Africa, where there are a number of bread-basket countries which require encouragement, and then focusing on east and southern Africa.
"We are focusing from the United States on doubling production," she said. "President Bush has a very strong initiative of $5 billion over two years. We want to double production, and we're starting in Africa. We think that will help a great deal."
Fore says the more people in need receive food, the more the markets will work, transportation system will work and farmers with incentives will grow more food.
On Eve of Rome Food Summit, NGO Warns of Global Catastrophe
The UN summit on World Food Security and Climate Change opens Tuesday in Rome. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates 850 million people suffer from hunger, with the vast majority in developing countries. The summit is being held as food prices soar around the world. Monday, on the eve of the summit, the development agency ActionAid warns that rising food prices could create a global catastrophe. It calls the crisis a gross violation of human rights.
World Leaders Condemn Mugabe's Presence at UN Food Summit
Western leaders are condemning the presence of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe at a United Nations-sponsored food security conference in Rome. U.S. President George Bush issued a statement noting that while Mr. Mugabe makes political statements in Rome, Zimbabweans face empty markets. Mr. Bush said he is concerned that what he called "misguided government policies" are expected to bring one of the worst crop harvests in Zimbabwe's history. …
Saharan Water Pipe Project Irrigates Desert
In Libya, people are starting to get their water from one of the most unlikely places on Earth: the Saharan desert. About 30 years ago, scientists looking for oil found water instead - and there is now a multi-billion dollar pipeline to pump it to Libya's coastal cities. But most people in the desert still draw water from wells, waiting for rain, and hoping their oases will not run dry. Phuong Tran brings VOA this report from Timia, Niger. For years, investors…
Bush Appeals for Close Foreign Monitoring of Zimbabwe Run-Off
President Bush Monday appealed to African countries and others to "blanket" Zimbabwe with election monitors in the face of increasingly tough tactics by the Robert Mugabe government against the opposition. Mr. Mugabe faces opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a presidential run-off vote June 27. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department. The White House appeal, and similar comments by the State Department, reflect…
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Lymm Truckwash's female boss encourages more women to join the industry ahead of £2.3m move
By Isobel Cotogni Reporter
Laura Cardwell, 40, owns Lymm Truckwash
THE FEMALE boss of Europe’s largest truck wash is urging more women to join the industry as the firm invests £2.3m in a new site.
Laura Cardwell, the owner and managing director of Lymm Truckwash, said: “As a woman in the male-dominated HGV industry, I can make the sector more accessible.
“I tend to stand out, drawing attention to the important and necessary service our company provides.”
Laura has been director of the 52-year-old family firm – the largest and oldest truck wash in Europe – since 2014, and she bought the business in 2018 when her parents retired.
She took charge of finding the new site, planning permission and build.
Without this input, the business would have been forced to close in December this year, when the lease for the old site runs out.
The 40-year-old has taken the reins at a key turning point in the company’s history, as it invests £2.3 million in relocating to a new, purpose-built site, just 100 metres from its current base at Lymm Services on the M6.
Lymm Truckwash will move to its new site on the opposite side of the A50, only 100 metres away from the old site, in autumn this year.
Founded in 1967, Lymm Truckwash washes more than 60,000 trucks a year for customers throughout the UK and across Europe, ranging from owner-drivers to major fleet operators such as BP, DHL and AW Jenkinson.
Laura said: “When you look at the figures and see how many vehicles we wash, and the calibre and quantities of businesses who use us, it’s obvious we’re a crucial service. It is also a legal requirement for HGV’s to be clean, lights and number plates especially.
“Companies have to keep their trucks clean, not only because they are mobile advertisements for themselves, but if they are not kept clean then the DVSA are more likely to pull a wagon over – if they are not keeping the vehicle clean, then what else are they not doing to ensure it’s safe running?”
Started by Laura’s parents, John and Anne Cardwell, in 1967 the firm has a dedicated team of staff who have been with the company for many years.
Laura added: “Being a woman in this sector has its advantages and disadvantages.
“Like any industry, you feel you have to prove yourself more, and it’s hard juggling children, home and work. However, I think it is vital that women work to set an example to their children and the next generation - I thrive on the challenges of the work and family life balance, it is possible, you just have to be organised.
“The site will be quicker and easier for our customers to access from the motorway because they’ll no longer have to enter and exit Lymm Services."
While there are no female truck washers among the firm’s staff, Laura insists women are perfectly capable of taking on the job.
Asked what it takes to be a truck washer, she says: “They need to be hardworking and physically fit, because the job can be tough and they have to work in all weathers. They also need to be flexible with a good work ethic, attitude and be able to interact well with our customers, many of whom are always up for a chat after spending many hours in their cab.”
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March 25, 2014 at 2:00 pm EDT | by guest columnist
Vote for next generation of leadership in D.C.
Honing in on four key problems facing our community: a lack of good jobs, ever increasing costs of housing, prohibitive wages for our workers, and the denial of D.C.’s claim to statehood.
By ANGELA PEOPLES
For some time now, wooing and turning out young voters is the name of the game for Democratic candidates at all levels of government. In the District of Columbia, an influx of young professionals over the last decade and the racial and socio-economic shift that have followed make engaging this group more important, yet more elusive than ever.
It’s hard to believe that this city’s main draw for newcomers is the opportunity to work in politics and government, and somehow, that would mean local politics would take “a back seat to the existential angst of being a 20- or 30-something in this city,” as Robert Samuels wrote in a Washington Post article last week referring to youth involvement in local elections.
But Robert Samuels hasn’t met the leaders behind the Rent Is Too Darn High slate.
I moved to D.C. in 2008 with a laser-like focus on being a part of the movement for social change at the national level. As an advocate for the United States Student Association, a national youth advocacy organization, I was inspired daily by the energy, passion and ability of my peers working to make higher education affordable. Over the years, I developed roots in the District community. This community is comprised of people in similar circumstances: 20- and 30-year old D.C. transplants with deep progressive values and a belief in the power of people to change their surroundings.
The fact that our views at times clashed with our role in the rapidly gentrifying city we called home — and yes, we do call D.C. home — was not lost on me. Having been raised in a household of school board presidents and churchgoers, the call to contribute to my local community grew stronger.
That calling brought me to the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club to help serve as the voice for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Democrats in D.C. This group connects my passion for politics and progress with my commitment to being a community leader in the city I call home. And now, in the middle of my second term on the executive board of the Club, we’ve made it a point to engage young community members.
Serving as a leader of the largest constituent group in the D.C. Democratic Party has its challenges. There were those who questioned my authenticity, my ability to lead and even my sexuality. But for every one person who cast doubt on the spirit of this new generation of community leaders, there were two others who stood firmly behind us.
I continue to be inspired by many of these leaders who answered the call to fight for change at home and across the country. Many of these folks are now running for City Council, leading local organizations like the Washington Interfaith Network, the Youth Pride Alliance, TransLaw, and the Latino/a GLBT History Project.
One such group is the Rent Is Too Darn High slate for D.C. Democratic State Committee, the largest and most diverse slate seeking to give this body a fresh start. So while the Washington Post might make a debatable argument about youth involvement in the mayoral election, what is absolutely clear is that young people and LGBT people are energized by and driving engagement in local politics.
Representing the wisdom of long-standing community leaders joined by the fresh perspectives of young organizers, this slate is honing in on four key problems facing our community: a lack of good jobs, ever increasing costs of housing, prohibitive wages for our workers, and the denial of D.C.’s claim to statehood.
I’m convinced that one path to changing these conditions is through the effective stewardship of the D.C. Democratic State Committee. For too long, this organization has fought against transparency and accountability, and now wrestles with the perception of being complicit in corruption.
Unlike other candidates and slates, the Rent Is Too Darn High candidates bring native Washingtonians together with D.C. transplants to tackle head-on the policies depriving our communities of what they need to support their families. With Rent Is Too Darn High candidates at the helm of the D.C. Democratic State Committee, we can have a significant role in bringing these issues in front of the mayor’s office and the City Council.
So as a fellow D.C. community member, come April 1st, I’m giving my support to all the candidates bearing the Rent Is Too Darn High name. And I urge all LGBT people committed to a new generation of Democratic leadership in D.C. to do the same.
Angela Peoples is president of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club.
D.C. Democratic State CommitteeDemocratic PartyDistrict of ColumbiaelectionsGertrude Stein Democratic ClubLatino/a GLBT History ProjectLGBTRent Is Too Darn HighTransLAWUnited States Student AssociationUSSAWashington Interfaith NetworkWashington PostYouth Pride Alliance
guest columnist
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Hope Solo returns from suspension to rejoin U.S. women’s soccer team
By Steven Goff
Steven Goff
Reporter covering soccer (D.C. United, MLS, U.S. national teams, World Cup), plus some college basketball.
Hope Solo against Brazil in December. (AFP/Getty Images)
The U.S. Soccer Federation has reinstated goalkeeper Hope Solo, clearing her to join the women’s national team for the Algarve Cup in Portugal and resume her quest to play in the World Cup this summer. She was among 25 players named to the squad Saturday.
Solo, 33, served a 30-day suspension for an incident at U.S. training camp in Southern California, a ban that sidelined her for friendlies against France and England. In order to return to the squad, Solo had to meet conditions set by the USSF and Coach Jill Ellis. Those conditions were not publicly specified, but alcohol counseling was suspected.
Last summer, Solo was ordered to refrain from drinking alcohol after her arrest on domestic violence charges in Washington state. At training camp last month, she was a passenger in a USSF vehicle driven by husband Jerramy Stevens, who was arrested on charges of driving under the influence. At the time, USSF President Sunil Gulati said he could not go into detail about Solo’s problems because it involved “health-related issues.”
Neither Ellis nor the USSF offered any comments Saturday about her reinstatement.
In a 14-year international career, Solo has made 162 appearances (second behind Briana Scurry) and recorded a program-record 78 shutouts. She was the featured goalkeeper during Olympic gold medal campaigns in 2008 and 2012, and started at the 2011 World Cup in Germany. For several years, she and Germany’s Nadine Angerer have been widely regarded as the best keepers in the world.
The Algarve Cup, a 12-nation tournament featuring nine World Cup-bound teams, will begin March 4. The Americans, ranked second in the world behind Germany, will face Norway, Switzerland and Iceland in group play.
In Solo’s absence, Ashlyn Harris, a 29-year-old Florida native who plays for the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, started in a 2-0 defeat to France and a 1-0 victory at England, increasing her career starts to six.
In the coming week, Ellis will name 23 of the 25 players to the official tournament roster.
U.S. Algarve Cup roster
Goalkeepers: Ashlyn Harris (Washington Spirit), Alyssa Naeher (Boston Breakers), Hope Solo (Seattle Reign).
Defenders: Lori Chalupny (Chicago Red Stars), Crystal Dunn (Washington Spirit), Whitney Engen (Western NY Flash), Julie Johnston (Chicago Red Stars), Meghan Klingenberg (Houston Dash), Ali Krieger (Washington Spirit), Kelley O’Hara (Sky Blue FC), Christie Rampone (Sky Blue FC), Becky Sauerbrunn (FC Kansas City), Rachel Van Hollebeke (Portland Thorns).
Midfielders: Shannon Boxx (Chicago Red Stars), Morgan Brian (Houston Dash), Tobin Heath (Portland Thorns), Lauren Holiday (FC Kansas City), Carli Lloyd (Houston Dash), Heather O’Reilly (FC Kansas City), Megan Rapinoe (Seattle Reign).
Forwards: Sydney Leroux (Seattle Reign), Alex Morgan (Portland Thorns), Christen Press (Chicago Red Stars), Amy Rodriguez (FC Kansas City), Abby Wambach (Western NY Flash).
Steven Goff Steven Goff has covered soccer for The Washington Post since the early 1990s. His beats include D.C. United, MLS and the U.S. national teams. He has been on assignment at every World Cup since 1994, plus five Women's World Cups. Follow
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The Post's View Opinion
Will Trump’s splendid little trade war live in infamy?
President Trump in the White House on July 2 in Washington. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
By Editorial Board
THE FIRST ROUND of U.S. tariffs on China takes effect Friday: Will July 6, 2018, turn out to be a date that lives in economic infamy, like June 17, 1930, the day President Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act?
By itself, Mr. Trump’s opening salvo, a 25 percent tariff on 818 Chinese imports, worth $34 billion a year, amounts to a rounding error as compared with the overall size of the U.S. and Chinese economies. Moreover, it’s not inherently misguided to get tough with China over its relentless mercantilism, which has long disadvantaged U.S. businesses and which more recently took the form of a “Made in China 2025” policy that seeks dominance for the People’s Republic in cutting-edge technology. Alas, Mr. Trump seems fixated on tariffs as a means to a far less legitimate, far less realistic (and far more simplistic) goal: reducing the merchandise trade deficit, which was $376 billion last year, between the United States and China. He has already threatened to escalate U.S. tariffs to cover nearly all the goods the United States imports from China if he does not get his way.
There would be a better chance of success against China if Mr. Trump were working in concert with other countries, including the United States’ traditional allies and trading partners with which the United States has long enjoyed relatively free trade: Canada, Mexico and the European Union. Instead, Mr. Trump is recklessly antagonizing them, suggesting that they deliberately exploit the United States and threatening to impose tariffs on imported cars in addition to steel and aluminum.
Mr. Trump does have leverage, in the sense that all of these countries depend far more on exports than the United States does. They are undoubtedly reluctant to do much more in response to Mr. Trump’s tariffs than impose reciprocal measures of their own, as long as there is any hope of negotiating a settlement. At a certain point, however, they may decide that tariffs are not a means to an end for the American president, but an end in themselves. And that may prompt them to give up on persuading the United States and to join forces against it instead.
Tariffs create all sorts of inefficiencies, unintended consequences and uncertainty, none of which is good for an interdependent global economy. In a way, though, these are the least of the worries that Mr. Trump’s policies raise. More fundamental is his dishonest use of national security as a rationale for new trade barriers, even against allies such as Canada, and his equally false accusation that the World Trade Organization has been biased against the United States. By delegitimizing such alliances and institutions, all of them created under U.S. auspices in the postwar era to help prevent global economic competition from fueling international conflict, Mr. Trump takes U.S. foreign policy generally back to the Smoot-Hawley era. That was a time when trade wars were liable to turn into real wars, a lesson of history that Mr. Trump has obviously failed to learn.
Catherine Rampell: Trump’s tariffs are already backfiring
Dana Milbank: Trump says trade wars are ‘easy.’ Here come the first American casualties.
Catherine Rampell: Factory workers aren’t getting what Trump promised
The Post’s View: It’s time for Congress to take back trade
Catherine Rampell: Trump wants more tax cuts, and I agree. Sort of.
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Gunshot victim walks into Norfolk fire station
by: Lex Gray
Posted: Aug 4, 2018 / 09:08 AM EDT / Updated: Aug 4, 2018 / 09:08 AM EDT
NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Police are working to figure out where a man was shot before he walked into the fire station on Norview Avenue with an injury.
The man was taken to the hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound to his leg after he came to the fire station around 3:30 a.m., according to dispatchers.
He is expected to survive.
Look for updates on the investigation on wavy.com.
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EntertainmentLocal A&E
Cincinnati-filmed 'Gotti,' with John Travolta, will premiere at Cannes
Posted: 1:17 PM, May 02, 2018
By: Brian Mains
<p>BEVERLY HILLS, CA - NOVEMBER 20: Actor John Travolta attends the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 30th anniversary screening of 'Saturday Night Fever' on November 20, 2007 at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)</p>
NEW YORK (AP) — The delayed mobster biopic “Gotti,” starring John Travolta, will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Film producers told The Associated Press on Tuesday that “Gotti” will premiere out of competition at Cannes at a special gala screening at the Palais des Festivals on May 15. The Cannes Film Festival begins May 8.
“Gotti” depicts the rise and fall of the notorious Gambino family crime boss John V. Gotti. It’s directed by Kevin Connolly. Crews filmed parts of the film in Greater Cincinnati in 2016. Locations included Finneytown, Over-the-Rhine and inside the Butler County Jail.
During a 2016 interview while in Cincinnati , Connolly said he planned to use the city as a stand-in for 1970s and 1980s New York.
The movie was supposed to open in December. But just 10 days before its release, distributor Lionsgate sold the film back to its production company. Vertical Entertainment stepped in with a wider release plan set for June 15. Ticketing service MoviePass also invested in the film.
In a statement, Travolta thanked Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux for selecting “Gotti.”
Copyright 2018 Scripps Media, Inc. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Quick links... Bengals Reds FC Cincinnati College Sports High School Sports
SportsRecreation SportsOutdoors
Cincinnati Zoo scientists help produce ocelot kittens via artificial insemination
By: WCPO staff
CINCINNATI — Three ocelot kittens recently born via artificial insemination aided by scientists from the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden aren't just adorable little fuzzy cuties you want to visit — they're also members of an endangered species and descendants of the male ocelot considered the most genetically-valuable in any North American zoo.
Scientists from the Cincinnati Zoo collaborated with their colleagues at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum and the El Paso Zoo to produce two litters of the ocelot kittens through artificial insemination, the zoo announced Thursday. Three of the five kittens, who were born in early March, survived and are being raised by their respective mothers.
This is the first time an ocelot has been born from artificial insemination since 1995, when it was done for the first time ever. Zoo officials said the births "represent the culmination of 25 years of research" by Dr. Bill Swanson, the same scientist who managed to produce an ocelot kitten via artificial insemination back in '95.
The father's semen was collected and frozen nine years ago at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. He's now 16 years old and living at the Houston Zoo, but had no offspring prior to the recent births, zoo officials said.
Ocelots have been in the U.S. endangered species list for more than 40 years, according to the zoo. A small population of just a few dozen of the cats survives in southern Texas. The zoo said reproductive sciences are helping address their conservation challenges and could help them in the wild in the future.
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We Finally Know How Game Of Thrones Season 8 Will Begin
By : Charlie Cocksedge On : 02 Nov 2018 10:58
Another day, another step closer to the highly-anticipated finale of Game of Thrones which, for fans of the show, will be a strange mix of excitement and emotion.
It’s been over a year since the end of season seven, which saw the Night King’s army quickly growing and advancing as it descended on The Wall. Season seven’s conclusion also saw Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen team up in more ways than one, as they travelled north together, towards Winterfell.
They weren’t the only ones heading north though, as Tyrion Lannister and a number of other key characters were en route, ready to reunite with Samwell Tarly and the three remaining Stark siblings – Sansa, Arya and Bran.
As is usually the way with GoT, if we’re not in the middle of battle, we’re on the verge of one. However, it seems season eight won’t be throwing us back into the middle of things with the Army of the Dead.
Instead, the first episode is likely to mirror season one’s first episode, as many key characters arrive in Winterfell, some of whom have never met before.
This time, it’s Daenerys and her army arriving in the north, as she and her entourage congregate with the Starks and others, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Bryan Cogman, GoT‘s co-executive producer, said:
It’s about all of these disparate characters coming together to face a common enemy, dealing with their own past, and defining the person they want to be in the face of certain death.
It’s an incredibly emotional, haunting, bittersweet final season, and I think it honors very much what George set out to do — which is flipping this kind of story on its head.
It was also suggested the drama of the final season will build to the epic confrontation with the Army of the Dead, which is expected to be ‘the most sustained action sequence ever made for television or film’.
In April this year, a crew member revealed they’d undergone 55 night shoots just to film one battle, and not even the full battle that’ll take place.
The night shoots were only filming the outdoor scenes. After the crew had wrapped outdoors, they moved into a studio to continue filming the battle for a few more weeks.
In comparison, season six’s epic climax, titled The Battle of the B*stards, took 25 days to shoot.
Peter Dinklage, who plays Tyrion Lannister, said:
It’s brutal. It makes the Battle of the B*stards look like a theme park.
Showrunner David Benioff said:
Having the largest battle doesn’t sound very exciting — it actually sounds pretty boring. Part of our challenge, and really, Miguel’s [Sapochnik, director] challenge, is how to keep that compelling… we’ve been building toward this since the very beginning, it’s the living against the dead, and you can’t do that in a 12-minute sequence.
This is going to be huge!
The end of Game of Thrones: An exclusive report on the epic final season
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Topic: Willie Nelson
Willie Nelson News
Music // 1 week ago
Farm Aid 2019: Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Margo Price to perform
Bonnie Raitt, Margo Price and Tanya Tucker will join Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews at the 2019 Farm Aid concert in East Troy, Wisc.
Entertainment News // 3 weeks ago
Willie Nelson says he's 'chief tester' at his marijuana company
Willie Nelson discussed his cannabis company, Willie's Reserve, and performed "My Favorite Picture of You" on "The Tonight Show."
Country singer Jake Owen announces daughter Paris' birth
"Barefoot Blue Jean Night" singer Jake Owen welcomed a baby girl, Paris Hartley, with girlfriend Erica Hartlein.
Entertainment News // 2 months ago
Famous birthdays for April 29: Master P, Katherine Langford
Rapper Master P turns 49 and actor Katherine Langford turns 23, among the famous birthdays for April 29.
Don Nelson has been 'smoking some pot' in Hawaii since NBA retirement
Former NBA star and longtime coach Don Nelson told reporters that he has been "smoking some pot" in Hawaii since his retirement from the league.
Pistol Annies singer Angaleena Presley gives birth to daughter
Country music star Angaleena Presley welcomed a baby girl, Phoenix Joeleena Jean, with husband Jordan Powell.
Kendrick Lamar, Cardi B, Drake top list of Grammy nominations
"All the Stars," "Boo'd Up," "God's Plan," "In My Blood," "The Joke," "The Middle," "Shallow" and "This is America" are nominated for Song of the Year.
Paisley again reveals gender of Underwood's baby at CMAs
Hosts Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley announced the gender of her second child during the Country Music Association Awards on Wednesday.
John Mellencamp, George Strait to perform at Willie Nelson tribute show
An all-star lineup of country music stars including John Mellencamp and George Strait are set to perform at an upcoming tribute concert for Willie Nelson.
Music // 10 months ago
Willie Nelson, Wynonna Judd to appear on USA Network's 'Real Country'
Willie Nelson, Trace Adkins, Wynonna Judd and Big & Rich are to appear on USA Network's "Real Country" competition show this fall.
Music // 1 year ago
Chris Stapleton, Dave Matthews, Neil Young join Farm Aid concert
Chris Stapleton, Dave Matthews and Neil Young are among the few artists announced for Willie Nelson's 2018 Farm Aid concert.
Johnny Cash collaborative album to feature Chris Cornell, Willie Nelson
Johnny Cash's sonJ ohn Carter Cash is producing an album featuring unreleased poetry, lyrics and letters from his dad titled "Johnny Cash: Forever Worlds."
Willie Nelson cancels February tour dates over flu
Willie Nelson has canceled all eight of his scheduled February tour dates to recover from the flu his publicist announced.
Entertainment News // 1 year ago
Jessica Biel, Celine Dion, Blac Chyna and others share family Halloween photos
A number of celebrities shared photos of their families Halloween costumes on social media including Jessica Biel, Celine Dion and Blac Chyna.
TV // 1 year ago
Hoda Kotb transforms into Blake Shelton for Halloween
Hoda Kotb and her "Today" co-anchors dressed up as country stars, including Blake Shelton and Dolly Parton, on Halloween.
We might not know the full extent of the damage yet, but we do know that family farmers will need our help to rebuild and to get back on the land quickly, growing good food for all of us
Farm Aid to help those devastated by Ike Sep 20, 2008
We are proud to bring our annual Farm Aid concert to a region that has such strong agricultural roots and to the many people who love to eat the good food grown in New England
Farm Aid '08 to take place in Boston Jul 15, 2008
Recording was not something everybody just did when I was growing up
Willie Nelson's sister makes first album Sep 27, 2007
Farm Aid is coming to New York because your enthusiasm for family farm food is keeping family farmers on the land. We are thankful to Mayor Bloomberg, the City Council and the many activists here who are leading efforts so that every New Yorker has access to more food from family farms
Farm Aid 2007 concert in New York Jun 12, 2007
The Farm Aid concert brings us all together to support family farmers, one of our most valuable resources
Farm Aid 2006 draws 25,000 fans Sep 30, 2006
Farm Aid 2017 concert in Pa.
"Trigger" (Martin N-20)
Willie Hugh Nelson (born April 30, 1933) is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie, combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust, made Nelson one of the most recognized artists in country music. He was one of the main figures of outlaw country, a subgenre of country music that developed at the end of the 1960s as a reaction to the conservative restrictions of the Nashville sound. Nelson has acted in over 30 films, co-authored several books, and has been involved in activism for the use of biofuels and the legalization of marijuana.
Born during the Great Depression, and raised by his grandparents, Nelson wrote his first song at age seven and joined his first band at ten. During high school, he toured locally with the Bohemian Fiddlers as their lead singer and guitar player. After graduating from high school in 1950, he joined the Air Force but was later discharged due to back problems. After his return, Nelson attended Baylor University for two years but dropped out because he was succeeding in music. During this time, he worked as a disc jockey in Texas radio stations and a singer in honky tonks. Nelson moved to Vancouver, Washington, where he wrote "Family Bible" and recorded the song "Lumberjack" in 1956. In 1960, he signed a publishing contract with Pamper Music which allowed him to join Ray Price's band as a bassist. During that time, he wrote songs that would become country standards, including "Funny How Time Slips Away", "Hello Walls", "Pretty Paper", and "Crazy". In 1962, he recorded his first album, And Then I Wrote. Due to this success, Nelson signed in 1965 with RCA Victor and joined the Grand Ole Opry. After mid-chart hits during the end of 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, and the failure to succeed in music, Nelson retired in 1971 and moved to Austin, Texas. The rise of the popularity of Hippie music in Austin motivated Nelson to return from retirement, performing frequently at the Armadillo World Headquarters.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Willie Nelson."
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Framework for Analyzing the Competitiveness of Advanced Technology Manufacturing Firms
Andrew David, Mitchell Semanik, Mihir Torsekar
Office of Industries and Office of Economics, U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC)
September 2018 No. ID-18-057
The authors are staff with the Office of Industries and the Office of Economics of the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC). Office of Industries working papers are the result of the ongoing professional research of USITC staff. Working papers are circulated to promote the active exchange of ideas between USITC staff and recognized experts outside the USITC, and to promote professional development of office staff by encouraging outside professional critique of staff research.
This paper represents solely the views of the authors and is not meant to represent the views of the U.S. International Trade Commission or any of its Commissioners. Please direct all correspondence to Andrew David, Mitchell Semanik, or Mihir Torsekar, Office of Industries, U.S. International Trade Commission, 500 E Street, SW, Washington, DC 20436, telephone: 202-205-3368, 202-205-2034, or 202-205-3350, fax: 202-205-3161, email: Andrew.David@usitc.gov, Mitchell.Semanik@usitc.gov, or Mihir.Torsekar@usitc.gov.
The authors would like to thank Robert Feinberg, John Fry, Tamar Khachaturian, Dan Kim, Linda Linkins, and James Stamps for their helpful comments and suggestions and Monica Sanders for her administrative support.
Disclaimer: Office of Industries working papers are the result of the ongoing professional research of USITC staff and solely represent the opinions and professional research of individual authors. These papers do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. International Trade Commission or any of its individual Commissioners.
This paper presents a framework that can be used to analyze the competitiveness of advanced technology durable goods manufacturing firms. The four main factors of competition for advanced technology firms identified by the authors are (1) production and delivery capabilities, (2) production and delivery costs, (3) operational capacity, and (4) innovation and product differentiation. Within each of these factors are four to six subfactors of competition, such as labor, financial capacity, and research and development. Each of the four factors and many of the subfactors are linked, with competitiveness on one factor influencing a firm's ability to compete on another factor. These factors and subfactors provide a basis for the analysis of firm-level competition that can be applied across advanced technology industries, regardless of the type of good produced by the firm.
The ability of manufacturing firms to compete in advanced technology industries is increasingly driven by a broad range of competencies, some of which were only minor considerations a generation ago. As with all manufacturing firms, low production costs are important for a firm to gain and maintain competitiveness in its industry. Modern technology-driven firms, however, also need to supply value-added services, provide effective cybersecurity, use advanced data analytics, and generate innovative products and processes in order to be competitive. In order to assess the relative competitiveness of these advanced technology firms in relation to each other, it is helpful to have a comprehensive outline of the factors needed to compete in advanced technology industries. This paper, therefore, provides a framework to analyze competition among advanced technology durable goods manufacturing firms, laying out the major factors that need to be considered in an analysis of firm competitiveness.
The framework in this paper is designed to assess the competitiveness of advanced technology firms, rather than advanced technology industries. This paper uses firm activities, assets (e.g., intellectual property), and capabilities as the basis for a competitiveness framework, which are referred to as factors and subfactors of competition. The specific factors were selected based on an extensive review of the academic literature, media reports, business literature, etc. The authors also reviewed factors of competition that firms self-identified, including through a review of company financial reports. Finally, the authors reviewed competitiveness factors identified for advanced technology industries and firms in U.S. International Trade Commission (Commission) studies.
The next section of the paper will define advanced technology firms, and the following section will provide an overview of the research that provides the theoretical foundation for the framework. The main focus of the paper is the subsequent sections, which introduce the framework and discuss each factor and subfactor of competition in more detail.
Definition of advanced technology firms
The purpose of this paper is to develop a framework that applies to advanced technology durable goods manufacturing firms. Examining widely used definitions from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), International Trade Administration (ITA), and Brookings Institution, four durable goods North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) manufacturing subsectors are identified as containing high-tech or advanced industries by all sources: (1) machinery manufacturing (NAICS 333); (2) computer and electronic product manufacturing (334); (3) electrical equipment, appliance, and component manufacturing (335); and (4) transportation equipment manufacturing (336). The framework in this paper is designed to apply to these four subsectors as well as miscellaneous manufacturing (337) (Appendix A). Miscellaneous manufacturing is included here (though not in all definitions of advanced manufacturing) as it includes medical devices not covered by the other NAICS subheadings.
The five subsectors covered here are research and development (R&D) and information and communications technology (ICT) intensive, as would be expected from advanced technology industries (figure 1). These industries are also heavy users of advanced production technology. The automotive industry, for example, is the largest user of industrial robots per 1,000 workers, and the aerospace and automotive industries contain the largest share of firms that expect to use 3D printing.
Figure 1 ICT and R&D intensity of advanced technology durable goods subsectors
Source: DOL, BLSs, “May 2017 National Industry-Specific Occupational,” March 30, 2018; Census Bureau, “Annual Survey of Manufactures,” December 15, 2017; NSF, “Business Research and Development,” March 12, 2018, tables 17 and 47.
Notes: The ICT share of expenditures are capital and other expenditures (based on the Annual Survey of Manufactures) on computers and software equipment and services as a share of all capital and other expenditures. The share of employees in computer occupations are the share of workers defined as “computer and information systems managers” (occupational code 11-3021), “computer occupations” (15-1100), and “computer hardware engineers” (17-2060). The share of employees in R&D is global employment by respondents to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) survey. R&D spending is domestic R&D spending paid for by the company and others as a share of domestic net sales.
As this is a firm-level framework, and goods and services are inextricably tied together in many of these firms, this framework does not separate goods and services provided by firms within the five covered subsectors. As will be discussed below, many advanced technology firms offer embedded or related services that enhance the value of products and may increase firm competitiveness and profitability.
Activities, assets, and capabilities as the foundation of competitive advantage
The framework proposed for this analysis builds on the work of Michael Porter, who proposed that a firm’s activities are the basis for its competitive advantage. A firm, according to Porter, performs a set of activities that include all of the steps in producing and delivering a product to customers, as well as related support activities such as technology development and procurement. A firm can develop a competitive advantage if it is able to combine these activities or perform them in a unique way that leads to either lower costs or a differentiated product that provides more value to customers and can sell at a higher price. While there are hundreds of possible activities, Porter divides them into nine categories, and then further into general areas of primary activities—which are all activities related to producing and delivering the product to customers—and support activities that are not explicitly part of the primary activity, but may impact all of the primary activities. While described separately, the activities are linked and improvements in one area may contribute to competitive advantage in another area.
Chris Zook and James Allen state that competitive advantage derives from a firm’s ability to differentiate itself from its competitors. According to Zook and Allen, firms can differentiate themselves via “superior cost economics, unique product features, or control over a key position in a larger economic system.” They identify more than 250 types of differentiation, which they group into 15 “clusters” in three categories: management systems, operating capabilities, and assets. For the purposes of this paper, the key addition to Porter’s work is the inclusion of assets as a source of competitive advantage.
Deloitte indicates that it is the capabilities of manufacturers that differentiate them and provide them with a competitive advantage. According to Deloitte, these “capabilities, when coupled together, are difficult for their competitors to replicate, and when executed well, they create long-term competitive advantage by generating greater customer loyalty, higher market share, and superior profitability.” Further, certain “capabilities will enable the organization to create unique value and consistently deliver that value to customers in a way that is distinct from competitors’ offerings.”
Proposed advanced technology competitiveness framework
The four main factors of competition for advanced technology firms are (1) production and delivery capabilities, (2) production and delivery costs, (3) operational capacity, and (4) innovation and product differentiation (figure 2). Production and delivery capabilities and costs are all the activities and costs associated with producing goods (and related services) and delivering them to customers. Operational capacity and innovation and product differentiation capture other relevant firm characteristics. Within each of these factors are four to six subfactors of competition, such as labor, financial capacity, and research and development. Each of the four factors and many of the subfactors are interconnected, with competitiveness on one factor influencing a firm's ability to compete on another factor. For example, innovation can result in new production processes, which can improve production capabilities and lower costs. While not explicitly included in the framework, costs also apply to operational capacity and innovation and product differentiation, and lowering these costs can be an important priority for firms. Factors such as price that are often associated with competitiveness are not included in the framework as they are the result of factors discussed here rather than factors themselves (see appendix B).
Figure 2 Factors of competition for advanced technology firms
Source: Staff research.
The relative importance of the factors in the framework varies by industry, and even within an industry firms may compete on different factors. For example, firms in some industries may compete primarily by differentiating their products, while in other industries there may be little opportunity for firms to differentiate products and production costs may be more critical. In the smartphone industry, for example, some firms primarily supply differentiated products (e.g., Apple), while others may compete by supplying low-cost products. Other companies compete with both differentiated and low-cost products. When all firms in an industry compete primarily on a single element, such as cost, this can drive down overall industry profitability. However, when firms within a particularly industry compete on different elements, this can increase overall industry profitability because firms provide product and price mixes that compete for different customers. When applying the framework to specific industries, all of the factors may not be relevant or it may be appropriate to combine certain factors (such as production capabilities and costs) into a single analysis.
Production and delivery capabilities
Production and delivery capabilities are all activities associated with manufacturing a good and providing it to customers. The most competitive firms are able to produce innovative products, at high quality, that can be delivered to customers in a timely manner. The key capabilities are (1) supply chain management, (2) production, (3) logistics, and (4) service and support.
Firm-level competitiveness can be heavily influenced by effective supply chain management. The supply chain includes all of the raw materials, parts, and other inputs that go into producing a good, as well as associated logistics (including inventory management). The management of a supply chain involves a number of considerations (in addition to costs, which are discussed below), such as ensuring an adequate supply of inputs, making certain that inputs meet quality requirements, maintaining the appropriate inventory level, monitoring the financial condition of suppliers, and ensuring that the supply chain is resilient enough to withstand any potential disruptions (e.g. shortage of raw materials arising from natural disasters, currency fluctuations, etc.).
Supply chain resilience is especially critical for advanced technology manufacturing sectors, because the production of these goods tends to occur in numerous countries. Semiconductor manufacturing, for example, is fragmented across multiple countries. In response to severe droughts in Taiwan, a Taiwanese firm (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.) and a U.S. firm (United Microelectronics Corporation) jointly developed a water recycling program to mitigate supply chain risks and ensure consistent production. In sectors such as machinery, motor vehicles, and aerospace, firms rely on global suppliers for key components and any delays in deliveries by these suppliers can slow production.
Another competitive supply chain management strategy is to demonstrate sustainability. This has become especially critical as the advent of international accords, the introduction of manufacturing standards, and mounting consumer preferences for products with a minimal environmental impact have placed pressure on firms to work with their suppliers to reduce carbon emissions and limit environmental waste. A 2014 survey by Accenture revealed that 81 percent of CEOs believed in demonstrating the sustainability of their production, in part, to satisfy customer demands.
Production capabilities
The ability of high tech firms to produce innovative, high quality products is critical to firm competitiveness, as is the ability to quickly bring new products to market, to rapidly switch between products as technology changes, and to offer customized products. In the semiconductor industry, for example, manufacturers can differentiate themselves from competitors by offering chips with the most advanced technologies. One survey of manufacturers found that “quality management systems” was the top ranked of “potential technology advancements to improve business performance in the next five years.” Firms in consumer oriented industries, such as consumer electronics and automobiles, are able to increase product customization and lower time to market by implementing new production techniques, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and additive manufacturing.
Strategic use of technology is another important way in which advanced technology firms are able to improve their production capabilities. For example, advanced production capabilities, such as “smart manufacturing systems,” allow firms to incorporate new technologies that provide real-time data to decision makers, while also providing predictive maintenance and failure preventing capabilities. Improving production capabilities, whether through adopting new technologies or streamlining processes that increase productivity or create differentiation in capabilities, is one way in which firms are able to become more competitive. Firms with greater production capabilities will manufacture products with additional added value. When competitors are unable to make similar production capability upgrades, the more competitive firms are able to capture higher market shares, create customer loyalty, and improve profitability.
Outbound logistics, which is the “process related to the movement and storage of products from the end of the production line to the end user,” is a significant aspect of firm competitiveness. It is important for firms to deliver products to customers efficiently and on-time. Customers increasingly demand shorter delivery time frames, and there may be financial penalties for firms that do not deliver products on time. Global logistics capabilities are important for firms that want to compete beyond the domestic market.
Access to transportation infrastructure is an important consideration in plant location selection decisions, demonstrating the importance of logistics. For example, wind turbines are large, difficult to transport products and important considerations when locating a wind turbine manufacturing plant include the availability of multiple shipping options and proximity to customers. Similarly, business jet manufacturers need sufficient land at their plant for a runway and a location to hold aircraft until they are delivered.
Service and support capabilities
Services are an increasingly important component of product offerings and include not just after sales service, but also additional products that can increase the value of the original product for the customer, while also providing benefits to the firm. In the business jet industry, where firms need to provide 24 hour service near aircraft locations, the quality of the services provided by business jet sellers is a key factor in jet sales. After sale business jet services include repair and maintenance, parts distribution, equipment and software upgrades, as well as other services that can lower customer operating costs and affect purchasing decisions. Aircraft manufacturers are also using after-sales services, such as replacement parts and repairs, to compete against other aircraft service and parts manufacturers to capture a larger share of the market and increase profit margins. Wind turbine manufacturers expanded their operations and maintenance, design, and installation service offerings as “a potentially strong revenue stream to supplement equipment sales” in “an increasingly competitive equipment market.”
Connected products have necessitated a shift in strategy from targeting one-time sales opportunities to emphasizing prolonged customer service. For example, preventative monitoring and services reduce the necessity of in-person support, adding value to customers via after-sales services and lowering repair costs for firms. Aircraft engine manufacturers use preventative monitoring to identify when a specific part will need to be replaced before it becomes ineffective, reducing flight delays for aircraft operators. Firms offering complementary services through extended customer support are also able to collect additional data used to improve customer experience and lower company costs. In addition to preventative monitoring, aircraft engine manufacturers analyze in-flight data to increase fuel efficiency to lower costs for aircraft operators.
Production and delivery costs
Lower production and delivery costs enable firms to increase profitability and employ a variety of pricing strategies. Further, firms that are able to optimize processes or lower prices through economies of scale create a barrier to entry for new firms. Four production and delivery costs are discussed below: (1) supply chain costs, (2) production costs, (3) logistics costs, and (4) service and support costs.
Supply chain costs
Lowering supply chain costs (especially material and input costs) is important for manufacturers, and can impact firm competitiveness. Material and input costs alone accounted for 37 to 65 percent of the value of U.S. shipments in 2016 for the five advanced technology NAICS subsectors covered in this report. Volatility in materials and input prices is also a significant concern for many firms. Raw materials such as steel and aluminum, for example, account for a significant portion of vehicle production costs, and an increase in these costs can have a significant impact on firm profitability. Firms can lower their supply chain costs or the risk of price volatility in a number of ways, such as diversifying their supplier base, fostering close collaboration with suppliers, and hedging the risk of price increases.
At the same time, advanced technology industries have leveraged newer technologies to lower input (and hence, supply chain) costs. For example, GE has used additive (3D) manufacturing to produce fuel nozzles for its LEAP aircraft engine, replacing the 20 inputs that are traditionally made across a number of countries with a single manufacturing process that is made in a single location. Further, within the electronic products sector, 3D manufacturing has been used to produce a variety of components, such as electronic circuits and electronic insulators. The use of this technology has enabled these firms to shorten production cycles and become less reliant on imported parts.
Two main ways in which firms are able to boost competitiveness in the area of production capabilities are through lowering production costs and boosting productivity. Manufacturing firms that are able to lower costs, such as through increased efficiency associated with production capabilities, will be more competitive than other firms with higher costs. Firms able to reduce production costs may lower prices or increase profits. In instances where the good or service is not differentiated from a competitor's product, firms will compete on price and low costs are important for a firm to remain profitable.
Low costs are also a barrier to other firms entering the industry, as established firms may have economies of scale or other advantages, such as production efficiencies or experience, that make it difficult for new firms to enter the market. On the other hand, advanced technology firms with disruptive technologies may have lower costs that enable them to create new markets by targeting a new group of consumers and eventually challenge traditional providers of a good or service. Additive manufacturing and robotics are examples of technologies that lower production costs for manufacturers. Additive manufacturing allows firms to create prototypes and product molds quicker, in smaller quantities, and at lower costs versus traditional, subtractive manufacturing. Manufacturing firms, in certain circumstances, can also rely on robotics instead of more expensive labor.
Logistics costs
Outbound logistics costs are a significant part of a firm’s overall costs, and manufacturing firms that can reduce these costs while still meeting performance requirements can improve their competitiveness. One study found that firms (of which 83 percent were manufacturing firms) spend an average of 4.7 percent of revenue on distribution, and the highest spending group of firms spent an average of 7.9 percent of revenue on transportation. A USITC survey of domestic producers of remanufactured goods found that transportation costs was the factor most commonly cited by firms as extremely important in their ability to compete in foreign markets. Outbound logistics costs can be reduced in a number of ways, such as siting factories in locations with low shipping costs, redesigning products and packaging, and increasing the amount of products sent in each shipment. With high costs and the volatility of certain inputs to transportation and delivery costs, such as fuel costs, firms that are able to more efficiently transport and deliver products to customers can lower costs and have a competitive advantage over firms relying on traditional approaches.
Service and support costs
After-sales service and support can be a significant cost for companies. In the business jet industry, for example, costs for providing services 24 hours a day at geographically distant locations are substantial. Manufacturing firms that optimize after-sales and support services, such as through data collection (discussed below) and measuring the performance of products, without increasing costs, will be more competitive in the market. Customer retention, product design improvements, and short-term profits are all examples of benefits manufacturing firms can achieve through after sales services that can be maximized by lowering costs. For example, customer retention and the potential for follow-up sales, is often less costly than finding new customers. Additionally, advanced manufacturing firms that export products face additional costs associated with service and support. Firms that must recall certain products, especially from abroad, will incur high costs associated with both transportation and customer satisfaction. Samsung’s recall of its Galaxy Note 7 phone, for example, is estimated to have cost $5 billion, and damaged customers’ perception of the brand. Firms are able to work with local partners to lower service and support costs.
Operational capacity
Operational capacity encompasses a range of firm capabilities. These capabilities are interconnected with the production and delivery factors, and may impact multiple subfactors in these areas. For example, a firm’s financial capacity impacts its ability to invest in production capabilities and logistics. Operational capacity includes (1) data, (2) cybersecurity, (3) financial capacity, (4) labor, (5) marketing and sales, and (6) scale.
The generation, storage, analytics, and protection of data are increasingly important determinants of competitiveness for advanced technology firms. Data in this context, refers to the vast collection of information that companies accumulate, which can be derived internally or externally (e.g., from customers, suppliers, and the larger market) and can be both structured (e.g., customer sales data) and unstructured (e.g., internet search results). Analytics refers to the statistical methods, algorithms, and software-enabled tools that facilitate the interpretation of these data. Robust data collection and analytical capabilities enable firms to refine the products and services offered to meet the needs of their customers, and can be used to improve business processes and practices.
A key for companies to adapt and expand into new markets or remain competitive in current markets is their ability to generate and use data from those markets, which better enables them to adapt to changing conditions or address unique market needs. Firms gather data on customer preferences in potential markets to confirm that the offered product or service will be competitive or even in demand. Determining customer familiarity with a product or service, on top of market demand, allows firms to better customize educational and advertising strategies to compete in the market. For example, one appliance manufacturer increased sales by updating its advertising strategy after analyzing market data that indicated customers made purchasing decisions based off retailer websites, not manufacturer websites or print and television advertisements. Data gathered about local culture and customs is incorporated into those strategies as well. Firms that gather information about specific markets, and customize their products and services accordingly, will be more competitive.
A NewVantange Partners (NVP) survey of global Fortune 1000 companies found that for firms that had started big data initiatives, the majority had achieved benefits such as increased or new sources of revenue and lower expenses. A McKinsey study found that these investments tend to yield increases in operating profits and value-added productivity. At the same time, many firms are struggling to achieve the benefits of investments in big data. The NVP survey found that a substantial minority of firms had not yet achieved benefits in some categories, such as increasing revenue. And the McKinsey study found that investments in big data have less impact on certain metrics, such as revenue for consumer companies and costs for business to business companies. Companies that invest more than they need to in big data may not achieve expected financial returns.
One of the major cost drivers and impediments to generating value is low quality data, such as incomplete data sets or data containing errors, and firms that address this issue will be more competitive. One survey found that data scientists spend half their time “collecting, labeling, cleaning, and organizing data.” Even internal company data are often stored in different locations and systems throughout the company, and bringing together this data involves significant costs. Newly created data also contains many errors, however, and can significantly increase costs for companies. IBM estimates lower quality data costs in the United States totaled $3.1 trillion in 2016 due to efficiency losses associated with time spent to reduce and correct data errors, as well as business and customer impacts.
Cybersecurity management
Cybersecurity management, a firm's ability to protect customer and company data and provide secure software, platforms, and products, is a potential distinguishing factor in the market, and the inability to protect information can damage a company’s reputation, lead to the loss of customers, and result in significant costs. As firms collect more data from users, the firm's ability to protect the data and the overall reputation for security become potential differentiators and sources of value. Different industries face different costs associated with cybersecurity and data breaches. For example, the healthcare and financial services industries face, on average, higher costs than the technology and communication industries due to different regulations and needs. As a firm’s data becomes increasingly sensitive and valuable, the costs of cybersecurity breaches also increase. This includes its own data and intellectual property (IP). IP, in particular, provides value to firms, and protecting that proprietary information is important in retaining competitiveness.
Underinvestment in cybersecurity could result in data breaches that lead to additional costs and undermine other aspects of competitiveness. According to an Accenture/Ponemon study, the average cost to a company of a cybercrime was $11.7 million in fiscal year (FY) 2017, with the highest incident costing a company $77.1 million. A RAND Corporation study using 2004–15 data found that the average cost was $7.8 million, but the median cost was 250,000.
At the same time, cybersecurity budgets remain a cost for companies, with an average global company information technology budget of $5.1 million in 2016 and organizations worldwide spending an estimated $81.6 billion on information security in 2016. Firms need to invest in cybersecurity cost-effectively to ensure that spending remains manageable. Simply spending more does not necessarily ensure higher quality outcomes.
Financial capacity
Financial capacity (cash reserves and ability to generate revenue, attract venture capital and equity investments, and borrow money on favorable terms) is important for all types of firms, from early start-ups to mature market leaders. Strong financial capacity enables a firm to invest in new business strategies, research and development, the commercialization of new technologies, and advertising. Research and development and up-front advertising, for example, take place before a product or service has been monetized, thus requiring a company to rely on its pre-revenue finances to cover costs and creating a barrier for other firms without adequate financial capacity. The ability to attract initial funding from investors is especially important for advanced manufacturing start-ups, which may focus on growth and remain unprofitable for years, due in part to high fixed asset costs. Even some established companies reinvest substantial revenue into further expanding business operations, thus limiting profitability.
Financial capacity also enables firms to respond to new entrants (or deter new entrants), the emergence of competing products, or other market changes. A financially secure firm is also more capable of responding to competitors through purchasing complementary or competing technology or assets. Cisco, for example, which offers videoconferencing services, purchased Acano, a videoconferencing startup, to increase the interoperability of its products with Skype for Business, a competing videoconferencing service. Firms often make acquisitions to acquire new technologies or intellectual property.
Access to workers with diverse skillsets (such as knowledge in engineering, regulatory affairs, user interface design, data analytics, systems integration, cloud competency, and software development) is critical to the competitiveness of advanced technology firms. Firms which are able to employ and retain talented individuals, especially in IT and engineering departments, will be more efficient at implementing new business strategies and creating new product features aimed at boosting competitiveness. A lack of access to skilled employees can be a barrier in accomplishing a firm’s strategies. Additionally, increased demand for software engineers, has led advanced technology firms, such as Airbus and Danaher, to compete for skilled labor by locating offices in clusters where advanced manufacturing and academia interact.
As technology progresses, so do the skills required by production workers in advanced manufacturing environments. Firms that improve production equipment to boost competitiveness, as discussed in the production capabilities section above, will also need to focus on more effective and skilled factory labor. One common method manufacturing firms use is “upskilling” current employees by offering in-house training for new skills. In other cases, manufacturing firms fund high-school programs to improve skills in robotics, CNC machinery, and 3D printing so production labor becomes more efficient and available. Additional emerging skillsets for advanced manufacturing workers include virtual and augmented reality knowledge, as well as other data visualization tools.
The effectiveness of firms in selling products to customers is an important factor in firm competitiveness. Effective sales involve everything from traditional sales techniques to using technology to optimize offerings and tailor or bundle products. Firms can bundle together multiple products, yielding an offering that attracts new customers and enhances existing demand among current consumers. For example, GE Healthcare added value to its diagnostic technologies by pairing these devices with enterprise-wide software that enables purchasers to monitor inventories of other GE issued medical equipment, arrange servicing appointments, and track regulatory requirements to ensure compliance. In addition to offering more and targeted value to its customers, bundled products and services also raise switching costs of moving to a rival firm and improve customers’ brand loyalty.
Access to distribution channels can also provide a firm with a competitive advantage and serve as a barrier to entry to other firms, though new entrants that find untapped distribution channels can use these as a way to ease market entry. In the medical device industry, for example, firms that want to sell in the Japanese market need relationships “with experienced and well-connected dealers who maintain effective distribution networks and access to hospitals and who may assist manufacturers to develop long-term supply relationships.” Similarly, Chinese medical device manufacturers’ access to distribution channels has been one of the reasons that these firms have been able to increase their domestic market share.
Firms benefit from being able to sell in foreign markets and not just their home markets. Firms that are able to sell beyond their home market can benefit from significant additional demand and rapid growth in developing countries, all of which can improve profits.
Scale provides firms with a number of advantages (in addition to economies of scale in production described above), such as brand recognition, production experience, proprietary technology, and favored geographic location. These advantages present barriers to entry for market challengers and inherently give an incumbent a competitive advantage. For example, a large firm may be able to use its position and market leverage to enter into exclusivity arrangements with other actors within the market. Larger, incumbent companies are also able to use established customer bases, and the valuable data contained therein, as a tool to scale quickly, enter new markets (potentially disrupting conventional industries), limit customer poaching from market challengers, and ultimately remain more competitive. One study noted that large firms are more likely to create new, innovative technologies due to their position of strength in the market over smaller, less established firms. Conversely, some smaller firms are able to take advantage of network effects and lower costs to be more efficient at scaling their business in the face of new technology than larger, more established firms.
Innovation and product differentiation
The generation of new ideas, development of new products and processes, and protection of these innovations underpin the competitiveness of advanced technology firms. Innovation enables firms to develop unique products and achieve higher profits. In certain instances, IP can also serve as a barrier to entry for rival firms unable to access these technologies, while in other instances innovation can ease market entry, allowing new or smaller firms to challenge existing companies. Innovation may also raise switching costs by creating new products or services that can’t be readily exchanged for products provided by another firm. Innovation is particularly important for advanced technology firms, where robust investments in R&D are often necessary to help firms remain ahead in the development of technology.
Innovation also contributes to firms’ ability to differentiate their products, affording them a competitive advantage over their competitors, particularly in ways that are not easily replicated. Firms that differentiate their products are able to charge higher prices and increase profitability, as well as potentially increase demand. Differentiation also increases customer loyalty, which makes price less of a consideration in purchasing decisions and raises switching costs. Five elements of innovation and product differentiation are discussed below: (1) intellectual property, (2) access to knowledge, (3) R&D, (4) attributes, and (5) customization.
Intellectual property (IP)
The granting and protection of IP, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, and trade secrets, provides a foundation for companies to obtain benefits from their R&D and innovation. Without IP protection, the first firm to invest time and money in a new product or service would always be at a disadvantage to later entrants who could simply copy and market products without having to recoup sunk costs. IP, such as patents, may impact the ability of new firms to enter the market, though new entrants with existing IP assets may find it easier to enter the market than those without such IP. In the highly competitive advanced technology industries, firms have traditionally relied heavily on IP protections. Advanced technology firms, especially within the computers and electronics sector, are among the world leaders in IP-related activities, accounting for the greatest share of global patent and trademark applications in 2016 and driving the substantial global expansion of R&D investments in recent years.
Firms increasingly need to access ideas and knowledge outside of the firm, and may adopt business models that encourage collaboration and facilitate the development of technology over which they don't have full control. Open source software, for example, is being used by many firms, including established firms that are integrating it into product offerings. Firms have also adopted open innovation, which is “the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively.” As part of open innovation, firms may also involve users or outside contributors in the innovation process to provide new ideas, designs, and products. IP partnerships, which enable firms to access each other’s knowledge and new technologies, develop new capabilities, and supply new markets, are becoming more common. These IP arrangements can help firms address shared problems, while benefiting all participants. For example, Cisco has initiated partnerships with a broad range of firms (including Airbus, DHL, and Caterpillar) to help resolve the common challenges associated with supply chain digitization.
Firms located in clusters, “geographic concentrations of companies, suppliers, related industries, and specialized institutions such as academic programs,” benefit from their proximity to these other organizations. In the area of R&D, firms’ innovative capacity is enhanced by their increased access to capital, knowledge, expertise, suppliers, and skilled labor. Clusters also enable firms to scale their innovations more quickly and allow new firms to enter the market as they are able to more readily access the range of resources described above. Firms may also benefits from national-level research and development activities. In the U.S. medical device industry, for example, firms benefit from research conducted by the National Institutes of Health and other organizations.
A firm’s R&D activities create long-term value for the company through the improvement or new development of goods, services, knowledge, and processes. Advanced technology firms are among the world’s leading investors in R&D, reflecting the priorities placed on building innovative capacity. For example, in 2017, two of the top three spenders on R&D, by industry, were computing and electronics and automobiles, with companies such as Intel, Samsung, and Volkswagen among the top five spenders globally. Six of the top fifteen companies were automobile companies. Medical device firms commonly spend an average of 7 percent of revenues on R&D, in contrast to the global industry average of 4.2 percent.
A firm derives a competitive advantage from effective R&D, not from the level of spending alone. Factors such as organizational capabilities and whether investment is sustained over time also influence whether companies derive an advantage from R&D. Firms with financial capacity often acquire smaller firms to get access to their research and innovations. For example, traditional vehicle manufacturers, their suppliers, and other technology firms are making significant acquisitions of firms developing new technologies, such as those for autonomous vehicles and in-vehicle entertainment and information.
R&D investments are made in technological and business model innovations with the intention of creating value for customers, either by inducing them to pay more for an improved product or service, or reducing the cost of the product/service. Many of the innovations resulting from R&D are incremental, leading to improvements to a current product or process. Other innovations, however, result in entirely new business models or products. These types of innovations, depending on the structure of the industry, may create opportunities for new firms to enter the market and challenge incumbent firms or may result in entirely new markets for products.
One way that firms can distinguish themselves is by employing their resources to develop and market the various attributes of their products. Attributes refer to the qualities that distinguish a firm’s products and services. Successful firms are able to provide multiple attributes that are appealing to customers. Examples that are important to firm competitiveness include product performance, quality, durability, ease of use, flexibility, energy efficiency, safety, connectivity, noise, size, weight, and environmental impact. In the passenger vehicle industry, for example, attributes that consumers consider when purchasing a vehicle include fuel efficiency, reliability, technology (e.g., back-up cameras, Bluetooth integration), appearance, utility (e.g., cargo space), and safety. Some of these attributes are a baseline that a company must maintain in order to compete in a market, while others can form the basis of a differentiation strategy that can add value for customers.
One major shift for manufacturers is the increasing need to provide more product varieties and customized products, often with shorter life cycles. A recent survey found that more than half of manufacturing firms expect the share of orders that are “configure or assemble to order” to increase in the next five years, and that almost half expect the “engineer to order” share to increase during this time period. This shift is being driven by a number of factors, including the greater availability of customer data (enabling firms to better tailor products for the needs of individual customers), growing demand in developing countries, and purchaser demands for more customized products. Customization enables firms to deepen brand loyalty (which raises switching costs) and establish prices that better reflect the value from the product, all of which improves a firm's competitive standing against rivals.
The four main factors of competition for advanced technology firms are (1) production and delivery capabilities, (2) production and delivery costs, (3) operational capacity, and (4) innovation and product differentiation. These factors are closely related and linked, and while the relative importance of factors may vary by industry, assessing a firm’s strengths and weaknesses in each of these areas is crucial to understanding the relative competitive position of the firm. The framework, however, is specific to competition among firms and cannot be directly applied to an analysis of the competition of national industries. Subsequent research will examine modifications to the framework needed to assess competition at the industry level.
The industry groups within each of the subsectors covered by this framework are listed in table 1.
Table 1: Subsectors covered by this competitiveness framework
Subsector code
Subsector description
333 Machinery manufacturing
Agriculture, construction, and mining machinery manufacturing (NAICS 3331)
Industrial machinery manufacturing (NAICS 3332)
Commercial and service industry machinery manufacturing (NAICS 3333)
Ventilation, heating, air-conditioning, and commercial refrigeration equipment manufacturing (NAICS 3334)
Metalworking machinery manufacturing (NAICS 3335)
Engine, turbine, and power transmission equipment manufacturing (NAICS 3336)
Other general purpose machinery manufacturing (NAICS 3339)
334 Computer and electronic product manufacturing
Computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing (NAICS 3341)
Communications equipment manufacturing (NAICS 3342)
Audio and video equipment manufacturing (NAICS 3343)
Semiconductor and other electronic component manufacturing (NAICS 3344)
Navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control instruments manufacturing (NAICS 3345)
Manufacturing and reproducing magnetic and optical media (NAICS 3346)
335 Electrical equipment, appliance, and component manufacturing
Electric lighting equipment manufacturing (NAICS 3351)
Household appliance manufacturing (NAICS 3352)
Electrical equipment manufacturing (NAICS 3353)
Other electrical equipment and component manufacturing (NAICS 3359)
336 Transportation equipment manufacturing
Motor vehicle manufacturing (NAICS 3361)
Motor vehicle body and trailer manufacturing (NAICS 3362)
Motor vehicle parts manufacturing (NAICS 3363)
Aerospace product and parts manufacturing (NAICS 3364)
Railroad rolling stock manufacturing (NAICS 3365)
Ship and boat building (NAICS 3366)
Other transportation equipment manufacturing (NAICS 3369)
339 Miscellaneous manufacturing
Medical equipment and supplies manufacturing (NAICS 3391)
Other miscellaneous manufacturing (NAICS 3399)
Source: NAICS codes and descriptions from DOL, BLS Website, https://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag_index_naics.htm (accessed July 17, 2018).
Appendix B: Outcomes and influences not included in the framework
The competitiveness of firms is derived from their strengths in each of the factors of competition discussed in this framework. Other elements that may influence customer purchasing decisions or that are often perceived as elements of competition are not included in the framework because they are outcomes of the factors discussed above. Price, for example, is not included in the framework, though it is a factor on which customers base purchasing decisions. Price is an outcome of other factors in the framework, such as the cost of production and the extent to which products are differentiated from competitors’ goods. Similarly, total cost of ownership (which includes the purchase price and other costs/attributes, such as repair costs, reliability, and fuel efficiency) is an important factor in customer purchasing decisions. As with price, however, total cost of ownership is a result of many other factors of competition, such as production capability, production costs, and product attributes.
Similarly, competitive advantage is not derived from a single best timing of entry for all firms (such as a first mover advantage). Instead, the factors in the framework (e.g., innovation, financial capacity) influence the best entry timing for each firm. The extent to which firms gain an advantage from moving first, for example, depends on factors such as the rate of market growth, speed of technology change, and attributes of the firm. There are also advantages to firms for moving later (e.g., benefits from market development or technology improvement by first movers), and even within the same market firms can have different ideal entry timing. For large firms, it can be advantageous to wait until a market develops and then use their resources to enter the market.
Other elements, such as regulations and government policies, may impact individual factors of competition in the framework, but are not themselves factors of competition. For example, a government policy that provides loan guarantees would impact a firm’s financial capacity. Similarly, a government policy that provided for manufacturing equipment purchases would impact the recipient firm’s production capabilities. Tariffs can impact a firm’s logistics costs.
The factors included here are the capabilities required for firms to compete, but the framework does not specify whether all of these capabilities need to be in-house or whether they can be contracted out to other firms. Industries will have different optimal arrangements of in-house and contracted capabilities, and even within an industry the best approach may vary by firm. In the business jet industry, for example, a firm needs advanced manufacturing plants, with a runway, ramp space, access to good transportation infrastructure, and a reliable utilities infrastructure. In the semiconductor industry, integrated device manufacturers (e.g., Intel, Samsung) handle all major steps in the value chain internally, while fabless firms (e.g., Qualcomm, NVidia) do the research and design in-house, and contract out the manufacturing. There are a number of trade-offs between performing an activity in-house or outsourcing it, however, and these have implications on the factors of competition in this framework, such as costs, intellectual property protection, knowledge, production flexibility, and financial capacity.
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United States International Trade Commission (USITC). Renewable Energy and Related Services: Recent Developments. Investigation No. 332-534, USITC Publication 4421, August 2013. https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4421.pdf.
U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC). Trade Barriers That U.S. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Perceive as Affecting Exports to the European Union. Investigation No. 332-541, USITC Publication 4455, March, 2014. https://www.usitc.gov/publications/332/pub4455.pdf.
Visibelli, Marco. “How Big Data Can Mean Big Money--Or Big Losses.” Wired, n.d. https://www.wired.com/insights/2014/08/big-data-can-mean-big-money-big-losses/ (accessed March 21, 2018).
Wall, Robert and Doug Cameron. “Boeing, Airbus Strain to Deliver the New Jets They Have Promised.” The Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2018. https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-airbus-strain-to-deliver-the-new-jets-they-have-promised-1531652400.
Walter, Kenny. “Researchers Find New Way to 3D Print Electronic Circuits,” November 9, 2017. https://www.rdmag.com/article/2017/11/researchers-find-new-way-3d-print-electronic-circuits.
Wilder-James, Edd. “Breaking Down Data Silos.” Harvard Business Review, December 5, 2016. https://hbr.org/2016/12/breaking-down-data-silos.
Wilson, Mark. “GE Appliances’ Plan to Help Other Companies Crowdsource Good Design.” Fast Company, January 10, 2018. https://www.fastcompany.com/90156395/ges-plan-to-help-other-companies-crowdsource-good-design.
Wolf, Michael and Dalton Terrell. “The High-Tech Industry, What is it and Why it Matters to Our Economic Future.” Bureau of Labor Statistics, Beyond the Numbers 5, no. 8 (May 2016). https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-5/the-high-tech-industry-what-is-it-and-why-it-matters-to-our-economic-future.htm.
Womack, Brian. “Oracle Plans Internal ‘Startup’ to Outpace Rivals’ Innovation.” Bloomberg, April 24, 2017. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-24/oracle-plans-internal-startup-to-outpace-rivals-innovation.
World Economic Forum. “Technology and Innovation for the Future of Production: Accelerating Value Creation.” World Economic Forum White Paper, March 2017. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_White_Paper_Technology_Innovation_Future_of_Production_2017.pdf.
World Economic Forum. “The Future of Manufacturing: Driving Capabilities, Enabling Investments.” Global Agenda Council on the Future of Manufacturing, November 2014. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/Media/GAC14/Future_of_Manufacturing_Driving_Capabilities.pdf.
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). “Record Year for International Patent Applications in 2016; Strong Demand Also for Trademark and Industrial Design Protection.” News release, March 15, 2017. http://www.wipo.int/pressroom/en/articles/2017/article_0002.html.
Womack, Brian. “Oracle Plans Internal ‘Startup’ to Outpace Rivals’ Innovation.” April 24, 2017. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-24/oracle-plans-internal-startup-to-outpace-rivals-innovation.
Zook, Chris and James Allen. “The Great Repeatable Business Model.” Harvard Business Review, November 2011. https://hbr.org/2011/11/the-great-repeatable-business-model.
Zook, Chris and James Allen. Repeatability: Building Enduring Business for a World of Change. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2012.
BLS and Brooking define the industries at the NAICS 4-digit (industry group) level. Each of the 3-digit NAICS included here has at least one 4-digit NAICS on the BLS and Brookings List. The ITA list is at the three-digit (subsector) level. The industries covered in this paper (which is not a detailed analysis of individual industries) are at the 3-digit subsector level. Wolf and Terrell, “The High-Tech Industry,” May 2016; USDOC, ITA, “High-Tech Industries,” 2017, 3; Muro et al., America’s Advanced Industries, February 2015, 21.
This framework can be applied to analyze the competitiveness of firms at any level (such as the subsector, industry group, or industry level). For example, it could be used to analyze the competitiveness of all agricultural equipment manufacturers or those that specifically produce lawn and garden equipment.
This methodology for ICT intensity is adapted from USITC, Digital Trade, July 2013, 3-2–3-4.
Acemoglu and Restrepo, “Robots and Jobs,” March 2017, A-14; Ernst and Young, EY’s Global 3D Printing, 2016, 19.
Michael Porter’s framework applies to all firms, and not just the advanced technology durable goods manufacturing firms covered in this paper.
Primary activities are inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, and after-sales service. Support activities are firm infrastructure, human resources management, technology development, and procurement. Porter, “Competitive Advantage: Enduring Ideas and New Opportunities,” June 22, 2012, 6.
Porter, “What is Strategy?” 2008, 38; Porter and Millar, “How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage,” 2008, 75–77.
Zook and Allen, Repeatability, 44–45.
An example of this last type of differentiation would be Intel’s position in supplying processors for personal computers. Zook and Allen, Repeatability, 45–46.
Management systems include portfolio management and finance; mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, and partnering; regulatory management; business unit strategy and driving priorities; and human resources management and culture. Operating capabilities include supply chain and logistics; production and operations; development and innovation; go-to-market; and customer relationships. Assets include tangible assets; scale; technology and intellectual property; brand; and tied customer network. Zook and Allen, Repeatability, 47–49.
Deloitte Center for Industry Insights, High-performing Manufacturers, 2016, 1.
Deloitte divides the capabilities into four areas, depending on whether companies have current or future advantages. High-performing manufacturers have both current and future advantages, for example, in areas such as brand strength; a skilled workforce; global sales, marketing, distribution, and logistics; a strong balance sheet; cybersecurity; and the protection of intellectual property. Deloitte Center for Industry Insights, High-performing Manufacturers, 2016, 3, 6.
Duberstein, “Xiaomi IPO,” June 29, 2018; Hruska, “Apple Gained Market,” July 26, 2018; Tao, “Huawei Leads,” July 26, 2018; Ismail, “Moto Now Owns,” April 19, 2018; Fieldhack, “Overall Q1 US Smartphone,” May 22, 2018.
Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 32–33.
Sheffi, “Preparing for Disruptions Through Early Detection,” Fall 2015; Deere & Company, Form 10-K, December 18, 2017, 7; Caterpillar, Form 10-K, February 15, 2018, 6; Apple Inc., Form 10-K, November 3, 2017, 65; Bain & Company, “Inventory Management,” July 6, 2011; Dobbs et al, Playing to Win, September 2015, 78.
SIA, “The Global Semiconductor Supply Chain,” 2014.
Bollinger, “Managing Risk,” April 20, 2015.
Wall and Cameron, “Boeing, Airbus Strain to Deliver,” July 15, 2018; Aeppel and Singh, “Why Caterpillar Can't Keep Up,” May 23, 2018; Ruda, “Biggest Risks,” August 8, 2017.
DNV-GL, Viewpoint Report, February 2018; Naden, “You Are What You Buy,” April 21, 2017.
Accenture, “CEOs and Consumers Disconnected,” July 15, 2014.
TSMC, TSMC Annual Report 2017, March 12, 2018, 14; Morris, “Inside GlobalFoundries’ Long Road,” March 13, 2018.
IndustryWeek, Custom Research, and Kronos Inc., “The Future of Manufacturing: 2020 and Beyond,” 2016, 7.
World Economic Forum, “Technology and Innovation,” March 2017, 4, 10.
Jung et al., “Mapping Strategic Goals,” 2015, 184-185.
World Economic Forum, “The Future of Manufacturing,” November 2014, 8.
Deloitte Center for Industry Insights, High-performing Manufacturers, November 29, 2016.
CSCMP, Supply Chain Management Terms and Glossary, August 2013, 139.
JDA, JDA 2018 Intelligent Manufacturing Survey, 2018, 3.
Gambale, “32nd Annual Corporate,” Q1 2018; Automotive Logistics, “Plant Locations,” June 10, 2016; David, Wind Turbines, June 2009, 14–16; Torsekar, “China Climbs the Global Value Chain,” March 2018, 8.
David, Wind Turbines, June 2009, 14–16.
USITC, Business Jet, April 2012, 2-11.
Huang et al., “How Customer Service,” January 16, 2018; Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart Connected Products are Transforming Companies,” October 2015, 18; Oxford Economics, Manufacturing Transformation, June 9, 2013, 9.
Scott, “Boeing Takes on Peers,” October 24, 2016; The Straits Times, “Airbus, Boeing Chase,” May 14, 2018.
USITC, Renewable Energy and Related Services, August 2013, 4-12.
Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart Connected Products are Transforming Companies,” October 2015, 18.
Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart Connected Products are Transforming Companies,” October 2015, 19-20; Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart Connected Products are Transforming Companies,” December 2015, 6.
RTInsights, “How Rolls-Royce Maintains Jet Engines,” October 11, 2016.
Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Competition,” November 2014, 15; Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart Connected Products are Transforming Companies,” December 2015, 6.
One survey found that “material costs” were the second highest ranked market challenge for firms. IndustryWeek, Custom Research, and Kronos Inc., “The Future of Manufacturing: 2020 and Beyond,” 2016, 2.
Includes the value of receipts for services. U.S. Census Bureau, “2016 Annual Survey of Manufactures,” accessed July 17, 2018.
Deere & Company, Form 10-K, December 18, 2017, 13; Caterpillar, Form 10-K, February 15, 2018, 10; Apple Inc., Form 10-K, November 3, 2017, 65; Ford, Form 10-K, February 8, 2018, 13.
Carey, “Ford Complains Rising Metals Costs,” January 24, 2018; Kallstrom, “Raw Materials,” February 10, 2015.
Noor, “The Power of Successful Supplier Collaboration,” February 2013; Ford, Form 10-K, February 8, 2018, 94.
Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 76.
Manyika et al., Digital Globalization, February 2016.
Walter, “Researchers Find New Way to 3D Print Electronic Circuits,” November 9, 2017.
Raynor and Ahmed, “Three Rules for Making a Company Truly Great,” April 2013; Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 76.
Accion, “Pricing Your SaaS Product,” March 23, 2015, 7, 18; Porter, “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy,” March 1979.
Accion, “Pricing Your SaaS Product,” March 23, 2015, 7, 20; Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 27; Porter, “How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy,” March 1979.
Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 10–12.
Hagel et al. “The Future of Manufacturing,” March 31, 2015.
Liberatore and Miller, “Outbound Logistics Performance,” 2016, 5–6.
USITC, Remanufactured Goods, October 2012, 2-22.
Russel et al. “The Real Impact of High Transportation Costs,” Quarter 1, 2014; O’Byrne, “Is Nearshoring the Solution?” July 29, 2015; Girrback, “How Cisco’s Packaging Diet,” March 10, 2010.
Russel et al. “The Real Impact of High Transportation Costs,” Quarter 1, 2014.
Sacanni, “The Role and Performance Measurement,” 2006, 277.
Cohen, Agrawal, and Agrawal, “Winning in the Aftermarket,” May 2006.
Price, “Samsung’s Reputation has Crashed,” February 21, 2017; Rahim, “Samsung’s Reputation has Gone,” February 21, 2017.
USDOC, ITA, “After-Sales Service,” October 20, 2016.
Harvard Business Review, “The Explainer,” August 24, 2014.
Financial Times “The Digital Divide Over Consumer Data,” July 26, 2017; Financial Times, “Consumers Win a Victory,” August 7, 2017; Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 79.
Entrepreneur, “How to Take Your Company Global,” n.d. (accessed on March 9, 2018); Ramaswamy et al., Making it in America, November 2017, 38.
Bhandari et al. “Using Marketing Analytics to Drive Superior Growth,” June 2014, 40.
BDC, “3 Essential Steps for Entering a Foreign Market,” n.d. (accessed on March 9, 2018).
NVP, Big Data Executive Survey 2017, 2017, 8.
Bughin, “Big Data,” February 2016.
Visibelli, “How Big Data Can Mean Big Money,” n.d. (accessed March 21, 2018).
Redman, “4 Business Models for the Data Age,” May 20, 2015; Wilder-James, “Breaking Down Data Silos,” December 5, 2016.
CrowdFlower, 2017 Data Scientist Report, 2017, 5.
Wilder-James, “Breaking Down Data Silos,” December 5, 2016.
Nagle, Redman, and Sammon, “Only 3% of Companies’ Data,” September 11, 2017.
Redman, “Bad Data Costs the U.S. $3 Trillion Per Year,” September 22, 2016.
Chacko, Sekeris, and Herbolzheimer, “Can You Put a Dollar Amount,” October 5, 2016; IBM Security and Ponemon Institute, 2017 Cost of Data Breach Study, June 2017, 1; Accenture and Ponemon Institute, 2017 Cost of Cyber Crime Study, 2017, 12, 29; Deloitte Center for Industry Insights, High-performing Manufacturers, 2016, 6.
Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Companies,” October 2015, 21.
IBM Security and Ponemon Institute, 2017 Cost of Data Breach Study, June 2017, 13.
USITC, Global Digital Trade 1, August 2017.
Thomas, The Role of Trade Secrets, January 15, 2015, 2.
Chacko, Sekeris, and Herbolzheimer, “Can You Put a Dollar Amount,” October 5, 2016; Gordon et al., “Empirical Evidence,” 2018, 142–143, 150.
This study includes direct, indirect costs, and opportunity costs for companies of a cybercrime. It is broader than some studies that examine only the cost of data breaches, a subset of cybercrimes. An IBM/Ponemon Institute study found that the average cost of a data breach was $3.6 million in FY 2017. Accenture and Ponemon Institute, 2017 Cost of Cyber Crime Study, 2017, 12; IBM Security and Ponemon Institute, 2017 Cost of Data Breach Study, June 2017, 1.
The RAND study does not include costs such as lost sales and the impact on the company's brand. The study found that the mean cost of a data breach was $5.9 million, and the median was $170,000. Romanosky, “Examining the Costs and Causes of Cyber Incidents,” 2016, 129
PwC, Key Findings, 2017, 2; Sinn, “Moving Forward with Cybersecurity and Privacy,” December 2016, 10; Gartner data cited in Cloudmask, “The Cost of Data Security,” n.d. (accessed July 20, 2018).
Choi et al., “Hit or Myth?” 2017, 2–4; Morgan Stanley, “Cybersecurity: Time for a Paradigm Shift,” June 15, 2016.
Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 27; USITC, Medical Devices and Equipment, March 2007, 2-5; Deloitte Center for Industry Insights, High-performing Manufacturers, 2016, 6.
Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 27.
Graham, Suster, and Fried, “Should Your Startup Prioritize Profits or Growth?” July 8, 2017; McCue, “Advanced Manufacturing Expertise,” July 30, 2014; NIST, “Connecting Small Manufacturers,” November 2011, 20.
Alba, “No, Amazon isn't Going to Quit,” July 28, 2016.
Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 27; Laurent, “Cash Reserves: Both Safety and Strategy!” October 15, 2009.
Goedhart, Koller, and Wessels, “The Six Types of Successful Acquisitions,” May 2017.
Bort, “Why Cisco Paid $700 Million for this Guy’s Company,” November 20, 2015; Cisco, “Cisco has Acquired Acano Limited,” (accessed March 5, 2018).
Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Competition,” November 2014, 15; Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart Connected Products are Transforming Companies,” October 2015, 22-23; USITC, Medical Devices and Equipment, March 2007, 2-6–7.
Benavides et al., “CPG Manufacturers Need,” 2016, 12-13.
Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart Connected Products are Transforming Companies,” October 2015, pp. 10, 23.
Karren, “The Smart Factory is Only as Smart as its Workers,” June 15, 2016.
McCue, “Advanced Manufacturing Expertise Key to Future,” July 30, 2014.
Burke, Laaper, and Sniderman, “The Smart Factory,” August 31, 2017.
Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Competition,” November 2014, 14–15; Davcik, and Sharma. “Marketing Resources,” 2016, 1–2.
Greene, “How Oracle Engineered,” August 16, 2017; Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Competition,” November 2014, 15.
Consumers may benefit from lower transaction costs, purchasing bundled products instead of several individual ones. Shankar, “A Practical Guide to Combining Products and Services,” November, 2009; Porter, Competitive Strategy, 1980, 427; Evans, “Part 5: Software Platforms,” 2011, 389.
GE Healthcare, “AssetPlus,” n.d. (accessed on July 31, 2018).
Shankar, “A Practical Guide to Combining Products and Services,” November, 2009.
Magretta, Understanding Michael Porter, 2012, 40; Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 28.
USITC, Medical Devices and Equipment, March 2007, 2-6.
Torsekar, “China’s Changing Medical Device Exports,” January 2018, 6.
Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 73–74; Deloitte Center for Industry Insights, High-performing Manufacturers, 2016, 6.
Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,” 27; Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 74.
OECD, “Competition and Barriers to Entry,” OECD Observer, 2007, 3-4
MacMillan and Selden, “The Incumbent’s Advantage,” October 2008; Iansiti, “Managing Our Hub Economy,” September-October 2017.
Eggers and Kaul, “When Big Firms Are Most Likely to Innovate,” October 19, 2016.
Hirt and Willmott, “Strategic Principles for Competing in the Digital Age,” May 2015, 2.
Magretta, Understanding Michael Porter, 2012, 28–31; Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 27; Pisano, “Profiting from Innovation,” 2006, 1126; Christensen, Raynor, and McDonald, “Disruptive Innovation,” December 2015, 46, 51–52; Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 74.
Hirt, “Strategic Principles,” May 2014.
This section will refer specifically to products and ways they are offered to customers. Differentiation in terms of production costs, operational execution, etc. are covered in other factors.
Porter, Competitive Strategy, 1980, 38; Porter, “What is Strategy,” November–December 1996, 5; Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 32–33.
Porter, “What is Strategy,” November–December 1996, 5; Porter, “The Five Competitive Forces that Shape Strategy,” January 2008, 32–33.
Porter, Competitive Strategy, 1980, 38.
Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015; U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy, March 2012, v.
Cockburn and MacGarvie, “Entry and Patenting in the Software Industry,” May 2011, 915–916, 931.
Womack, “Oracle Plans,” April 24, 2017. For example, a 2012 report found that many of the subsectors covered in this report ranked among the most “patent intensive” manufacturing sectors. USDOC, Intellectual Property and the U.S. Economy, March 2012, 33.
WIPO, “Record Year,” March 15, 2017.
OECD, Data Driven Innovation, 79–80.
Chesbrough, “Everything You Need to Know About Open Innovation,” March 23, 2011.
Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 79; Kapoor, Nolan, and Venkatakrishnan, “How GE Appliances,” July 21, 2017; Wilson, “GE Appliances’ Plan,” January 10, 2018; Oxford Economics, Manufacturing Transformation, June 9, 2013, 13.
These partnerships may include: 1) licensing (the granting of legal rights for the use of patents, copyrights, trademarks, or trade secrets); 2) technology purchases and sales; 3) IP-based component business arrangements, in which the licensee is permitted to use IP for components; 4) contract R&D (contracting out designs or other IP that can be tailored to local market preferences); and 5) joint ventures that provide for the licensing of patents, trademarks, and other IP assets to local partners. Michael, “Developing Effective Intellectual Property Partnerships,” June 16, 2015; Chesbrough, “A Better Way to Innovate,” July 2003.
Furr, “Managing Multiparty Innovation,” November 2016.
Magretta, Understanding Michael Porter, 2012, 145; European Commission, Innovation Clusters in Europe, n.d. (accessed March 28, 2017), 3.
Gambardella, Building High-Tech Clusters, 2004, 1; Shih, “What to Know,” Fall 2015; Porter, “Clusters and the New Economics of Competition,” 83–84; OECD, Clusters, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 2009, 30–31.
Incremental Innovation, “The Importance of R&D,” 2012.
Jaruzeliski, “Software-as-a-Catalyst,” October 25, 2016.
Jaruzelski, Staack, and Chwalik, “Will Stronger Borders Weaken Innovation?” October 24, 2017.
Eisenhart, “Emergo Survey,” July 17, 2017.
PwC, “2016 Global Innovation 1000,” October 2016.
Jaruzelski, Schwartz, and Staack, “Innovation's New World Order,” October 27, 2015; Barton et. al, “Measuring the Economic Impact of Short-termism,” February 2017, 6–7; Pisano, “You Need an Innovation Strategy,” June 2015.
Luckerson, “How Google Perfected the Silicon Valley Acquisition,” April 15, 2015; Christensen, Raynor, and McDonald, “Disruptive Innovation,” December 2015, 51; Dobbs et al., Playing to Win, September 2015, 79.
Dawson, “Big Tech Reshaping Auto Supply Chain,” March 14, 2017; Dawson and Higgins, “Delphi to Buy,” October 24, 2017; Hammerschmidt, “Automotive Infotainment,” April 24, 2017.
Pisano, “You Need an Innovation Strategy,” June 2015.
Christensen, Raynor, and McDonald, “Disruptive Innovation,” December 2015, 46, 49, 51–52; Christensen and van Bever, “The Capitalist's Dilemma,” June 2014, 62–63; Pisano, “Profiting from Innovation,” 2006, 1126; Pisano, “You Need an Innovation Strategy,” June 2015.
Zook, “The Great Repeatable Business Model,” November 2011; Allen, “Living Differentiation,” March 21, 2012.
Compiled from company financial reports.
Coffin, Passenger Vehicles, May 2013, 37.
Porter and Heppelmann, “How Smart, Connected Products are Transforming Competition,” November 2014, 14–16.
Ramaswamy et al., Making it in America, November 2017, 35–36; Malik, Niemeyer, and Ruwadi, “Building the Supply Chain,” January 2011.
Porter, “How Smart Connected Firms Are Transforming Companies,” October 2015; Ramaswamy et al., Making it in America, November 2017, 35–38.
Porter, “How Smart, Connected Firms Are Transforming Competition,” November 2014.
Lieberman and Montgomery, “Conundra and Progress,” 2013, 321–322; Suarez and Lanzolla, “The Half-Truth of First-Mover Advantage,” April 2005; Lieberman and Montgomery, “First-Mover Advantages,” 1988, 52.
Lieberman and Montgomery, “Conundra and Progress,” 2013, 317; Lieberman and Montgomery, “First-Mover Advantages,” 1988, 47–49.
Lieberman and Montgomery, “Conundra and Progress,” 2013, 321–322; Suarez and Lanzolla, “The Half-Truth of First-Mover Advantage,” April 2005.
Barbe, Kim, and Riker, “Trade and Labor in the U.S. Semiconductor Industry,” July 2018, 3.
ATKearney, Make vs Buy Revisited, 2010, 1; Boston Consulting Group, “Rethinking Asset-Light,” n.d. (accessed July 13, 2018); Kachaner and Whybrew, “When ‘Asset-Light’ is Right,” September 30, 2014.
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Home > Chorley
Rivington Terraced Gardens
Rivington Terrace Gardens are one of the main attractions in Rivington. They were conceived and financed by soap magnate William Hesketh Lever (Lord Leverhulme), one of Bolton’s most famous sons and founder of Lever Brothers (now Unilever).
In 2014 they were named as one of Britain’s Best Lost Gardens by Countryfile, the popular BBC TV programme.
Roynton Lane – Rivington Terraced Gardens
Known to locals as the Chinese Gardens, they occupy 45 acres of the hillside between Rivington Pike and Rivington Hall Barn. A myriad of woodland paths crisscross the site, linking a number of stone buildings, structures and other features. Work on the gardens started in 1905 and continued until Lever’s death in 1925. The main designer was landscape architect Thomas Mawson.
Since Lever’s death most of the structures have fallen into disrepair. Some have been demolished while others are fenced off. At the time of writing (August 2015), the Rivington Heritage Trust (RHT) have plans for a multi-million pound scheme that could see many of the buildings repaired and conserved. The woodland and vegetation would also be managed and information boards erected.
Exploring the gardens fully could easily take the best part of a day. Some of the most interesting features are listed below.
Pigeon Tower
The top floor of this four-storey building was Lady Leverhulme’s sewing and music room. The second and third floors housed dovecotes. It is situated at the north-eastern corner of the gardens.
The Japanese Garden was inspired by a trip Lever took to Japan. Originally it consisted of a lake fed by two waterfalls and surrounded by Japanese tea houses, lanterns, and exotic plants. Of the original features, only the lake and stone bases of the tea houses remain.
Lever Bridge
This stone bridge lies at the northern end of Rivington Terraced Gardens and crosses Roynton Lane, the main pathway through the gardens. The design is based on a bridge that Lever had seen on a trip to Nigeria. Also known as Seven Arch Bridge, it has one large arch crossed by six smaller ones.
The gardens are owned by United Utilities but are open to the public free of charge. Their Great House Information Centre is a fantastic place to learn more about them and pick up maps and walking guides.
Rivington Terraced Gardens are situated immediately east of Lever Park and Rivington Hall Barn. The easiest way to get to the gardens is to drive to Rivington Hall Barn and walk from there. Rivington Hall Barn is situated on Rivington Lane (postcode BL6 7SB). There’s plenty of free parking at the barn.
The route to the gardens from Rivington Hall Barn forms part of our walk to Rivington Pike.
Map showing location of Rivington Terraced Gardens.
Rivington
Reviews and Additional Information
We visited Rivington Pike today. It has been a few months since we were up there. The transformation of the paths and walkways is amazing. Clearly a massive effort has been made to restore the gardens and surrounding area. A massive ‘well done’ to all involved.
Map of Chorley
Interactive map of Chorley showing the precise locations of hotels, tourist attractions, and other points of interest.
Chorley Weather
5-day weather forecast for Chorley. View temperature, wind speed and chance of rain.
Comprehensive guide to Rivington.
Rivington Hall Barn
Popular wedding/event venue, and starting point for countryside walks.
Rivington Pike
High spot in Rivington, between Bolton and Chorley. Offers great views.
Rivington Pike Walk
Walk to Rivington Pike via Rivington Terraced Gardens.
Bolton Whites Hotel from £99 - 3 miles
Mercure Bolton Georgian House Hotel from £84 - 3.2 miles
Macdonald Kilhey Court Hotel & Spa from £76 - 4.1 miles
Inglewood Boutique B&B from £70 - 4.3 miles
Ingleside House from £86 - 4.4 miles
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PRESS RELEASE July 6, 2018
Burkina Faso: World Bank Approves New Financing to Strengthen Health Services
WASHINGTON, July 6, 2018 - Today, the World Bank approved an $80 million International Development Association (IDA)* grant and $20 million from the Global Financing Facility (GFF) in Support of Every Woman, Every Child, to support the government’s efforts to strengthen health services in Burkina Faso.
The Health Services Reinforcement Project will help improve the quality and utilization of health services with a particular focus on maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health as well as nutrition and disease surveillance. The project will also strengthen the health system’s capacity in the country’s march toward universal health coverage, while helping the government better respond to epidemics.
“This project aims to improve the population’s access to health services as well as the quality of health care provided, particularly to the most vulnerable population groups,” said Cheick Kanté, World Bank Country Manager for Burkina Faso.
“The World Bank’s support comes as the government of Burkina Faso is striving to establish national health insurance, with the goal of achieving universal health coverage. This new financing is aligned with the government’s new direction and reinforces other health interventions,” said Paul Jacob Robyn, World Bank Task Team Leader.
“The GFF is pleased to partner with the Government of Burkina Faso to help increase sustainable financing of the health and nutrition of women, children, and adolescents, thereby expediting progress toward universal health coverage,” said Mariam Claeson, Director of the Global Financing Facility.
The Governments of Norway and Burkina Faso, the World Bank Group, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will co-host the GFF replenishment conference slated for November 6, 2018 in Oslo, Norway.
* The International Development Association (IDA) is the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries. Established in 1960, it provides grants and low to zero-interest loans for projects and programs that boost economic growth, reduce poverty, and improve poor people’s lives. IDA is one of the largest sources of assistance for the world’s 75 poorest countries, 39 of which are in Africa. IDA resources help effect positive change in the lives of the 1.5 billion people living in the countries that are eligible for its assistance. Since its inception, IDA has supported development work in 113 countries. Annual commitments have increased steadily and averaged about $18 billion over the past three years, with about 54% of commitments going to Africa.
*The Global Financing Facility (GFF) is a multi-stakeholder partnership that is helping countries tackle the greatest health and nutrition issues affecting women, children and adolescents. The GFF brings governments and partners together around a country-led plan, prioritizing high-impact but underinvested areas of health. The GFF Trust Fund acts as a catalyst for financing, with countries using modest GFF Trust Fund grants to significantly increase their domestic resources alongside the World Bank’s IDA and IBRD financing, aligned external financing, and private sector resources. Each relatively small external investment is multiplied by countries’ own commitments—generating a large return on investment, ultimately saving and improving lives. Learn more: www.globalfinancingfacility.org and @theGFF
For more information on the World Bank Group’s activities in Burkina Faso, please visit: http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/burkinafaso
For more information on IDA: http://ida.worldbank.org/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/worldbankafrica
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WorldBankAfrica
YouTube: http://www.worldbank.org/africa/youtube
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/worldbank/sets/world-bank-africa
PRESS RELEASE NO: 2018/173/AFR
Ekaterina Svirina
esvirina@worldbank.org
Lionel Yaro
lyaro@worldbank.org
Loans & Credits: Burkina Faso: Health Services Reinforcement Project
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,Producer/Director: Michael Gier is the CEO/President of Silver Dove Films which is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. He has been in the entertainment industry for over 35 years starring in Broadway shows across the country. He was a soloist for five years with The Lawrence Welk Show in Branson, MO performing with many of the original Lawrence Welk TV stars, a soloist during the Nationally broadcast Jerry Lewis Stars Across America Telethon, and performed live at the 1999 MTV Music Video Awards as one of the stars in the award winning FatBoy Slim’s “Praise You” music video directed by Academy Award Winner Spike Jonze. Currently Michael works as a union actor in television and film projects.
Transitioning from years of producing and directing live performances, in 2009 Michael created Silver Dove Productions, LLC to produce TV, film, and corporate projects. Since then he has produced/directed hundreds of Film, TV Commercial, corporate, documentary, and film projects.
Producer: Terri Gier has worked as an educator for most of her life in both public and private schools since 1996 with a wide range of students from English Language Learners in South Central to gifted and highly gifted students throughout Los Angeles, CA.
Beginning in 2012 she became Michael Gier's producing partner with the two of them producing a number of projects together.
Associate Producer: Teres Byrne has over 25 years of acting experience in theatre, film, and television, and has voiced hundreds of ads as a voice over professional. More recently she has co-produced several films. Teres has spent a lifetime giving back to others by donating her time to non-profit organizations. She is excited to be a part of an organization that uses the powerful medium of film to make a positive difference in people's lives.
Vietnam War Consultant: Tom Matteo is a Marine, Vietnam Veteran, and the recipient of Six Purple Heart Medals. We will be incorporating combat scenes in our film that Tom experienced first hand in Vietnam. In 1975 working in law enforcement, Tom was awarded the Medal of Valor for personal acts of valor above and beyond the call of duty and currently runs his non-profit Faces of Heroes.
Wounded Warrior Song Writer: Roger Stephens contacted Michael about his song Wounded Heroes performed by Billy Dean. After watching the music video Michael was very impressed with the message of the video and decided to produce a film that would feature the song and honor the men and woman that serve our Country. Watch the video that started it all here, https://youtu.be/Ck9Bcqt3A8I.
We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit. All donations are tax deductible.
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| ERROR: type should be string, got "https://www.wsj.com/articles/neogenomics-to-acquire-ge-cancer-testing-unit-clarient-1445431725\nNeoGenomics to Acquire GE Cancer Testing Unit Clarient\nDeal potentially valued at $275.20 million and would broaden genetic-testing company’s offerings\nTess Stynes\nBiographyTess Stynes\n@TessStynes\ntess.stynes@wsj.com\nOct. 21, 2015 8:48 am ET\nNeoGenomics Inc. NEO 3.89% agreed to acquire Clarient Inc., a subsidiary of the health-care unit of General Electric Co. GE 1.07% , in a deal potentially valued at $275.2 million that aims to broaden the genetic-testing company’s offerings of cancer diagnostic tests.\nUnder the deal, NeoGenomics will acquire the cancer diagnostic testing firm for $80 million in cash, $110 million in preferred stock, and 15 million shares of NeoGenomics common stock—valued at roughly at $85.2 million based on Tuesday’s closing price.\nNeoGenomics Chairman and Chief Executive Douglas VanOort said NeoGenomics and GE Healthcare have agreed to collaborate on a new bioinformatics initiative that will explore the potential for new products that combine genomic and imaging data.\nClarient had revenue of $127 million last year and has roughly 415 employees.\nNeoGenomics said that Clarient’s capabilities in testing for solid tumor cancers of the breast, colon and lung are highly complementary to its capabilities in testing hematologic cancers.\nThe company expects cost savings of $4 million to $6 million next year, with annual cost savings rising to $20 million to $30 million by the end of the third year following the deal.\nWrite to Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com\nShow Conversation Hide Conversation\nNeoGenomics to acquire GE cancer- testing unit Clarient"
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Johnny Cash performs "Here Comes That Rainbow Again"
From Album Rainbow and written by Kris Kristofferson
Rainbow is the 70th album by American country singer Johnny Cash, his last for Columbia Records, released in 1985 (see 1985 in country music). "I'm Leaving Now", which appeared fifteen years later as a track on Cash's American III: Solitary Man, was released as a single rather unsuccessfully, but the album's signature song is a cover of Kris Kristofferson's "Here Comes That Rainbow Again", which also appeared on Cash's 1995 collaboration with Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings - known as The Highwaymen - entitled The Road Goes on Forever, though it was sung solo by Kristofferson on the latter. Also included is a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?," from Pendulum. The album also includes the song "Love Me Like You Used To," which was later recorded by fellow country singer Tanya Tucker, and became a country hit for her. Following the release of this album and a duet album with Jennings in 1986, Cash moved to Mercury Records as a result of Columbia's fading interest in his music, though he later returned to Columbia for the second Highwaymen album.
Follow @newhillbillycom
Kris Kristofferson Here Comes That Rainbow Again Lyrics
The scene was a small roadside cafe
The waitress was sweepin' the floor
Two truck-drivers drinkin' their coffee
And two okie-kids by the door
How much are them candies, they asked her
How much have you got, she replied
We've only a penny between us
Them's two for a penny, she lied
And the daylight grew heavy with thunder
And the smell of the rain on the wind
Here comes that rainbow again
One truckdriver called to the waitress
After the kids went outside
Them candies ain't two for a penny
So what's it to you, she replied
In silence they finished their coffee
Got up and nodded godbye
She called, hey, you left too much money
So what's it to you, they replied
tagPlaceholderEtiquetas: when the cowboy sings, hee haw, johnny cash
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White House Brides and Envisioned Flowers
The first really grand White House wedding was Nellie Grant’s. For this President and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant had th...
Andrew Jackson Statue, Lafayette Square
A slave helps craft this statue and the Capitol's statue of freedom... A statue of Andrew Jackson at the Battle...
The White House tennis court, first built in 1902 behind the West wing, was moved to the west side of the...
The West Wing: 1950-1974
1953: President Truman's last speech as president.
Fall Foliage at the White House
Throughout the history of the White House and the grounds surrounding it, visitors have commented on the trees and foliage...
Patricia Nixon’s Visitor Friendly White House
Not long after she became First Lady, Pat Nixon was asked what she planned to focus on in her new...
Steve Vasilakes, the White House's Peanut Man
Nicholas Stefanos “Steve” Vasilakes emigrated from Ligerea, Greece, to the United States in 1910 and soon thereafter set up his hot pean...
White House Pigeons
As any visitor to Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. will tell you, pigeons are a universal feature of the...
Raccoons at the White House
Many people consider raccoons to be pests and nuisances. These nocturnal mammals are often found rummaging through trash cans, dumpsters,...
A History of White House Flowers and Florists
April showers might bring May flowers, but White House florists keep the executive mansion in bloom year round. Today the...
"A Beautiful Spot Capable of Every Improvement"
The history of the white house grounds begins nearly two centuries before the construction of the house itself. Sailing up...
President's Park: A History of Protest at the White House
President’s Park is approximately 80 acres of urban landscape surrounding the White House. A fence encloses the house, providing 18 acres of...
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Family Law FAQ
Orange County family lawyer Frequently Asked Questions
What should I bring to my free consultation with my family law Lawyer?
California certified family law specialist
It is recommended you bring current paycheck stubs for the last 3 to 4 months; moreover,
your spouse’s paycheck stubs as well. Income tax returns for state and federal.
• All real property deeds
• Mortgage information (monthly payment)
• Savings, checking, stock certificates, bonds, brokerage statements
• Insurance policies (life), pension or retirement plans
• Vehicle registrations
• Net worth estimate
• Current will, trusts
• Property estimated value
• Any written agreements with spouse
• Liabilities list (outstanding bills)
• Estimated worth of household goods
• Write down your concerns and questions for the family law attorney to make the best of your free consultation.
What is a Pre-nuptial Agreement and Post-nuptial Agreement?
Pros: Premarital agreements may protect your children and grandchildren inheritance rights from a previous marriage. Businesses may also be protected. If one spouse has more liability than the other, a premarital agreement can guard the debt-free spouse from having to take on the responsibilities of the other. If you prepare to sacrifice a profitable career after your marriage, a premarital agreement can make sure that you will be rewarded for that sacrifice if your matrimony does not survive. A prenuptial agreement can focus on more than the financial portions of your marriage, it can comprise any details, accountability sharing to which both parties consent to in advance. Premarital agreements can regulate the quantity of spousal support that one partner will have to pay the other should they divorce. Premarital agreements can safeguard the interests of elders who plan on remarrying.
Cons: Premarital agreements can compel you to renounce your right to inherit from your spouse's estate when he or she dies. California law, entitles a spouse to a share of the estate even if the spouse does not includes such a stipulation in the will. If you contribute to the continuing success and growth of your spouse's business or professional practice by entertaining clients and taking care of the home, etc., thus allowing him or her to focus on professional endeavors, you may not be entitled to claim a share of the increase in value if you agree otherwise in a premarital agreement. This increase in value may be considered divisible marital property. Starting a marital relationship with a contract that sets forth the particulars of what will happen upon the death of your spouse or the termination of your marriage can engender a sense of lack of trust. A low- or non-wage-earning spouse may not be able to sustain the lifestyle to which he or she has become accustomed during the marriage if the agreement substantially limits the amount of spousal support to which that spouse is entitled.
In the "honeymoon" phase of a relationship, one spouse may agree to terms that are not in his or her best interests because he or she is "too in love" to be concerned about the financial aspects and can't imagine the marriage coming to an untimely end.
What is a Post Nuputial Agreement?
Postmarital agreements or postnuptial agreements are agreements entered into after a marriage has taken place, but before the parties seek to end their marriage. As with premarital agreements, one or both of the parties usually is seeking to protect assets or income in the event of divorce or death.
dissolution of marriage legal help in Orange County
What is a Dissolution?
What is the difference between a divorce, a legal separation and an annulment?
A divorce is a “dissolution of marriage” or a “dissolution of domestic partnership” and terminates your marriage or domestic partnership. After a divorce you will be considered a single person and can remarry if you wish.
A “Legal separation” does not end a marriage or domestic partnership. You may not marry or enter into a partnership with someone else if you are legally separated (and not divorced). A legal separation is for couples that do not want to get divorced but want to live apart and decide on money, property, and parenting issues. A legal separation may be preferred for religious reasons.
An Annulment is a "nullity of marriage" or a "nullity of domestic partnership" and occurs when a court says your marriage or domestic partnership is NOT legally valid. A marriage or domestic partnership that is incestuous or bigamous is never valid. Other marriages and partnerships can be declared "void" because of force, fraud, or physical or mental incapacity; one of the spouses or partners was too young to legally marry or enter into a domestic partnership; or one of the spouses or partners was already married or in a registered domestic partnership. Annulments are very rare
child custody & visitation lawyers
What is the difference between Child Custody and Visitation?
What is Legal Custody?
"Legal custody" gives a parent the right to make long-term decisions about the raising of a child, and key aspects of the child's welfare -- including the child's education, medical care, dental care, and religious instruction. In most child custody cases, legal custody is awarded to both parents (called "joint legal custody"), unless it is shown that one parent is somehow unfit, or is incapable of making decisions about the child's upbringing. Legal custody is different from "physical custody," which involves issues such as where the child will live.
What is Physical Custody?
A parent who has "physical custody" of a child has the right to provide day-to-day care for the child. The key aspect of physical custody in most child custody situations is that the child will live with the parent who has physical custody. Most modern custody arrangements give physical custody to one parent (called the "custodial" parent) and grant visitation rights and shared "legal custody" to the non-custodial parent. Typically, visitation rights give the non-custodial parent exclusive time with the child every other weekend, alternating major holidays, and a number of weeks during summer vacations.
What is Sole Custody?
A parent with "sole custody" of a child usually has exclusive physical and legal custody rights concerning the child. Sole custody arrangements are rare, and are usually limited to situations in which one parent has been deemed unfit or incapable of having any form of responsibility over a child -- for example, due to drug addiction or evidence of child abuse. In sole custody situations, the child's other parent (also known as the "non-custodial" parent) has neither physical nor legal custody rights, but may be entitled to periods of visitation with the child (though those visits may be supervised, especially in situations involving domestic violence or child abuse).
What is Joint Custody?
In child custody situations, "joint custody" usually refers to one of two possible scenarios: joint legal and physical custody, or joint legal custody. In true "joint custody" arrangements, parents share equal "legal custody" and "physical custody" rights. This means that parents participate equally in making decisions about the child's upbringing and welfare, and split time evenly in having day-to-day care and responsibility for the child -- including the parent's right to have the child live with them.
Joint custody--sometimes referred to as shared custody or shared parenting--has two parts: joint legal custody and joint physical custody. A joint custody order can have one or both parts.
Joint legal custody refers to both parents sharing in major decisions affecting the child. The custody order may describe the issues on which the parents must share decisions. The most common issues are school, health care, and religious training (although both parents have a right to expose the child to their respective religious beliefs). Many joint custody orders specify procedures parents should follow in the event they cannot agree on an issue. The most common procedure is for the parents to consult a mediator.
Joint physical custody refers to the time the child spends with each parent. The amount of time is flexible. The length of time could be relatively moderate, such as every other weekend with one parent; or the amount of time could be equally divided between the parents. Parents who opt for equal time-sharing have come up with many alternatives such as: alternate two-day periods; equal division of the week; alternate weeks; alternate months; and alternate six month periods. If the child is attending school and spends a substantial amount of time with both parents, it usually is best for the child if the parents live relatively close to each other.
Child, Spousal and Family Support Issues
How is Child Support determined?
In 1984 California law established minimum levels of child support and required the courts to establish guidelines for awards of child support above the statutory minimums. This is known as the Child Support Guideline. To calculate the minimum amount of child support to be paid by a parent, the law directs a judge to first add up the total net monthly incomes of both parents. Then, the percentage of that income that is being earned by the non- custodial parent must be determined. Finally, that percentage is multiplied by the applicable level of welfare payments for the number of children in the household. The result of this calculation is the minimum child support. It should be understood that in the vast majority of cases, the court orders child support above the minimum level, as determined by local support guidelines. The majority of child support orders are paid under the Child Support Guideline. The guideline is based on a complicated mathematical formula.
How long is child support supposed to be paid?
Child support must be paid until the child becomes 18, unless the child has not graduated from high school, in which case the child support continues until the child has graduated high school or becomes 19, which ever occurs first. Presently, the law does not allow for child support beyond the age of 19, unless a child is physically or mentally disabled. However, the parents may agree that child support is to continue into the college years, and such an agreement will be enforced by the Family Law Court.
How is the Amount of Spousal Support Determined?
Unlike child support, which in most states is mandated according to very specific monetary guidelines, courts have broad discretion in determining whether to award spousal support and, if so, how much and for how long. The court may consider the following factors in making decisions about spousal support awards: the age, physical condition, emotional state, and financial condition of the former spouses; the length of time the recipient would need for education or training to become self-sufficient; the couple's standard of living during the marriage; the length of the marriage; and the ability of the payer spouse to support the recipient and still support himself or herself.
Divorce & Family Law Attorneys of Orange County, CA
Disclaimer: California Family Law Attorney Disclaimer
1 Orange County family lawyer Frequently Asked Questions
2 What should I bring to my free consultation with my family law Lawyer?
3 What is a Pre-nuptial Agreement and Post-nuptial Agreement?
4 What is a Post Nuputial Agreement?
5 What is the difference between Child Custody and Visitation?
6 Divorce & Family Law Attorneys of Orange County, CA
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Intense Louisiana Rains Another Example of What’s in Store With Warming
By Sean Sublette
Follow @SeanSublette
The historic rains and flooding that swamped Louisiana over the weekend are continuing to threaten the state – and there’s more rain on the way.
The torrential rain was the result of several factors, including warm Gulf waters and a stalled front, and is the type of extreme rainfall that is expected to occur more often as the world warms.
A man surveys a flooded home in St. Amant, La.
Credit: REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman
While most of the rivers that rapidly rose – some to record levels – over the weekend have since crested and slowly begun to recede, six gauge locations in the state indicate a major flood remains in progress. More than 1,000 homes have been flooded in Baton Rouge, and 20,000 people have been rescued from their homes. The Louisiana Governor’s Mansion has been evacuated.
Through 11 a.m. ET Tuesday, six Louisiana sites had received more than 2 feet of rain since Aug. 9. Watson, La., leads that list with 31.39 inches. Another 14 sites in the state had between 1 and 2 feet of rain.
The Amite River Basin between Watson and Central thanks to the @uscoastguard #laflood #lawx pic.twitter.com/jKYZzpScZh
— Louisiana GOHSEP (@GOHSEP) August 13, 2016
An increase in heavy rain events is a prime indicator of climate change. According the National Climate Assessment, released in 2014, the Southeast has had a 27 percent increase in the amount of precipitation falling in the heaviest events since the late 1950s. A report earlier this month from the EPA indicated that nine of the top 10 years for extreme one-day precipitation events in the contiguous U.S. have occurred since 1990.
The reason rising temperatures lead to more extreme rainfalls is because a warmer atmosphere coupled with warmer ocean water leads to more evaporation. This means more water is available in a storm system, potentially making for heavier precipitation.
Globally, sea surface temperature has been consistently higher during the past three decades than at any other time since reliable observations began in 1880. In recent weeks, surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico have been particularly high, around 90°F (32°C), which is 2°-4°F (1-2°C) above average for this time of year.
More rain is in store this week in Louisiana, though the heaviest rain is expected to shift northwestward toward Arkansas and eastern Texas. Several inches of rain are forecast in those areas.
extreme precipitation,
heavy do
Yup, It’s Another Record-Hot Month for Earth
Massive Flooding Continues in Louisiana
Across U.S., Heaviest Downpours On The Rise
Record-breaking rain across Texas and Oklahoma this week caused widespread flooding, the likes of which the region has rarely, if ever, seen. For seven locations there, May 2015 has seen the most rain of any month ever recorded, with five days to go and the rain still coming. While rainfall in the region is consistent with the emerging El Niño, the
Heavy Rains Bring Epic Flash Floods to Maryland
The streets of Ellicott City, Md., became raging rivers on Saturday, with cars tossed around like toy boats after nearly 6 inches of rain fell in just two hours. Rainfall that intense is a 1-in-1,000 year event for the area, according to the National Weather Service. While downpours that intense are rare, heavy rainfall events have been on the
Inland Flooding Threat to Increase by 2050
Inland flooding, or the flooding of streams, creeks and rivers, is related to water runoff and depends on many factors in addition to rainfall amounts. Soil saturation, topography, land use and the placement of levees and dams all play a role in how water runs off into bodies of water.
The Future of Flash Flood Warnings
Heavy downpours and flash flooding events continue to increase in different areas of the United States. These specific type of events have increased between 10 to 40 percent in the Mid-South since 1958. (Kentucky, 16 percent; Tennessee, 14 percent; Missouri, 38 percent and Illinois, 12 percent.) We don't have to look back too far in the records
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Virginia Tech reflects on how community got them through the tragedy 12 years ago
Remembering the Virginia Tech massacre 12 years on
Virginia Tech shooting: 12 years later
12th anniversary of Virginia Tech shooting
By Katey Roshetko |
Posted: Tue 12:33 PM, Apr 16, 2019 |
Updated: Tue 11:47 PM, Apr 16, 2019
BLACKSBURG, Va. (WDBJ) — Tuesday marks the 12th anniversary of the shooting at Virginia Tech.
When the clock strikes midnight on April 16, the candle is lit at the Remembrance Memorial on Virginia Tech's campus.
"The day of remembrance that we celebrate every year really is a time for us to pause and reflect and remember the 32 precious lives that we lost 12 years ago," Mark Owczarski, Virginia Tech spokesperson, said.
Thirty-two lives are memorialized in stone, watching a campus continue to prevail after the tragedy.
"It's our responsibility to hold up those lives and to live out their dreams and aspirations and what we do on a day to day basis," Owczarski said.
They do so in their commitment to serve and support one one. And Remembrance Day serves as another reminder that it's community that got them through their darkest hour.
"Community was an important part of the healing that happened to our community 12 years ago when Hokies watched other Hokies."
There will be a moment of silence as a wreath is laid at the memorial at 9:43 a.m. Tuesday. Then at 11:59 p.m., the candle will be extinguished and returned to Burruss Hall.
Through April 18, there will also be two exhibitson display at the Newman Library for the Virginia Tech community and public to see.
In addition, Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the Virginia flag to be flown at half-staff in memory of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting on Tuesday.
This is to order that the flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia is to be flown at half-staff on all local, state, and federal buildings and grounds in the Commonwealth of Virginia in respect and memory of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, their families, and the entire Virginia Tech community, a statement by Northam read.
I hereby order that the flag shall be lowered at sunrise on Tuesday, April 16, 2019, and remain at half-staff until sunset.
Ordered on this, the 15th day of April, 2019.
Father of slain Virginia journalist fights Google from Capitol Hill
Virginia man accuses developer of harming 200-year-old grave
Virginia public school system lifts teacher drug tests
Couple comes home to find bullet hole in ceiling, cat shot
Richmond police investigating death of infant left in a hot car
Video: Birthdays and Anniversaries - July 17
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The Uncanny Resemblance of Barbara Bush to Aleister Crowley
April 18, 2018 Thomas Müller Articles by Thomas Müller, Hidden History, Politics, US News, Winter Watch Articles 20
Bush family matriarch and former First Lady Barbara Bush died Tuesday at the age of 92.
There is a theory that Barbara’s biological father was satanist Aleister Crowley. [see: Aleister Crowley 666: The Essence of Evil] Other than to say, “um,” we make no claims, as we don’t have access to the DNA — but nothing would surprise us nowadays. At any rate, we leave it to the reader’s visual acuity and judgement. In other words: You decide.
The theory holds that Barbara’s mom, Pauline Pierce (1896-1949), was friends with satanist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) — maybe more than friends. Pauline had a reputation of being a bit on the wild side in the ’20s. It has been reported that she and Aleister were in France together around September or October of 1924. Upon her return to America, Pauline gave birth to Barbara Pierce on June 8, 1925.
W magazine once described Pauline Robinson as “beautiful, fabulous, critical and meddling” and “a former beauty from Ohio with extravagant tastes.” On Sept. 23, 1949, Pauline was killed in an automobile accident in Harrison, New York, when her husband, Marvin, who was driving the car, lost control as he reached over to stop a cup of hot coffee from sliding across the seat and onto his wife. The car crashed into a tree, killing Pauline instantly.
Pauline posing with “interesting” art.
As shown in the headliner photo and here – Crowley and Barbara Bush look like peas of the same pod.
The man at left is Crowley. The man at right is Marvin Pierce (1893- 1969), who is Barbara Bush’s supposed father and George W.’s grandfather. Umh, I don’t think I would gaslight you as crazy for picking contestant #1 based solely on visual evidence.
To my eye, the resemblance of George W. Bush to the superimposed Crowley is less stark, although he doesn’t really resemble Pierce either.
However, the comparison between George W.’s brother Marvin Bush and Aleister is striking and uncanny.
Barbara Bush was known to make some statements that were down right addled, such as shown in the meme below.
Like father, like daughter?
And who can forget George H.W. Bush’s duping delight at the Gerald Ford’s funeral, where he spoke about a “deluded gunman who killed President Kennedy.”
George W Bush always seemed to struggle with the 9/11 storyline. Here he talks about the placing of explosives in the Twin Towers. Then apparently forgetting Abraham Lincoln’s admonishment that no man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar, in the next video he speaks of “watching the first tower get hit on TV” No one watched the first tower hit that morning on TV.
George W Bush dancing and yucking it up at the Dallas police memorial service.
Next, watch George W. Bush wipe his hands on Bill Clinton’s shirt as they work the crowd in Haiti. W. was the perfect man for the job in our inverted world.
George Cortelyou, President McKinley’s Assassination and the Panic of 1907
On Israel’s Little-Known Concentration and Labor Camps in 1948-1955
August 9, 2018 Winter Watch 1
Hollywood’s Success, and Sex Scandals, Go Back to Some of Its [Jewish] Founding Fathers
November 17, 2017 Winter Watch 0
20 Comments on The Uncanny Resemblance of Barbara Bush to Aleister Crowley
Bush talks about explosives 911
WeNoLongerBelieveOrAidThemNow May 11, 2018 at 2:43 am
It gets even more fun when you realize these are actors/operatives playing multiple roles in history. Barbara Bush could literally have been the same person as Crowley, as Walt Disney, Adolf Hitler and Kermit Roosevelt were the same actor/operative. A bunch of criminals in drag and other costumes. See wellaware1.com for quite a few accurate hints, but keep in mind nobody is perfect and mistakes are made.
Dominick Perez April 30, 2018 at 6:58 am
Like Chelsea Clinton and Web Hubbell! Uncanny!
lee mccurry April 28, 2018 at 9:39 pm
She looks more like a bulldog
xyz April 28, 2018 at 11:04 am
And the demonization of Crowley by all sorts of “smart asses” goes on…. So what if any of u discovers one day that Crowley or Bush or both are among its ancestors? Would he or she kill himself/herself?
Ivan Sanchez April 28, 2018 at 4:18 pm
Crowley was a first order delusional piece… Sex majik, sacrificing babies…
L Garou April 27, 2018 at 3:07 am
LBJ and Golda Mier, separated at birth, or what!
Muhammad Abbass April 27, 2018 at 5:08 am
Definitely hatched from the same egg batch. The colour looks off though, I can see them more greyish green hued.
I am always surprised how herpetologists manage to tell which gender these things are, If it were not for the pearls on the female I couldn’t tell them apart.
Nom De Plume April 28, 2018 at 3:03 pm
LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Eileen Kuch April 27, 2018 at 10:37 pm
OMG, L. Garou, you’re absolutely right, Golda Meir and LBJ were definitely twin Khazars from Kiev, the photos are proof.
L Garou April 27, 2018 at 11:00 pm
It made me chuckle and that’s what matters!
zarcon zarconinni April 24, 2018 at 1:34 pm
There’s nothing beautiful of a mind without love and compassion.
Двести Лет Вместе April 19, 2018 at 1:24 pm
#PearlsforBarbara
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e1d7dfcb3a9929b529f1dc3a5f0158e326209530e46f234736ca3b87d873453b.png
mdottwo May 1, 2018 at 2:16 pm
I don’t want to, but I can’t stop laughing.
Douteux55 April 18, 2018 at 10:43 pm
Even worse, I’d say Reptilian all the way around. Fascinating that she looked 10x better than her husband who was significantly younger. That was a most curious couple. Wonder which body she’ll show up in next.
Frances Morris April 24, 2018 at 12:14 am
” Wonder which body she’ll show up in next.” How about a diseased bat???
Or the disease…
ChiefBloviator April 18, 2018 at 2:50 pm
I always felt ‘why should I waste my beautiful mind’ was a quintessential example of ‘do what thou wilt’, hadn’t made the Crowley connection though, very thought provoking.
Torchy Blane April 18, 2018 at 8:57 am
Favorite quote from Babs: “Clinton lied. A man might forget where he parks or where he lives, but he never forgets oral sex, no matter how bad it is.” [Gov’t report states Moni Lew gave Bill 9 blowies in the ohval office.]
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The Big Picture of Child Trafficking: Mind Control Culture [UPDATED: March 16, 2019]
Rockefeller Minion Robert Maynard Hutchins Delivers for His Masters
What the Media, Officials Wouldn’t Reveal During the Notre Dame Cathedral Fire
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Call for Donations for Gzim and Ramis Berisha
Support the fight of Gzim and Ramis Berisha for their right to stay
In December 2015, our friends Gzim (17) and Ramis Berisha (14) were torn from our midst. At 5 o'clock in the morning, the police arrived and the two were deported to Kosovo a few hours later, together with their parents and younger siblings. This happened even though they were born in Germany, went to school here, got involved in youth work and had dreams for their future in Germany.
Meanwhile, Gzim has to fight another big problem. At the end of 2017 he was diagnosed with cancer. The disease can not be treated in Kosovo due to lack of resources. In the spring of 2018, Gzim has been granted permission to enter Germany for the treatment of his severe illness and has been back in Germany since May 2018. Meanwhile, Gzim has undergone surgery but his treatment is still ongoing and he will not receive rehab treatment. It is still unclear who will pay the bills for the lengthy treatment. Gzim's "Duldung" (the temporary suspension of the deportation) expires at the end of December 2018. There is a threat of another deportation. Through legal assistance, we now try to prevent another deportation and allow Gzims further treatment. For this we need further donations.
You can read here what happened to Gzim and his family since the deportation in December 2015:
First, the family found shelter in Pristina in a refugee home where they had to live with 8 people on 20 square meters. They were literally left with nothing. They had no money, hardly any clothes, because they were allowed to take only a little luggage from Germany and no support for the orientation on site.
Even after more than a year of residence, the brothers and their familiy in Kosovo lacked everything that constituted a decent life. Gzim and Ramis moved with their family to Peć, a city in western Kosovo. At least they had their own apartment there. But there was and there is no future for them in Kosovo. Since their forced stay in Kosovo, Gzim and Ramis have been unable to attend school. Gzim had to go to work to earn a living for the family. Due to the fact that he speaks German as a native language, he was able to work full-time in a call center. This is aimed at customers in Switzerland. In this call center, he earned 250 € a month - just enough to pay the rent for the family home.
Gzim and Ramis are in a situation like almost all Roma who were deported to Kosovo. For them, the situation is catastrophic: there is a lack of medical care and access to education. Finding a job is almost impossible for Roma, the unemployment rate among Roma is between 95% and 100% in Kosovo. They have to live in makeshift shelters because their homes were either destroyed in the war or claimed by the remaining locals. Due to the historically grown racism against Roma, they are exposed to defamation, hostility and assaults. To build a decent life in Kosovo as Roma is almost impossible. This fact makes it clear that Kosovo is by no means a so-called "safe country of origin" - as the German Federal Government has been claiming since 2015.
Gzim and Ramis still want to do everything possible to come back to Germany and get a right to stay here. At the moment, the main aim is to enable Gzim to finally treat his cancer with the help of legal counsel.
To do so, they will continue to need strong financial support - to cover the costs of the lawyer and to overcome further bureaucratic hurdles.
Help Gzim recover and fight for his and Ramis future!
Informieren und spenden: „Unterstütze den Bleiberechtskampf von Gzim und Ramis Berisha“ auf betterplace.org öffnen.
Donations Account
Account holder: Amaro Drom e.V.
Reason for payment: Anwaltskosten Berisha-Brüder
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Credit Institution: Bank für Sozialwirtschaft
Donations to Amaro Drom e.V. are tax-deductible. We gladly issue a certificate for you. Any questions will be answered by our manager via Email.
Here you can find a List with links to all publications about Gzim and Ramis' fight for a right to stay in Germany.
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Home Economic Policy Cash pool issues still abound under Treasury’s final debt-equity tax regs
Cash pool issues still abound under Treasury’s final debt-equity tax regs
Published in The Hill
Multinational companies are still subject to burdensome cash pooling requirements under significant changes in international tax rules that aim to tackle a tax avoidance practice called earnings stripping, tax experts told The Hill Extra.
“The regulations turned the debt-equity world on its head in an attempt to address a perceived inversion problem,” Linda E. Carlisle, a member at Miller & Chevalier, said referring to the Treasury Department’s long-awaited final changes to proposed regulations under the tax code section 385.
The Treasury Department released late Oct. 13 the modified rules, exempting a broad range of areas, including cash pooling and short-term loans, as well as certain transactions involving foreign subsidiaries, S corporations, and regulated financial and insurance companies. They also exclude transactions between mutual funds and real estate investment trusts.
During a press briefing before the final rules were made public, a department official said these areas posed a low risk of earnings-stripping activity. The new regulations also provided relief for intercompany loan documentation for U.S. borrowers by extending the deadline to Jan. 1, 2018.
Treasury first proposed the rules in April, targeting certain intercompany debt-to-equity transactions to discourage business deals that could erode the U.S. tax base. Such deals include inversions, in which U.S. businesses move their tax base to countries with low tax rates.
Fixes fall short.
While the modifications are major improvements to the proposed version, problems still abound, experts said after taking their first sweep over the 500-plus page document. For many large businesses, the underlying issue still remains: a new way of treating debt in certain financial transactions within a company.
“Is it an earnings-stripping rule, which means I am concerned about the debt-equity ratio in a corporation, or is it a rule that re-characterizes what under 50 years of case law has been [applied to] debt to equity just because of the way it is being used?” Carlisle said. “It’s a very different approach.”
L.P. “Chip” Harter of PricewaterhouseCoopers Washington National Tax Practice said foreign-based companies with U.S. operations will likely challenge Treasury and the IRS over the section 385 regulations, but the number is now limited. These foreign businesses have been advocating for Treasury to scrap the rules because they would face the short end of the debt reclassification changes, he said.
“For them, the regulations have been substantially improved, but the regulations will still make it more difficult to leverage up foreign-owned U.S. subsidiaries and get additional interest deductions in the United States,” Harter said. “Narrowing the regulations to apply only to debt issued by U.S. corporations is consistent with the stated objective of limiting U.S. base erosion.”
Trouble for financial firms.
Treasury also didn’t exempt total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC), which could be a problem for financial companies since the rules may conflict with Federal Reserve requirements under the Dodd-Frank law, according to one tax counsel closely monitoring section 385’s impact on the financial industry. The source requested to remain anonymous because of the review of the rules is still ongoing.
Even though Treasury narrowed the focus of the section 385 rules, it didn’t change what some experts called the controversial “72-month per se period.”
This rule would require any debt instrument issued within 36 months before or after the implementation of certain transactions to recharacterize to the extent of the amount of that transaction, according to KPMG’s initial reactions, listing distribution to shareholders and acquiring stock of another group as examples of the deals.
“If a company is making a distribution like a dividend and it follows with a debt arrangement … it still could be characterized as equity rather than debt,” said Pinar Cebi Wilber, a senior economist at the American Council for Capital Formation. Wilber said “72 months is a lifetime in this environment. Everything changes so quickly, so they have to be very vigilant with the documentation.”
U.S. multinationals get a pass.
As for U.S.-based multinationals, Treasury gave them “almost a complete pass” with respect to the recharacterization and documentation rules, said Harter, adding that “the number of taxpayers who care passionately about these regulations has therefore been dramatically reduced.”
The Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency (FACT) Coalition praised Treasury’s changes.
“Treasury’s effort to address the problem of ‘earnings stripping’ will move us closer to a fair tax system that addresses the challenges of a global economy,” said Clark Gascoigne, the deputy director of the FACT Coalition.
“Tax avoidance by multinational companies is estimated to cost the American public up to $134 billion per year. This hundred-billion-dollar subsidy favors the largest, richest corporations in the world at the expense of domestic American businesses and individual taxpayers.”
“While we are still pouring over the full details of the rule, it’s estimated to close about $600 million in loopholes per year—moving us $600 million in the right direction,” Gascoigne continued. “However, Congress will ultimately need to act to holistically tackle the problem of inversions and close the outrageous loophole, known as deferral, which currently allows multinational businesses to avoid hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes.”
Shortly after Treasury introduced the rules in April, a pending international deal between two major pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer Inc. in New York and Allergan in Dublin, Ireland, ended. The department, however, still drew a resounding chorus of opposition from Congress and the business community for the broad application. They also criticized Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew for his intent to swiftly finalize the controversial rules.
Still reading.
Ecolab has been digesting the regulations for six months, said Judy McNamara, vice president of tax for the St. Paul-based multinational manufacturing company, in September.
It has been a joint effort with the tax, treasury and legal teams to design the process and the documentation, said McNamara, insisting that Ecolab doesn’t plan to move its tax base abroad.
The proposed regs “may lead us to leave cash overseas … that we’d rather have cash back in the U.S.,” said McNamara. “We’d rather have the cash back to invest in our [research and development] activities.”
Tucker Schumack of Ogilvy Government Relations said the move reminded him of a quote from musician Ronnie Van Zandt of Lynyrd Skynyrd: “[They] killed all the ducks in order to kill two or three.”
“With the final regs, they are letting a couple of geese who got caught up in the ducks’ flock go which is a good thing, but they’re still killing all the ducks,” said Schumack.
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B-Metro > Featured > The Woodsmen
The Woodsmen
Tim (left) and Andy (right)
Tim Tingle and Andy Cummings see the life in dying trees.
Written by Gabby Bates
Photographed by Liesa Cole
You enter Orr Park by footbridge, passing over creek water as clear as pale green glass, approaching what appears to be a modest expanse of perfectly normal trees. But somewhere along the way—if you’re lucky—you notice something peculiar: a face, staring at you from the other side.
From the trunk of a leaning cedar, he gapes, mouth open, as if there’s something important he needs to tell you. You pause for a moment, delighted by the anomaly, before going on your way. But as you continue to walk through the park, you find them everywhere. Faces, yes, but also lions, gnomes, llamas, and wizards. Sometimes small and low, sometimes taking up the entire façade of a large trunk, you stumble upon them around every turn, and soon these discoveries become the sole purpose of your meandering.
You stop in front of a dragon. Touching the scales on his body, each one chiseled into a pointed tip, you can’t help but marvel. Who did this?
“For two years I had people believe it was little green elves that did it,” says Tim Tingle, the man behind the faces. “But somewhere along the way, people figured out it was me.”
Tingle has been a coal miner for 35 years. He picked up whittling to pass the copious amounts of downtime he had underground, and before he began carving in Orr Park, that was the only woodcarving experience he’d ever had.
He started Tinglewood almost by accident after the ice storm in 1993. Many of the trees were broken and damaged by the ice, so he came to collect some wood to take home. When the city said he couldn’t do that, he carved a face into one of the dead trees and left. He carved many more, working secretively in the early morning fog, before the city said anything else. What they said was that they were naming a section of the park Tinglewood, for him.
When he’s not down in the mines or carving trees, Tingle pursues his other passions—namely writing, traveling, and Guinness World Record breaking. He has written and published 12 books, traveled to 48 different countries, raised chickens, and carved the longest strand of wooden chain links in the Western hemisphere.
He doesn’t take many interviews.
As we walked through Tinglewood together, he touched his work affectionately with calloused fingers. “I only carve into the dead wood,” he explains, stroking the wizard’s long beard. “See, this right here is live wood. If I carved into it, I’d kill that limb up there. Most people don’t realize that certain parts of the trunk feed certain limbs.”
This news is reassuring to the more environmentally conscious, and it adds an interesting layer to Tingle’s work. Because he only carves into the dead parts of living trees, the character of the wood itself often influences what the tree carving will become. Knots become noses, branches become horns, hollow pockets become whispering mouths. Each face has a distinct personality, and you can’t help but feel like each one has a different story to tell.
And of course, the pieces mean different things to different people. For example, Tingle is not a fan of the horse he carved near the creek edge, but a man once told him it was his favorite. The horse looks like it’s running up out of the ground, all but its straining neck hidden under the dirt. It was the man’s favorite because as a child, he had to ride horses across the river to get to the other half of the family property. He thought the horse looked like it was swimming neck-high in a spring river. And he’s right.
Tingle’s patient chisel and mallet technique allows for the impressive degree of detail in his work. The dragon’s scales, which had so captivated me upon entering the park, took him some 70 hours to complete. It’s the only carving he’s ever timed.
“This used to be a grave right here,” Tingle tells me, gesturing to the ground in front of the dragon’s tree. “Someone buried an iguana at the foot of the great lizard.” A storyteller at heart, Tingle is full of interesting tidbits like this. He delights in the strange histories of the world around him, and you can see the influence of his many travels in his carvings: the head carved like the giant stones of Easter Island; the llamas completed after a trip to his favorite country, Peru. “Everybody needs to go to Machu Picchu at least once in their lives,” he says.
His dry sense of humor is apparent in some of his more whimsical carvings, like the unicorn with a snake in its mouth. “When I was carving this one,” he says, picking an ant off a long, spiraled horn, “a woman told me that unicorns don’t eat rattlesnakes. And I said, ‘How do you know? This one does.’”
Tingle’s last Tinglewood carving was completed two years ago. He just hasn’t had the time to add new ones. During our tour, he appraises how the work is holding up in his absence. He carves primarily into cedars, which are lauded for their longevity, but there is evidence that his legacy is already beginning to crumble. Everywhere we went, he pointed out rotten places: missing snouts, broken teeth, spaces where the squirrel’s hands used to be. I found myself getting sad. There were so many people who should see this work. It was sobering to see evidence of its ephemerality.
But if it saddens him, he didn’t show it. He walked among the trees like one of the few people on this earth who sees and accepts the world exactly as it is. His art relies on death, after all. Perhaps this makes it hard to resent decay.
Some of the wear is the direct result of the role Tingle’s work plays in the community. Children are always crawling on the alligator’s back. People are always reaching their hands into mouths and petting the wooden animals. Not many artists get to see their work so physically loved. Accelerated decline is a natural consequence of this rare privilege.
Tingle’s legacy, while slowly deteriorating, has already inspired other tree carvers in our community. One shining example is Andy Cummings, who is becoming a local celebrity for his larger-than-life animal carvings in the front yards of Birmingham citizens. His rougher, cross-hatch style is distinctive, and it reflects his personality. “I’m not a chiseler,” he says, admiring the fine details of Tingle’s work. “I need instant gratification.” But his technique is no less impressive and his work is no less impactful for it.
His tool of choice? Chainsaw.
A self-described country boy, Cummings is a carpenter by trade. He became an artist in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, when he worked with the Red Cross to help clear debris. One day, he took his chainsaw to a stump.“It was a land turtle, and it was rough,” he says, smiling. That same trip, he carved something that made him feel like he’d found his calling. There was a woman who was devastated by the loss of the tree in her front yard. It had been planted to celebrate the birth of her daughter, who now had cancer. Cummings, working from lunchtime late into the night, split the wood into wings and used his saw to turn the dead tree into an angel. When the woman saw it, she was so touched, he didn’t think she’d ever stop crying.
Since then, Cummings has carved many more sculptures. Usually he starts with an animal in mind and then searches for the right dead tree for the job. One of his most powerful works, however, was requested by an older couple in East Lake.
“It was a huge oak tree. Five feet across the front,” Cummings remembers. “I had to use scaffolding to carve the top.” Lightning had killed it, but the couple didn’t have the money it would take for removal. They were at a loss until one day, while delivering Meals on Wheels to shut-ins, the man saw Cummings’s heron and bear sculpture in Roebuck Springs. He knew that Cummings was the solution to their problem, and his wife quickly agreed. She knew exactly what she wanted, too—a lion and a butterfly, inspired by the biblical story of the lion and the lamb.
“My spirit said, ‘You’re gonna do this, even if you lose money,’ and I did lose money,” says Cummings. But it was worth it. “That tree was at least 150 years old. I felt honored to save what was left of him.” The community got into it as well. People from a local church brought him food. Classes of children came to watch. It is a very special piece, and people still drive out of their ways to see it. “It speaks to the spirit in you,” Cummings says. “That’s what I love about art. That’s what I love about what I do. I can make somebody’s day and not even be there.”
Ever since he completed the lion piece, Cummings has been drawn to the pairing of unlikely animals. He carved a tiger and ferret for a friend’s father, and the project he was working on when I met him was a wolf and dove. Whether you’re religious or not, you can’t help but contemplate the poignancy of such pairings.
He, too, has work in Orr Park—one small, special carving in red cedar. He pointed out the inscription on the front of the soldier’s cross. It reads “Live Free.” Cummings was commissioned to carve this piece, but it has personal significance as well. His whole family, including his son, is involved in the military.
An unanticipated consequence of walking through Orr Park with Cummings and Tingle was that people came out of the woodwork (pun intended) to discuss their own artistic pursuits. Kenny, a house painter in a camo jacket and Alabama cap, approached to praise the wood carvings. “You got a gift, brother,” he compliments. Then he shared that he might enjoy painting for art’s sake, but he was afraid he didn’t have it in him. “You never know until you try,” Cummings encourages him. “I didn’t know until I tried.”
When Kenny left, Cummings said, “I think everybody has an artist in them.” It would appear he is correct. Later, we were approached by an ex-military dog trainer. Scratching the front of his America T-shirt, he told us that when he was in New York, he found a book on how to carve carousel horses from the 1800s; he now carves and paints them in his spare time.
These Deep South country boys are taking the pretension out of art. And they are making it accessible to people in Alabama who are not typically associated with artistic endeavor or appreciation. I won’t attempt to define art. Writers much more famous and talented than I have already floundered on the subject. But I will claim that one value of great art is the way it speaks to us, deeply and individually, and evokes a response.
If I learned anything from my afternoon with Tingle and Cummings, it was that the true joy of their creation is rooted in the redemption it represents. On the small scale, it’s the redemption of a single tree. On the large scale, it’s the redemption of the entire community—beauty that brings and bonds people whose lives might otherwise never intersect. These men were given a gift, and now they’re giving it back.
“I’m like a historian,” Cummings tells me, looking off with a smile to where his soldier’s cross is rooted into the earth. “I bring life to the dead.”
Posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2014.
One Response to “The Woodsmen”
Nicole Pinson says:
I am amazed at the art on these trees! I love them!
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The complicated history of planets around Barnard's star
By John Wenz | Published: Wednesday, November 21, 2018
An artist’s interpretation of what Barnard’s star b, a super-Earth recently discovered just six light-years from Earth, may look like.
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Perhaps no other star system has elicited so much wonder, mystery and frustration as Barnard’s Star.
Astronomers announced last Wednesday they’d discovered a planet in its thrall weighing in at around three Earth-masses, with a frigid, 233-day orbit. The find finally answers whether we have any planetary neighbors in the second-closest system to Earth (after Alpha Centauri).
This follows more than 50 years of scrutinizing the star, and coming up empty. A 1999 study ruled out any gas giants at Barnard’s Star. A 2003 study ruled out close-in Neptune-like worlds. A 2013 study found nothing larger than Neptune anywhere close to the star — and, like the recent study, it ruled out anything in the habitable zone (the possible orbits that allow for liquid water — and, therefore, life as we know it).
Why so much scrutiny for this one star? It’s because we’ve thought that Barnard’s Star has had a planet in tow for almost 55 years — depending on who you ask. When astronomer Peter van de Kamp of Swarthmore College claimed he’d found a planet around Barnard’s Star, people believed him.
They shouldn’t have.
Before shaking up the astronomical establishment, van de Kamp’s research interests were traditional. For years he sought “invisible companions,” small stars drowned out by the light of larger stars they orbited. But letters show that, as early as 1940, he was also looking for planet-like bodies. Just 15 years later he was already giving talks to astronomy groups on the topic of “Do Stars Have Planets?”
By 1960, when van de Kamp announced he’d found his first planet at a star named Lalande 21185, his search of Barnard’s Star was already an open secret. (This was also the year that Project Ozma began looking for alien radio signals in the first-ever SETI experiment, which the press at the time connected directly to the hunt for alien planets.)
The stage was set in 1963 for van de Kamp’s biggest announcement yet: A gas giant, dubbed Barnard’s Star B, orbiting that star every 25 years. He detected it by analyzing tiny movements in Barnard’s Star, the pushes and pulls of the planet’s gravity tugging at the star as it orbited. Both planet and discoverer became celebrities: Science News called the world a “dark, lifeless giant,” and van de Kamp appeared in the pages of Esquire, newspapers across the country and even a film series hosted by science host Mr. Wizard.
More planetary discoveries followed, culminating in a planetary sequel, Barnard’s Star B2. Van de Kamp took a look at his data again in 1969 and realized there were not one, but two gas giants orbiting the star, with the “new” one weighing in at 0.8 Jupiter-masses and circling in a 12-year orbit. Barnard’s Star was getting crowded! (One subsequent paper, by a group of outside researchers, claimed as many as five planets orbited the star.)
…and Fall
There was just one problem: These worlds weren’t real.
In the early 1970s, a decade after the discovery of Barnard’s Star B, Allegheny Observatory astronomer George Gatewood took a closer look at the data. While van de Kamp saw Barnard’s Star shift at periodic intervals in the photographic plates of observations, which supposedly betrayed the planets’ presence, Gatewood saw … nothing.
He corroborated his findings with multiple instruments but couldn’t replicate van de Kamp’s conclusions. Further analysis revealed that another of van de Kamp’s planetary finds had an identical change in motion as Barnard’s Star, a clear sign that the planetary “discovery” was most likely an instrumental problem.
Van de Kamp’s colleague at Swarthmore, Wulff Heintz, published a paper backing up Gatewood’s research in 1976, straining a department already bursting at the seams with internal conflict over Gatewood’s findings.
It was too much, and van de Kamp retired from the college in 1976 — but he continued to publish papers defending his claims until the 1980s. This includes a 1986 paper in the journal Space Science Reviews that read as a short book on invisible planets and included religious iconography. It didn’t work.
The scientific consensus ever since has been that Barnard’s Star B and B2 don’t exist, and never did.
What’s Old is New … ish
But even now, van de Kamp’s claims cast a long shadow over planetary science. When the team behind last week’s discovery found something in the data that could be a planet in a similar orbit to Barnard’s Star B2, they at least had to mention the link. “I’m very cautious making this link between the variability we see and the presence of a planet,” says Ignasi Ribas, lead author of the paper.
At least for now, there’s one strong candidate there. Countless fruitless quests for a planet at Barnard’s Star have finally led us from gas giants to a cold, large and probably rocky planet.
The new world may be colder and much smaller than anything van de Kamp envisioned, but we’ve finally found strong evidence for at least one planet around the second-closest star system to us. It only took half a century.
Is the new planet at Barnard’s star habitable? Don’t get your hopes up.
Are these supermassive black holes on a collision course?
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The Avanci Licensing Platform Expands, Adding Conversant as Newest Patent Owner
Today, Avanci announced that Conversant Wireless Licensing S.A.R.L. has joined its Internet of Things licensing platform as the 18th patent owner. Conversant owns an extensive patent portfolio related to mobile communications networks, which includes hundreds of patents and patent applications that have been declared essential to the 2G, 3G and 4G mobile standards. By joining the Avanci platform, Conversant will license its portfolios through Avanci’s single license agreement to automobile and smart meter manufacturers around the world.
“We are pleased to have Conversant join the Avanci platform,” said Kasim Alfalahi, founder and chief executive officer of Avanci. “Avanci’s open platform and streamlined licensing model continues to attract many different patent owners, all looking for a simple, predictable and fair way to license for the Internet of Things.”
“At Conversant, we believe the most effective way to share technology in the Internet of Things is through joint licensing,” said Boris Teksler, president and chief executive officer of Conversant. “Avanci’s one-stop solution simplifies the licensing process for both patent owners and IoT manufacturers alike.”
The Avanci model brings together patent owners from around the world that develop leading wireless technologies into one place, creating a solution to patent licensing that increases predictability, reduces risk and streamlines technology sharing.
Avanci has a vision that sharing technology, on a broad scale for the Internet of Things industry, can be simpler. Our connected world is evolving quickly – and we want to help it all happen even faster. Our one-stop solution keeps the success of the ecosystem squarely in sight, bringing convenience and predictability to the technology licensing process. In our new marketplace, those with essential patents can share their innovations, and companies creating connected products for the Internet of Things can access the patented wireless technology they need to be successful – in one place, with one agreement and for one fair, flat rate. Founded in 2016, Avanci is headquartered in Dallas. For more information about Avanci, please visit
http://www.avanci.com.
Sophie Skaggs
About Conversant
Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc. is a global intellectual property management company known for its principled approach to patent licensing. With a portfolio of thousands of patents and patent applications under management, Conversant has special expertise in semiconductors and communications technology. For more information, please visit www.conversantip.com. Conversant Wireless Licensing S.à.r.l. is a subsidiary of Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc. that is focused on licensing a major portfolio of about 1,000 wireless patents and patent applications covering technologies used in a wide range of mobile communications devices and services. For more information, please visit www.conversant-wireless.com.
Scott Burt
Senior Vice President, Chief Intellectual Property Officer & General Counsel
Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc.
sburt@conversantip.com
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Armed with a Pen
Views from a worker and student
The State of Neoliberalism in Argentina
By Ned Isakoff
In News, South America
With the economic war in Venezuela, the crisis in Argentina has been all but ignored in the West. For the Argentinian people, however, austerity, deregulation, inflation, US interference, the erosion of civil rights, and the government’s increasingly tyrannical treatment of dissenters have not gone unnoticed. As Buenos Aries becomes more and more a battleground, indigenous, feminist, and workers’ movements have risen up to challenge the Mauricio Macri administration as it struggles to keep the economy afloat while shoving right-wing, neoliberal reforms down the people’s throat.
The Rise of Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism in Argentina finds its roots with the death of then President Juan Perón in 1974. Having united most sides of the political spectrum, his passing signified the fragmentation of Argentinian politics. Though a fragile peace would be formed between the US-backed death squads of the Alianza Anticomunista Argentina and the left-wing Montoneros guerrillas, the country remained in a precarious position both politically and economically with crimes against humanity and retaliatory guerrilla activity sparking periodically.
After Economic Minister Celestino Rodrigo failed to curb inflation through a halfhearted campaign of neoliberal “shock therapy,” the crisis reached its height in June of 1975. Isabel Perón and her administration tried desperately to secure reserve funds from the International Monetary Fund [IMF], meeting several times in Washington, but to no avail. The IMF failed to come through on the previously agreed upon tranche while throwing its support behind the anti-democratic military junta, the National Reorganization Process. Less than a week after the US-sponsored coup in March, 1976, the junta received an IMF loan of over $100 million without sending a single delegation. Within five months, the junta received another loan of $260 million, the largest ever given to a Latin American country.
Jorge Rafael Videla, senior commander in the Argentine Army, swears in as President, March 29, 1976.
Economist Friedrich Hayek once said: “Personally, I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.” Such was the view of the IMF. Where Perón needed to appease constituents, the junta was iron-fisted and could force neoliberalism upon Argentina, US and IMF money patching whatever holes were left.
From then on, Argentina would prove a loyal lackey to the US and to global capitalism. With the help of US presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, scores were detained, tortured, and killed as the junta persecuted labor organizers, communists, and democratic activists under the guise of “counter-terrorism.” Millions were reduced to poverty as social services were slashed and industry privatized. Argentina’s debt would increase fivefold as the IMF and other financial institutions encouraged countries to take on foreign debt. From 1976 to 1983, Argentina’s debt rose from $9.7 billion to $46 billion.
This is the path Argentina has been following since, with debt reaching an all-time high in 2001 at well over $150 billion. The pursuit of deindustrialization beginning in the 1990s too has severely weakened the economy, making the nation wholly dependent on the world market and firmly under the thumb of Western neocolonialism. Today, Argentina is still reeling in the wake of the 2001 crisis and the resulting depression, the effects of which the country seems entirely unable to recover from.
Today’s Far-Right
Against the backdrop of this all too familiar instability, a growing drug trade, and the now-infamous Kirchner family corruption scandel, Mauricio Macri*, a soccer mogul and the former mayor of Buenos Aries, defeated centrist Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of Partido Justicialista in a hotly contested victory for the far-right opposition party Propuesta Republicana in 2015. His campaign was as simple and direct as his slogan: “Let’s change.”
Whereas the Kirchner’s hoped to revive the legacy of Juan and Eva Perón, instituting protectionist policies and building up social security to stimulate spending and strengthen Argentina’s once pretty damn respectable industrial sector, Macri has picked up the baton of neoliberalism, submission to the US and the world market, deindustrialization, market fundamentalism, and conservatism. The results have been disastrous in more ways than one.
Desperate Times, Desperate Measures
In 2017, the Argentinian stock market rose a record breaking 77%, the biggest stock market boom anywhere that year. That, however, is the only good thing which can be said about Argentina’s economy. As of this month, inflation is the at its highest level ever under Macri. Inflation, a drought, and absolutely punishing interest rates have only pushed the nation even closer to a full blown recession.
The value of the Argentine Peso has completely tanked, with one peso being now worth a little less than two cents USD. The government is stuck between a rock and a hard place, on the one hand needing to devalue the peso but, on the other, needing the peso healthy in order to pay their mounting debt. And with over 70% of that debt being in foreign currency, the government may already be in over their heads. The IMF is working to help stabilize the peso but may still lower Argentina’s credit rating.
To help pull the nation out of its tailspin, Marci has announced new austerity measures as part of the terms of a $50 billion IMF loan. A new export tax will bring in some much needed tax money, though critics say it may hurt Argentina’s agricultural sector. Macri has been unable to reassure exporters, responding simply: “I have to ask you to understand that this is an emergency and we need your support.”
Next year the economy will grow. Not much, but it will grow.
– Mauricio Macri
Unable to slash government spending any further, Macri announced earlier this month that half of all government ministries will be shut down. Even more worrisome, the Macri administration has presented only a vague picture of what this new minimized government may look like. It is yet unknown which departments will be closed or condensed.
The future looks extremely bleak. All we can do now is guess. It’s doubtful that Argentina will become a libertarian paradise. Marci himself admitted things will definitely get worse before they get better. What we’ll likely see is a near total roll back of all social services and the privatization of things like healthcare and education, plunging all but a few lucky oligarchs into poverty.
The Macri administration is also looking to improve relations with the EU and especially the US. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was quick to join the chorus of condemnation over the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s 2017 nuclear test. There was also an attempt to improve relations with the US’ pet Israel through a friendly soccer match. It was eventually cancelled, however, after a successful boycott by both international anti-apartheid organizations and pro-Palestine Argentinians. Not long after, in July of this year, Macri green lit the construction of several US military bases.
Deforestation and Depopulation
Under Macri, over 128,000 hectares were deforested just in the north in 2017 due to illegal action by logging and agribusiness firms. Though many of the effected areas are protected as nature reserves, local corruption and unwillingness to enforce the law on the federal level give corporations a license to illegally harvest trees and poison the land. What few fines have been charged have done nothing to deter violators. And though companies charged are legally obligated to reforest, Greenpeace has found little evidence of this ever happening. Within the last twenty five years, 7.6 million hectares were lost, roughly 300,000 a year.
Regional flooding has been hugely exacerbated due to climate change and the diminution of trees and plant life. According to the coordinator of the Greenpeace Forest Campaign, Hernán Giardini, “The floods … are not a natural phenomenon, they are a consequence of climate change and that Argentina is one of the ten countries in the world that most deforests, losing our natural sponge by the uncontrolled advance of soy, intensive livestock, and real estate development.”
Mother Nature is not the only victim. Peasants and the indigenous Campesinos have been driven from their homes both by flooding and the pressure of agribusiness. Telesur writes that paramilitaries employed by large corporations have removed thousands from their native land through coercion and violence with the help of government forces. (This, of course, is nothing new. Indigenous peoples suffered greatly at the hands of racist and fascist death squads during the 1980s in the US-sponsored “Dirty War.”)
The Movimiento de Campesinos de Santiago del Estero [MOCASE], an indigenous peasant movement which formed during the 1990s, have waged legal battles against land grabbing and the encroachment of soy. They claim more than 60 thousand families are fighting to keep their land. Though their struggles have often ended in death and defeat, their ranks have swelled within the last two years following the assassination of Cristian Ferreyra, a young member of MOCASE who was gunned down by paramilitaries in November of 2016. Some groups, such as the Frente Nacional Campesino, demand reparations from the government. Others have even taken up arms against land thieves.
Perhaps the most famous Campesino organization is Organización Barrial Túpac Amaru. The group has worked tirelessly to provide to Argentina’s indigenous with the things the government won’t. The group rose to prominence internationally after the state-sanctioned abduction of group leaders, the most notable of which is activist Milagro Sala.
Campesinos demand Sala’s the release outside the Alto Comedero Women’s Prison, 2017.
President Macri has also taken to fighting the Glaciers Law which places strict regulations on mining operations in the Andes Mountains. Mining leaders both inside and out of Argentina have fought this for years. Now they finally have a sympathetic ear in the government. As of now, opposition from Congress has kept the law alive, though Macri is still gunning for it. Most foreign investors have been hesitant to begin operating amid regulatory uncertainty, but this hasn’t stopped some national firms.
Women’s Rights and Sex Work
In Argentina, abortion is highly illegal in all cases except for rape or when the life of the parent is endangered. This too, however, has often been met with legal consequence. In 2016, a women was sentenced to eight years for murder after suffering a miscarriage. Shortly after shooting down a bill to increase access to abortive services, a woman died due to complications from an illegal abortion last March, the first known victim this year. We may never know how many have suffered the same fate. It is estimated that at least 300,000 illegal abortions are performed every year, resulting in more than 70,000 hospitalizations.
While those seeking healthcare end up in hospitals, prisons, or morgues, actual murderers have been able to kidnap and murder women with impunity. The kidnapping and murder of women has become so rampant and has received so little attention from authorities that, after national demonstrations, the Supreme Court was forced to establish a national registry of femicides. Just in 2015, over 235 femicides were recorded, resulting in a mere seven convictions.
World Justice Project reports that women are more likely to be employed informally, earning meager wages as in-home assistants or part time employees, subject to the whims of employers who frequently abuse and underpay them. Without steady, formal employment, women are unable to access free services and social security benefits. Many are stuck living as domestic servants for wealthy families or care-givers to dependent members of their own family. Those even less fortunate have turned to or been forced into prostitution, placed at the mercy of johns, pimps, and cops who act lawlessly and without consequence.
Feminist activists with body paint reading “Legal Abortion now” during the 2012 Gay Pride Parade in Buenos Aires.
Argentinian feminists have taken to the streets, becoming all the more active within the last three years. The second annual Women’s March, held last April in Buenos Aries, came barely a month after the Women’s Strike on International Women’s Day and saw hundreds of thousands of women and feminists occupy the city. With slogans like “Ni una menos” not one [dollar] less and “Tócame y te mato” touch me and I’ll kill you, they demanded access to safe abortions, equal pay, sexual freedoms, and protection from and an end to gender violence and harassment.
Sex workers, previously excluded from most feminists organizations in Argentina, have been making their voices heard. Georgina Orellano, general secretary of the sex workers union, la Asociación de Mujeres Meretrices de la Argentina [AMMAR], told The New Political she’s “optimistic” that attitudes towards sex workers are changing for the better. “I think that in terms of progress, we made the problems we face and the demands of our organization visible. We are making the sex worker visible as a political subject.”
Though sex workers have been fighting for legal recognition since the 1980s, they’ve made great strides in the last two decades by aligning themselves with other unions. In 1995, the AMMAR partnered with the Center of Argentinian Workers, which according to Orellano, made the sex workers’ movement firmly a part of the greater workers’ movement as a whole. Since then they’ve gone on to work not only with other sex workers unions across Latin America and the Caribbean but also with teachers and industrial workers unions.
Though they’ve made great strides politically, sex workers still face many hardships. Harassment from men and police is sadly never ending, housing is difficult to find without pay stubs, and most sex workers are ineligible for many public healthcare services. Their fight is still as desperate as ever.
The People vs. Neoliberalism
Resistance to neoliberalism has mobilized the working class. Worsening living conditions, job loss, and deindustrialization galvanized unions who turned to protest and striking. Mass demonstrations began in 2016 as Macri began “shock therapy” in earnest. Tens of thousands took to the capital early that year to protest reforms. They’ve only intensified since. In late December, 2017, a twenty four hour strike against proposed pension cuts turned violent as masked strikers clashed with police, throwing rocks and molotovs.
Teachers have been a leading force in the strikes. With many children dependent on schools as a source of food, proposed cuts to lunch programs, as well as pay and benefits, have put teachers unions on the front lines. In the past, teachers unions have been able to negotiate for more funding. Macri has put an end to that. In Buenos Aires, striking teachers were met with water canons and tear gas as riot police smashed the picket line during a protest earlier this year. Those arrested were held without bail and tortured.
Recent protests have seen progressive forces throughout the country working together, as workers, peasants, feminists, and indigenous activists find common ground. Opponents of the right, including the Communist Party of Argentina, have seen their support and relevance increase as more and more look left for answers. Progressive forces have faced harsh repression, however, as the state employs everything from strike breaking to torture—old tactics of the military junta.
Will Argentina reckon with its history?
On March 24, 2016, the fortieth anniversary of the military coup, Barack Obama made a hugely controversial visit to Argentina. The Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo, two groups dedicated to finding and identifying the thousands of missing victims of the junta, called the visit “a provocation.” “It’s been 40 years of searching for our sons and daughters,” explained Nora Cortiñas, one of the many aging parents still looking for answers. “It’s our date.”
Thousands of victims, as well as those born to political prisoners, remain unknown. With the active support of the CIA, the most reactionary segments of Argentina’s bourgeoisie murdered with impunity. Similar was carried out across Latin America, especially in neighboring Chile, during Operation Condor. Even today, the government has done little to prosecute the criminals involved or find their victims.
In 2013, eighteen former military officers were tried. Some, like former president Jorge Rafael Videla, were so old they died before a verdict could ever be reached. It makes little difference, however, to the estimated 30,000 who “disappeared” and the families they left behind. Though new evidence has been declassified by the CIA and the Pentagon, Mothers of the Plaza de Maya doubt they’ll ever discover the truth. As Cortiñas remarked, “they always black out the names and the important parts. … I don’t believe there will be anything in those documents.”
The people and the land still bare the scars of neoliberalism, the old and new wounds of class struggle. Though the current government fancies itself a democracy, the problems of dictatorship still exist. The solution of the capitalist class is, of course, more neoliberalism. But the cycle of reform has failed to serve the people or silence their outcry. Will Argentinians continue the struggle for temporary concessions? Or will the fires of revolution be reignited as the capitalist order once again pushes Argentina closer to despotism and destitution?
* Fun Fact: Macri narrowly avoided choking to death after swallowing a fake mustache whiling impersonating Freddie Mercury, something he’s apparently famous for.
ArgentinaMauricio MacriNeoliberalism
It’s Time to Ditch the Leninist Aesthetic
Marriage Benefits Men. So Why Do So Many Resist It?
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Ah! The joys of trying to work out what is happening at the seabed around the leaking well in the Gulf, and relying on the images from the ROV cameras. Consider the image that I have just pulled up from the Enterprise ROV 1, which BP has designated as “looking for leaks.” Not wishing to be querulous but that looks suspiciously like a diamond cutting saw in the ROV’s clasp.
Image from the Enterprise ROV 1 – “performing leak monitoring.”
On that little note of caution, there does seem to be some delay, or perhaps “slow, methodical, unseen progress” in regard to closing the valves etc in order to test the integrity of the well. At roughly 10 pm Eastern, the flow does not appear to have changed much, if at all, and the BP site notes that the test has not yet started. (Nor has it two hours later having finished writing this post).
The white pipe is injecting dispersant, that changes the color of the oil/gas to more brown and seems to be coming in spurts rather than regularly at the moment, but this may be because of the changes in the equipment below the leak, which is likely siphoning off a considerable volume from the well.
I do note, however that Secretary Chu came down to monitor the test today, and this may have a little impact on the schedules.
His involvement in the spill has been continually underlined by the Administration.
Secretary Chu assembled a scientific team of top scientists and has made three trips to Houston, monitoring the progress of BP's effort to contain the leak and helping to design the strategies for moving forward. The team includes:
Dr. Tom Hunter, Director of the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories
Dr. George A. Cooper, an expert in materials science and retired professor from UC Berkeley
Richard Lawrence Garwin, a physicist and IBM Fellow Emeritus
Dr. Alexander H. Slocum, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT
(Ed. note - George Cooper, who I know and respect, is a retired petroleum engineer)
Secretary Chu is on the phone with his science team a minimum of 1-2 times a day, 7 days a week, and the calls frequently last 90 minutes or more. Secretary Chu and members of his team also have a dialogue with BP executives each morning.
They visited the BOP manufacturer (Cameron) and their main competitor (National Oilwell Varco) back in May, and have had, among other things, the following input to the operation:
• Due to our suggestion, BP used high energy gamma rays to image parts of the internal state of the BOP. Lab personnel have independently analyzed the 2D gamma ray images. That imaging is crucial in helping understand what is happening inside the BOP and informing the approach moving forward. For example, it told engineers which valves and rams inside the BOP were closed and which were open, and it showed that a piece of drill pipe was stuck inside the BOP. Trying to determine what was wrong with the BOP without this information is akin to determining why your car has stopped running if you have no working gauges and can't open the hood.
• They strongly encouraged BP to collect additional pressure measurements, which were very valuable in interpreting the behavior of the well and BOP after each top kill and/or junk shot attempt, and ultimately those measurements helped the government and BP determine that the top kill was not going to work and that it was time to move on. The measurements also showed that the top kill attempts did not significantly erode the BOP.
• During the top kill attempts, the team suggested rechecking all of the hydraulics on the BOP, which BP did. As a result, one of the pipe ram valves closed more tightly and provided more resistance to the flow.
• The team conducted an extensive suite of structural analyses to assess the stability of the riser system in support of the choke and kill series.
• The team conducted an independent set of analyses to explain the oil and mud flow during the choke and kill series. This provided an understanding of the operational limits of the containment system going forward.
The list does not, however, appear to have been updated since June 15th.
After the visit today Admiral Allen issued the following statement:
"Today I met with Secretary Chu, Marcia McNutt and other scientists and geologists as well as officials from BP and other industry representatives as we continue to prepare and review protocols for the well integrity test - including the seismic mapping run that was made around the well site this morning. As a result of these discussions, we decided that the process may benefit from additional analysis that will be performed tonight and tomorrow.
Both the Helix Producer and the Q4000 collection systems are currently on line with the potential to exceed the containment capability that existed before the sealing cap was installed, and skimmers continue to be surged to the well site in anticipation of any increased oil flow as part of the transition. The drilling of relief wells also continues- the first relief has been drilled to a depth of 17,840 feet below the Gulf surface, and the second to a depth of approximately 15,963 feet below the surface."
The time of the more than 200 scientists and engineers that the Secretary has involved in these decisions is no doubt a part of the $99.7 million bill that the Administration presented to BP today. BP have already paid previous bills totaling $122.3 million to the Administration.
In today’s briefing the Admiral noted that the seismic run that was carried out this morning was to provide a baseline measurement of the seabed condition before the pressurization test of the well casing occurred. It also had to be carried out in daylight, since the vessel running the sensors had to steam through the fleet assembled around the well, and the sensors also were likely to be degraded by too much adjacent noise as they ran the scan.
He also corrected the sequence for the close down of the flows out of the well. (My concern yesterday) The sequence is
When we get ready to start the well integrity test, we will first cease production through the Q4000 and the Helix Producer I. We will then divert all the hydrocarbons up into the new capping stack. Valves through the kill and the choke lines for the new capping stack will be opened. And the center bore is already open. So we will be venting basically through three different exits on the capping stack, the kill line and the choke line, and the main line going through the bore.
Then in sequence we will attempt to close the stack down and assess the pressure readings. As we do that, the first thing we will do is close the main ram. There are three rams. The middle one will be closed and that will basically shut off the flow outward through the top of the capping stack. At that point we’ll take pressure readings. We will then close the kill line, which is the second remaining outlet and take pressure readings.
The third and most critical will be the choke line. There is a special device that has been built on the capping stack. You will see it. If you look at the video, it is yellow. It is long horizontally and it is a curved up pipe for the exit of the hydrocarbons. That choke line will be controlled by a remotely operating vehicle, which will slowly close it incrementally. And this is going to be very, very important because we want to measure the amount of closure, which will be measured gradually by turns of that choke line valve by an ROV simultaneously taking pressure readings.
The goal is to slowly close that down and understand the changes in pressure as we are closing it until that choke line is closed. At that point, there’ll be no hydrocarbons exiting from the capping stack. And we will go into a period where we’re going to start taking pressure readings. It will go in basically 6, 24, and 48 hour increments depending on the results.
Once the well is shut in then the pressure at the BOP (which is monitored by transducers and not the visible gages) should rise to between 8 and 9,000 psi (which Admiral Allen, a long time ago, had said was monitored just downstream of the BOP at the start of remediation). This is the anticipated value when the weight of the oil/gas column is subtracted from the pressure in the bottom of the well. Anything less than this will indicate that there may be some problems within the body of the well. Incidentally the gages that the ROVs are monitoring are monitoring pressures in the accumulator lines that run the hydraulics of the rams and power tools.
The Admiral was also more precise on the exact location of the relief well
Development Driller III is now at 17,840 feet measured depth. They’ve been there for a day or two. They are doing testing to make sure they have the right angle of attack as they close in for the last 60 or 70 feet before they’ll actually try and make the penetration for the relief well.
And the current estimate of how far away they are from the condo well at this point is four feet four inches. So you can imagine this gets pretty precise as they’re trying to go down another 60 or so feet and actually hit the point where they can drill into the annulus and potentially to a seven inch casing pipe. So that continues as well.
The Admiral noted that they are on pace to have 1,000 skimmers along the coast by the end of the month, and that they are using 2 million tyvek suits a month (the suits worn in cleaning the beaches) and there is a growing concern about the national supply of these.
And he pointed out that a part of the shut-down process will be visible
What we will do in sequence is we will stop production on the Q4000 and the Helix Producer I and remove the way for the hydrocarbons to exit through the kill and the choke lines on the original blow out preventer. That will move to three exit points, the choke and the kill lines of the capping stack and then the top opening of the capping stack. Then we will in sequence first, there are three rams that are a part of the capping stack. The middle ram will be closed. That will seal the upper opening from any hydrocarbon release. That will leave us the kill and the choke lines.
The kill line will then be closed as well. Now remember this is either open or shut. That will leave the choke line of the capping stack as a last way for hydrocarbons to exit from the capping stack. And that is set up with a specially designed engineered and built, you’ll be able to see it on the video. It’s a horizontal, yellow piece of equipment that has a pipe that curves up where the hydrocarbons would exit and at the other end there’s a place to insert a tool with a remotely operated vehicle and then slowly close the valve, which we will do that while we are taking pressure readings.
This is the control panel he was talking about, taken at 5 pm Eastern.
BP is also now holding twice daily briefings. In the morning one Kent Wells gave the actual timeline for the 3-ram stack installation
First in terms of the capping stack, last night at 6:20 pm we actually landed the stack on top of the transition spool. By 7:00 we had it fully connected and sealed on top of that device. And then at 8:30 we actually disconnected the drill pipe from the drill ship enterprise from it and so it was in place and free standing at that point in time.
The tests of the flow to the Helix Producer showed that it could sustain flows of up to 12,500 bd (as high as they went) He slightly corrected the Admiral on the relief well:
The first relief well is at 17,840 feet. Right now we’re running another survey to confirm the distance from the Macondo well, the direction from the Macondo well and the inclination of it.
We only have another 30 feet to drill before our final casing point and so we want to make sure that this well is perfectly lined up. So that’s why we’re doing this confirmation run. We’ll do that then we’ll trip back in the hole and we’ll drill that final 30 feet. Then we’ll come back in and what we call open up the hole to make it large enough to run the casing and most likely we’ll be running casing in the hall on Sunday, but of course there can be variability to that. But what I would say is that we’re on track and I’m still looking for the most likely intercept of the Macondo well being at the end of July.
He went on to say, in regard to that intersection
So the inclination we’re looking for at the bottom is somewhere in the range of two to two and a half degrees and we think we’re in that range, we just want to confirm that. And that lines us up as we then – after we set the casing I’ll come back and talk about that in a second. We’ll have about 100 to 150, 200 feet to drill to intersect and that two degree angle allows us to do that in that period of time. So that’s why we want that particular angle.
In the afternoon briefing he pointed out that when the sequence of tests on the 3-ram stack begins:
down below two rams there’s a what we call our flow T and there’s two sides to it and that’s where the flow would be coming out when we actually shut one of the rams.
However, as I pointed out at the start of this post (and as still holds true) the integrity test has yet to be initiated.
Labels: changing cap, Deepwater Horizon, oil spill, relief well, well integrity
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MSU Campus Archaeology Program
Protecting Michigan State's Material Culture
2019 Field School Students
CAP Summer Field School
Books, Theses, & Dissertations
Digital Cultural Heritage
Author: Katy Meyers Emery
A Farewell to Trowels
I’ve been a member of Campus Archaeology Program since I started working on my Ph.D. in 2010. Next month, I graduate. The experience and knowledge I’ve gained as a member of CAP has been invaluable, and it has shaped my professional trajectory in many ways. […]
CAPBlog
by Katy Meyers Emery
MSU @ SAA2016
As we do every year, here is a look at the presentations that will be at the Society for American Archaeology’s Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida taking place this week. We have a number of presentations, sessions and forums involving members of the MSU Anthropology program. […]
Gunson’s Glowing Glass: History and Archaeology of Uranium Glass
Over the summer, we found some yellow-green bumpy glass within the Gunson collection. It was a unique color that didn’t fit with the normal range of aqua, clear, green and brown glass, and appeared to be in a form that was nicer- like a vase or drinking glass. It also had an odd raised pattern that we hadn’t seen before.
Our vaseline glass in normal light
That’s when we pulled out the black light and discovered it glowed! We had found our first sample of Uranium Glass on campus.
Our vaseline glass under black light
Uranium glass, also known as vaseline glass due to its color, is glass that has uranium added to the mixture during the molten period when color is added. The amount of uranium can range from 2-20%, and can vary in color from yellow to yellow green or even avocado coloring. Due to the presence of uranium oxide in the glass, the glass will glow a bright green color when put under a black light- this is the best way to identify it. While uranium is radioactive, it isn’t actually bad to drink or enjoy food in the glassware that uses this. The amounts that leach out of the glass is so tiny, that it won’t have an effect on you.
Vaseline glass became popular during the mid-19th century, and was at its height of popularity from the 1880s to 1920s. Uranium oxide was first used as a coloring agent in the 1830s, and spread throughout Europe during the 1840s. It was produced by a variety of companies, who specialized in different tones of greens and yellows. Each company had unique names for their specific color of uranium glass, including citron, jasmine, golden green, mustard, Florentine and more. During the Depression, iron oxide was added to the glass to increase its green glow- although antique collecting purists argue that this shouldn’t be included in true uranium glass collections. The glass was formed into a variety of decorative and practical dinnerware pieces including cups, bowls, plates, vases, figurines, paperweights and more.
In 1943, production of vaseline glass was stopped due to the implementation of heavy regulations on the use of uranium. It wasn’t until 1958 that uranium was deregulated and the production of vaseline glass resumed, this time using depleted uranium instead of the natural radioactive version.
Vaseline hobnail glass bowl – our fragment is likely from the base. Image Source
At the Gunson/Admin site, our uranium glass included a piece of golden green hobnail glass. Hobnail glass is a specific pattern of decoration where bumps of glass are added to the exterior or interior of the glass to produce a raised pattern. While these were most popular during the 1940s and 1950s, they came into production during the Victorian period. Our uranium glass is a unique piece of history, and is just plain cool. The glowing glass is something that today we may view as strange- who would ever want to drink out of a glass colored with a radioactive material- but in the past was a unique collectible. You can still find examples of uranium glass today in antique shops, but buyer beware. There are fake vaseline glass products that have the neon green coloring but do not glow under a black light. Unless it glows, it isn’t real uranium glass!
Antique Vaseline Glass. Collector’s Weekly. http://www.collectorsweekly.com/glassware/vaseline-glass
These People Love to Collect Radioactive Glass. Are They Nuts? Collector’s Weekly. http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/these-people-love-to-collect-radioactive-glass/
Uranium Glass. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_glass
Frozen Charlotte: A Cautionary Tale Baked into a Cake
Today is a holiday that goes by many names: Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. The day involves the practice of eating richer and fatty foods before Ash Wednesday when Lenten begins. It is celebrated in different ways depending on where you are. In England […]
Red Souvenir Glass: A Beautiful Memory
Collecting souvenirs is not a modern phenomenon. Travelers have been collecting memorabilia of their adventures for centuries- bringing home with them evidence of the amazing sights and curiosities from far away places. They serve as an integral part of the travel experience for the tourist […]
More Than Just Nightsoil: Preliminary Findings from MSU’s First Privy (MAC Poster Presentation)
At the Midwest Archaeological Conference, Lisa, Amy and myself got the opportunity to present some of our preliminary findings from the privy that we uncovered during Summer 2015. Here, I’m going to share some of the findings from our poster, and the poster itself for those who are interested!
In June, 2015 during routine construction monitoring, the Campus Archaeology Program survey crew noticed a disturbed area of bricks and dark soil. The salvage excavation determined that it was a brick privy. This is the only privy we have unearthed on campus, and date ranges from diagnostic artifacts (1850’s-60’s) indicate that this privy was used during the earliest years of the university.
The Agricultural College of the State of Michigan was opened to students in 1855, and consisted of two primary buildings: College Hall, the main classroom and library space, and Saints’ Rest, a dormitory. Rapid development and the poor construction of the buildings led to new structures being built, old structures lost to fire, and expansion of the campus across the landscape. Despite finding many of these early buildings, the Campus Archaeology program hadn’t discovered evidence of any privies or earth-closets.
Privies at MSU
Privies were variably constructed from brick, wood, or stone as small, sturdy receptacles for human waste before the invention of the flush toilet. Due to their necessity and use by individuals from all social tiers, privies are located across all manner of sites.
Often, items were discarded into privies due to either intentional disposal or accidental loss. The assemblages in privies often reflect a mixture of artifacts that hint at daily activities and lifeway practices, but these spaces were not used as everyday trash pits. Through disposal of artifacts into the dark hole of the privy, peoples of the past were unintentionally creating a unique cultural assemblage. Archaeological excavations of privies have ranged from Australian convict hospital grounds that revealed medical treatments performed on prisoners (Starr 2001), to archaeo-entomological investigations of insect species to understand displacement of native fauna (Bain 1998), to tracing the use of nightsoil practices in early major American cities (Roberts and Barrett 1984). Even early anatomical techniques can be reconstructed through privy excavation; a report of a privy on the property of a 19th century doctor contained human bones with evidence of postmortem surgical incisions (Mann et al. 1991). Beyond material culture, privies also contain botanical remains that can inform of historical subsistence behavior.
Discovery and Excavation
Bottom of Level 1, West Circle Privy
The privy was discovered on June 2nd, 2015 during routine monitoring of construction. The location of the privy is approximately 10 meters southwest of the first dormitory, and had been protected over the last century by the roadways that covered it. The majority of the artifacts and the nightsoil were concentrated in the northeast quadrant.
The structure consists of a brick wall creating a sunken area about 2 meters by 2 meters, and 0.25 meters deep. On the western edge, there are two angled chutes leading into the sunken area and a central brick pier or pedastal. We conclude that the building had two stalls, allowing multiple people to use the privy at the same time, and two chutes to allow for dumping and removal of nightsoil. The shallow depth and chutes tell us that this was an earth-closet, rather than a privy.
Artifacts from the Nightsoil
Part of the large porcelain doll
Dozens of artifacts were recovered from the nightsoil in the privy. Many of these have been found in other areas on campus: buttons, medicine bottles, inkwells, combs, floral and faunal remains, and more. It also revealed a number of unique artifacts and assemblages that add to our understanding of what it was like to be a member of the 19th century Agricultural College of the State of Michigan. These unique pieces include an entire set of dishware, violin-shaped cologne bottle, and two dolls, one complete figurine type and another consisting of the bust. Here are some of the amazing finds from the privy.
The lack of privies on MSU’s historic campus has always been a mystery, and this first find represents a major boon to our research. Over the next year, we will be looking more closely into MSU’s Archives and Historical Records in order to learn more about privies at MSU, analyzing the artifacts, and determining a more exact date range for the building. This building, despite its mundane function, provides us a unique glimpse into life on MSU’s 19th century campus.
Interested in the complete poster? Download it here!
Bain A. 1998. A seventeenth-century beetle fauna from colonial Boston. Historical Archaeology 32:38-48.
Mann RW, Owsley DW, Shackel PA. 1991. A reconstruction of 19th century surgical techniques: bones in Dr. Thompson’s privy. Historical Archaeology 25:106-112.
Roberts DG, Barrett D. 1984. Nightsoil disposal practices of the 19th century and the origin of artifacts in plowzone proveniences. Historical Archaeology 18:108-115.
Starr F. 2001. Convict artefacts from the Civil Hospital on Norfolk Island. Australasian Historical Archaeology 19:39-47.
Maintaining GIS Continuity on an Ever-Changing Campus
For the Midwest Archaeology Conference (November 5-7, 2015) this year, I’m going to be co-authoring an oral presentation on how we maintain continuity in the MSU Campus Archaeology Program when we have a consistently shifting group of graduate and undergraduates working for it. This is […]
Refining a Cultural Heritage Plan for MSU
Understanding the cultural heritage of an institution is important- it not only helps us define who we are, but where we came from and how we can protect our history for future generations. During summer 2014, Dr. Lynne Goldstein taught a course on Methods in Cultural […]
Rethinking the ‘Sacred Space’
1880’s Map of MSU, via MSU Archives and Historical Records
Michigan State University’s campus began as a small grouping of buildings in an oak opening, and since the 1870s, when the College President decreed that no further construction was allowed within this central wooded area, it has been known as the “sacred space”. The Campus Archaeology Program has worked diligently since 2005 to investigate and protect the archaeological integrity of this historic portion of campus, and much of our work has been located within this ‘sacred space’. It is perceived as one of the last historic and authentic feature of MSU’s campus, which has led to the it being discussed as a static, preserved landscape- a perception that we too as the archaeologists on campus have perpetuated to some extent. However, despite being ‘sacred’, construction, destruction and reconstruction of the space has continued at a steady pace throughout the over 150 years of campus life.
For the “Cultural Landscapes and Heritage Values” conference held at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, I’m going to be discussing this paradox: why do we talk about this central area of campus like it is a preserved and protected landscape, when construction crews, landscaping and even ourselves have altered it and actively dig it up?
Our excavations have revealed a number of interesting facts about the ‘sacred space’ and its preservation.
Sacredness has protected some archaeological features from destruction, and prevented major building work: Not only is this the historic area of campus (so we find the majority of historic artifacts here), the concept of the space as an area with protection from construction is highly beneficial for the protection of artifacts and features. We have been able to recover large amounts of artifacts that could have been otherwise destroyed by construction. Further, the preservation of the historic landscape allows us to better interpret artifacts in situ and understand their relationship to the historic context.
Utilities run throughout the space and even through archaeological features: Despite the theoretical restriction on construction and ‘sacredness’ of the space, there has been destructive alterations to the landscape throughout the years to deal with campus development and changes in technology. Steam tunnels, utility lines to supply water, gas and electric throughout the campus, and the replacement of the lampposts with electric versions has all led to changes underground. Sadly, some of these efforts have highly disturbed archaeological features. College Hall’s foundation walls were damaged by utility lines, and had they not gone through this area, we may have found more evidence from this building.
Discover of original roads and sidewalks shows that the pathways we take have changed dramatically with shifts in transportation: The roads and sidewalks of campus have shifted in location, type and size over the years, especially since the invention and popularization of cars. The major campus road used to circle on the interior of the sacred space, and was expanded and moved to the outside during the late 19th century. The sidewalks were originally dirt or cinder, and were constructed in informal patterns to simulate a park. Today’s sidewalks are concrete or a glass-concrete hybrid, and while they are still more informal, they are not as winding as they once were. Sidewalks are consistently altered within this space to try to fit student walking patterns to promote walking and biking on sidewalks, rather than creating more informal pathways of dirt between the walks- a losing battle.
Brick, building material and new soil are scattered across the sacred space, suggesting they were used to raise up sections of land across campus, changing the rolling hills and the overall grading of the sacred space: In various spaces across North campus, we’ve found evidence of clean soil, piles of bricks and building material, and sand deposits that suggest that the actual grading of the landscape has been altered. The slopes of the sacred space today are nowhere near those of the earliest stage of campus occupation, where hills were undulating. It is now a small rolling of a single hill. The landscape has been altered dramatically over time.
We disturb the ‘sacred space’: It isn’t just landscaping, facilities and planning or the administration that has changed this sacred space. In the act of learning more about the space to better interpret and protect it, we actively are disturbing this landscape and altering it. As always, we try to stick to areas that are already going to be disturbed for one reason or another, but our work is destructive- in learning more about the past, we disturb the context.
1945 Photo of Sparty, via MSU Archives
Even though the landscape isn’t sacred in the sense that it is static, it is sacred in the fact that the vital characteristics and identity of the space remains coherent and supportive of our university and community identity. But it isn’t just that- the space is a reminder of a lost landscape. We don’t have the first campus buildings, we don’t have the small college in the oak opening. What we have is a space that harkens back to those early designs and hopes of the people who wanted to create a university dedicated to agricultural research. We have natural space in the middle of a thriving, busy and massive campus. The sacred space is a refuge for students, faculty and community members- it is a space of tranquility, a space to restore one’s emotional and physical health by taking a break from the pace of life. It has always been a part of our Spartan identity, and it always will be. Yes, the space has changed- but so have we, so has our university, so has the community.
For us, the space is hallowed ground, a cemetery for the buildings of the original agricultural college of the state of Michigan, and the natural landscape is the piece that remains. As archaeologists, it is our duty to continue to promote this sacredness, not as a static piece of history, but as sacred because it is a vital piece of our Spartan identity, sacred as the site of the original campus, sacred as a shelter from the modern world.
MSU at the Society for American Archaeology 2015
In a couple weeks, from April 15 to April 18, the Society for American Archaeology Annual Conference will be occurring in San Francisco, CA. There is going to be great representation of members of Campus Archaeology and the MSU Anthropology Department. Daggett, Adrianne [140] SYMPOSIUM: […]
Want to learn more? Have questions? Send us an email at:
capmsu@msu.edu
MSU Grandparents University
Archaeology program unearths MSU history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fDDhp4DWgU
Color Me Excited! Munsell visits MSU Campus Archaeology Program
Looking Forward to 2019-2020
The most interesting artifact from MSU’s historic campus? The “Moor” artifact, 10 years later
MSU Science Fest 2019: CAP at Expo Day
MSU at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting 2019
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March Madness: Breaking down the Midwest region
Posted on March 14, 2016 by Jon Wilner
(Credit: USA Today)
The Midwest is home to most surprising reversal of fortune at the top of any region, with Virginia as the No. 1 seed despite losing the ACC title game and Michigan State as the No. 2 seed even though it won the Big Ten.
*** Players to Watch
Michigan State G Denzel Valentine: The Big Ten player of the year and the top all-around player in the country. In addition to 19.6 points per game, Valentine averaged 7.5 rebounds and 7.6 assists. Fabulous player.
Utah F Jakob Poeltl: He’s 7-foot-1, skilled, crafty and headed for the NBA Draft lottery. His effectiveness in the lane opens up the floor for Utah’s shooters.
Virginia G Malcolm Brogdon: Was off his game in the ACC final against North Carolina but capable of carrying the defensive-minded Cavaliers deep in the tournament. A first-team All-American in the estimation of many media outlets.
NCAA tournament Midwest region
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Indian Wells Announces a New City Manager
The Mayor and City Council voted unanimously at the City Council meeting on May 2 to appoint Chris Freeland as the new City Manager. He will assume office on May 13, 2019.
For the last 18 years, Freeland has been serving the community of West Covina. During his tenure, he held various roles including Management Analyst II, Community Development Commission Director, Community Services Director, Acting Director of Human Resources, Deputy City Manager and Assistant City Manager. He served as City Manager of West Covina since 2015.
“Indian Wells is a beautiful community with a positive reputation across California. I appreciate the trust the Council has placed in me to fill this important role,” Freeland said. “I’m fortunate to join such a talented City team and look forward to building upon the many successes already accomplished by the Council and staff.”
Mayor Ted J. Mertens explained it was Freeland’s significant experience in all areas of local government and direct experience working with residents that were factors in the decision to hire him. Additionally, Freeland has a strong background in development projects that enhance an overall community.
“We found a City Manager with a track record of innovative work in the community he served for more than 18 years,” said Mayor Ted J. Mertens. “He is a respected public servant who will bring a tremendous amount of skill and transparency to the City Manager position.”
Freeland earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in civil engineering and political science from Cal Poly Pomona and earned a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Cal State University, Long Beach.
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The Honourable Adrian Dix
Minister responsible for Francophone Affairs in B.C.
Adrian Dix was first elected as MLA for Vancouver-Kingsway in 2005 and re-elected in 2009, 2013 and 2017. He is the Minister of Health.
Adrian served as the Official Opposition spokesperson for B.C. Hydro and as leader of the Official Opposition from April 2011 until May 2014.
Since being elected to represent Vancouver-Kingsway, he tirelessly attends community events in his riding and regularly goes door-to-door to stay in touch with his constituents. In 2010, he played a leading role in a coalition that saved important neighborhood schools from being closed in East Vancouver.
Adrian's commitment to quality public education is well known. Prior to becoming an MLA, Adrian was the executive director for Canadian Parents for French, B.C.-Yukon Branch, a non-profit organization promoting language education. During his tenure he increased its profile, influence and capacity.
From 1996 to 1999, he served as chief of staff to Premier Glen Clark.
Between 2001 and 2005, Adrian was a sought-after political commentator and journalist, writing a column for the Victoria Times Colonist and the Source, a prominent multicultural newspaper in Vancouver. He was also a contributor to the Tyee and CBC.
Adrian was raised in Vancouver and is a graduate of UBC. He is married to writer Renée Saklikar.
Room 337 - Parliament Buildings
Victoria (British-Columbia) V8V 1X4
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African bishop bargains deals for peace in government’s absence
Ghanaian archbishop asks Christians to have modest wedding ceremonies
Young people’s activism is sign of hope for Earth, says Cardinal Turkson
Oasis of mercy: Caring for those with HIV in Mexico’s Yucatan
Paulina Gongora Chim, 7, and Elias Chin, 5, pose for a photo at Oasis San Juan de Dios in Conkal, Mexico, Jan. 5. They live at the shelter because their mothers have HIV. (CNS photo/Alicia Cabezas)
By Mary Durran • Catholic News Service • Posted January 13, 2016
CONKAL, Mexico (CNS) — A red-roofed, ramshackle collection of one-story buildings grouped around a tropical garden sits next to a small field where black pigs and hens run free. Inside, two large dogs wander contentedly, greeting visitors.
Nothing about this dwelling on the edge of a rural suburb would suggest that its work is on the cutting edge of the battle against HIV in Yucatan, the Mexican state that has the highest incidence of new cases among a section of the population.
The Oasis San Juan de Dios houses 24 orphans, women and men, all either HIV-positive or somehow affected by HIV or AIDS. All are here because they have nowhere else to go; all have endured the constant, daily humiliations that accompany the social stigma attached to HIV. Neighbors have tried to force them out, falsely claiming the land belongs to someone else, spreading myths about HIV-infected corpses being burned in the gardens. Local restaurants have refused to serve them, and children attending the local school have been called profane names.
Of some 200,000 cases of HIV in Mexico, Yucatan, with 6,400 cases, is in the top five of the 31 Mexican states and the federal district for incidence of AIDS and HIV.
“People with AIDS and HIV endure an extra burden of suffering,” said Father Raul Lugo, chaplain to the Oasis and a founder of the organization. “Because AIDS and HIV are linked with sexuality, victims are often judged as perverted, so they also suffer from stigmatization. Because of this double burden of suffering, the church has an even greater duty to be present here.”
The Oasis de San Juan de Dios was born in the early 1990s, when a man living in a guesthouse in Merida became sick with AIDS, could no longer work and stopped paying his rent. The owners literally threw him out on the pavement in front of the guesthouse. A group of Servants of Mary sisters and some Catholic laypeople rented space nearby and started to care for the man. The group became aware of more cases and started to rent apartments and houses to take care of the sick.
“People were dying in inhumane conditions,” said Carlos Mendez Benavides, director of the San Juan de Dios Oasis.
“But the fear and stigma attached to AIDS were very powerful,” he said. “If a sister went to rent a house, that was fine. But as soon as owners knew that there were people with AIDS there, they would do everything they could to get them to leave.”
From a small group who felt compelled to address the suffering of the first victims of AIDS in this conservative southern state of Mexico in the early 90s, the Oasis San Juan de Dios has grown from a work of mercy to a strong movement that has won considerable battles in terms of access to drugs for those with HIV.
“When we first started our work, we hesitated between works of mercy to the victims of AIDS and helping patients to die in comfort and dignity, advocacy for access to appropriate drugs and education to prevent the spread of HIV,” said Mendez. “But eventually, we decided we had to keep all three.”
At first, the latter two orientations were unpopular with both the church and the government. After a Mass and a march in December 1998 to denounce the “administrative genocide” by which the Yucatan government was allowing people with HIV and AIDS to die without access to antiretroviral therapy, the church expelled 18 Franciscan brothers and two priests from the Yucatan; they disobeyed the archbishop’s orders that the march should be turned into a procession in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
A couple of years later, the case of Gerardo Chan Chan reinforced the need to continue the work in education to diminish the prejudice and fear surrounding HIV. Chan, a homosexual Mayan man living in the village of Sitpach, contracted HIV. When he became sick with diarrhea and fevers in 2001, his father banished him to live in a pigsty in their yard, painting a white line that Chan was not allowed to cross. He was served food in used yogurt pots and was left naked outside to live like an animal. He attempted suicide more than once before he was brought to live in the Oasis community. Apart from appropriate medical assistance, he needed intensive psychiatric help to become a person again, Mendez said.
Over the years, things have improved in the Yucatan for people with AIDS. Since 2009, HIV-positive people have been allowed to marry, and all patients now have access to antiretroviral therapy, with a major push having come from the federal government. But some aspects of care are still left to individual states. And in 2015, the Yucatan health ministry announced it would no longer provide drugs for complications of AIDS, such as Kaposi sarcoma.
Mendez said the North American Free Trade Agreement obliges Yucatan to buy patented drugs rather than cheaper generics, and the process is riven with corruption and paybacks for high-placed health ministry officials.
Yucatan 450 recorded new cases of HIV in 2015, up from 180 in 2012. Mendez estimated there are many more unrecorded cases and explained the high incidence in the Yucatan by the prevalence of cultural sexual practices among Mayan men and the lack of a state-sponsored education and prevention campaign. There is no sex education in state schools in Yucatan.
“It’s not enough to hand out condoms,” Mendez said. “Young people need to be taught about sexuality, and how to practice it responsibly, and couples also need to be taught about how to prevent HIV and stay healthy.”
Another battle that Oasis faces is finding funds to continue its operation, lodging and feeding 24 people, and in some cases buying drugs. Its annual budget is about $44,000, and it has not raised that for 2016.
“God will help us to find what we need. I have always had this faith,” Mendez said.
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Home Police, Fire & Courts Local Chiropractor Gets 15 Years in Jail for Money Laundering
Local Chiropractor Gets 15 Years in Jail for Money Laundering
Carlo Amato (Photo: OCPO)
A chiropractor from Beachwood who maintained an office in Lakewood will spend 15 years behind bars after pleading guilty to money laundering by overbilling insurance companies.
Carlo Amato, 57, received his sentence May 9 from Superior Court Judge Michael T. Collins.
Amato, the former owner of Chiropractic Care Consultants and Accident Recovery Physical Therapy in Lakewood, admitted to overbilling several insurance companies from January 2013 to December 2016. Amato also admitted that he used trust accounts set up in his minor children’s names to funnel the illegal proceeds to Russia. During this period of time, Amato wired over $1.5 million dollars overseas. For that offense Collins sentenced Amato to ten years in New Jersey State Prison with a five year period of parole ineligibility.
Additionally, while out on bail on the initial first degree money laundering charge, Amato was re-arrested for defrauding the State of New Jersey and the Prudential Insurance Company out of approximately $116,000.00 in disability benefits. This theft, prosecutors said, occurred between November 2013 and May 2015 when Amato, while still working at his chiropractic office, applied for and received disability funds for injuries he alleged kept him from working.
After learning of the new offense, authorities executed a search warrant on Amato’s residence in Beachwood in Dec. 2017. At that time, detectives recovered approximately $182,000.00 in cash hidden in a wall as well as “various forms of fraudulent identification,” according to a statement.
On April 9, 2018, Amato pled guilty to a Second Degree charge of theft by deception for defrauding the state and the Prudential Insurance Company.
The sentences are to run consecutively, meaning Amato must serve both, one after the other.
“Amato’s pattern of criminal behavior occurred over a number of years,” said Prosecutor Bradley Billhimer. “Our detectives, assistant prosecutors and federal partners did an amazing job of putting all the pieces together in this case.”
Billhimer praised the efforts of the joint investigation between the FBI and the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Special Investigations Unit. The primary investigation was headed by Special Agent Christine Parr of the FBI and Detective John LaRaia and Agent Katerina Huxel of the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office. In addition, the National Insurance Crime Bureau provided support during the initial stages of the investigation.
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The History Of Brookline Boulevard
And The Commercial District
The Brookline Boulevard Commercial District in 1936, looking west from Chelton Avenue and Veteran's Memorial Park.
Brookline Boulevard has been the commercial and cultural center of the Community of Brookline since the early days of the 20th Century. It's roots date back much further, to the 1830s, when Pittsburghers first began their slow migration into the southern hills.
The following is a short history of Brookline Boulevard, which runs east-to-west through the heart of the neighborhood. For generations of Brookliners, the boulevard has been a place that has enriched their lives with it's unique character and charm.
<The History Of Brookline Boulevard>
<Related Photo And Informational Links>
Brookline Boulevard, looking northwest from near Glenarm Avenue towards Pioneer Avenue.
For more birds-eye views of the boulevard, visit Brookline As Seen From Above.
a fine collection of aerial images by Matt Lackner in December 2014.
Early South Hills Roadways
From the first recorded colonial surveys, Brookline was part of Lower St. Clair Township, an area locally referred to as Oak Hill, and later West Liberty. The wooded, rolling hills were sparsely populated with individual farms.
It is hard to determine when exactly the roadway that would one day become Brookline Boulevard was laid out. Pioneer Avenue, which intersects the boulevard near it's western end, was established in 1797.
Pioneer was originally known as the Pittsburgh to Washington State Road, and later referred to as the Coal Hill and St. Clair Turnpike Road. A roadway of major importance until the 1840s, in the latter part of the century it was renamed Lang Avenue.
The intersection of West Liberty Avenue and Wenzel Avenue, shown in 1913. These were two of the earliest pioneer roads.
This photo was taken from the western end of Brookline Boulevard, a location known as the Brookline Junction.
Wenzel Avenue was first laid out in 1832. West Liberty Avenue followed in 1839, and was originally called Plumer's Run as it followed the course of Plumer's Run Creek down the valley to Saw Mill Run. The future path of Brookline Boulevard most likely emerged around that time as a narrow dirt lane connecting the farms in this section of Lower St. Clair.
In 1876, the Borough of West Liberty was officially incorporated. It consisted of the present-day Brookline and Beechview communities. Below ground, mining operations became the main enterprise in the area. Above ground, the landscape was still dotted with farm fields interspersed with large tracts of lush woodland. The 1880 census lists the Borough's population as 865, with a large number settled along West Liberty Avenue and Saw Mill Run.
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Hunter Avenue and Knowlson Avenue
Maps from the turn-of-the-century, during the West Liberty Borough days, identify what is now Brookline Boulevard as Hunter Avenue (Bodkin) and Knowlson Avenue. Hunter Avenue ran from West Liberty Avenue to Lang Avenue (Pioneer), then merged into Knowlson Avenue, which ran along the boulevard's present course to the borough border at Oak Street (Whited).
A 1905 map showing the path of Brookline Boulevard, then consisting of Hunter Avenue and Knowlson Avenue,
then part of West Liberty Borough. The roadway extended from West Liberty Avenue to Whited Street.
Knowlson Avenue led to three connecting roadways. They were Hughey Road (Edgebrook), Oak Street and Fairhaven Avenue (approximate path of Merrick, Breining and Glenbury). These roads in turn led to the Pittsburgh and Castle Shannon Railroad stations along Saw Mill Run.
On the entire mile-long length of Knowlson there were just two additional pathways, both leading to the family homesteads in the vast Knowlson Farm. The quaint, comfortable atmosphere of this rural American landscape would soon change.
Small Clusters Of Homes Along Oak Hill
In the late-1800s, the majority of the population within the present-day borders of Brookline lived along the West Liberty Avenue and Saw Mill Run Corridor. Along West Liberty Avenue, just south of Warrington Avenue at the base of the hillside, were the Sauter Place and Lewis/Garrigan plans.
Going east, from West Liberty along the Saw Mill Run corridor to the Borough border, were the established Boggs Place and Zimmerman Park plans. Both were positioned along the West Side Belt railroad line.
An 1896 map showing the small town of Reflectorville, located at the bottom of
Edgebrook Avenue, then known as Hughey Road, or the Township Road.
From Hughey Road to Oak Street was the small hamlet of Reflectorville, established in 1890. This land was formerly part of Baldwin Township, and later Overbrook Borough. The homes were part of the Bailey and Moon plans. The settlement was developed by Thomas Bailey and David Moon, president and treasurer of Pittsburgh's Bailey Reflector Company.
These small housing tracts were populated largely by the families of miners who worked in the Oak Mine and railroad employees. Aside from these clusters of homes along the Oak Hill valleys, there was no other formal housing development happening in this part of West Liberty Borough as the 19th Century drew to a close.
West Liberty Improvement Company
The transformation of Oak Hill from rural farmland to urban neighborhood began in the early-1900s. The first housing plans to appear in the newspapers and on plot maps were the Fleming Place and Hughey Farms Plan, in 1902. Located between Lang and West Liberty Avenue, these homes were advertised as being in the Mount Lebanon District.
A 1905 map showing the Paul Place Plan.
Further to the north, along Lang Avenue, another tract of homes was being developed by the Paul Land Company. This plan included streets like Oakwood Avenue (Capital), High Street (Plainview), Terrace Street (Woodward), Hamline Avenue (Stetson), Orchard Avenue (Dunster), Centre Avenue (Mayville), Siebert Avenue (Fernhill) and Stang Avenue (LaMarido).
During this time, the West Liberty Improvement Company also acquired large parcels of land in the eastern part of the borough and, in cooperation with the other development firms, began drawing up blueprints for the birth of Brookline.
A Freehold Real Estate advertisement from the Post-Gazette announcing the new "Boulevard at Brookline."
Engineers designed Brookline as a stand-alone suburban municipality, free of the noise and smog of the city, with Brookline Boulevard as the main street. The same was being done by the Beechwood Improvement Company in the adjoining Beechview section of West Liberty, with Broadway Avenue as it's central roadway.
The first mention of the Community of Brookline appeared in 1905, when newspapers ran a series of real estate advertisements touting the emerging suburb. The length of roadway consisting of Hunter and Knowlson Avenue were combined to form one broad street, the Boulevard at Brookline, around which the new South Hills community would grow.
A 1905 Freehold illustration of Brookline's grand new boulevard.
While the West Liberty Improvement Company worked quickly to build the infrastructure of the community, the Freehold Real Estate Company set up an office at the corner of Brookline Boulevard, Chelsea (Chelton) and Queensboro Avenues. From this crossroads location, Freehold agents orchestrated the early growth and development of the community.
Pittsburgh Railways 39-Brookline
Also in 1905, the Pittsburgh Railways Company installed the original single-track streetcar line connecting Brookline to the City of Pittsburgh via the recently-constructed Mount Washington Transit Tunnel. The new branch route was given the designation 39-Brookline.
The Brookline Junction, shown here in 1915, during the early stages of the West Liberty Avenue reconstruction. The first
electrified streetcar route in the South Hills was installed in 1902 and followed the single-track line to Mount Lebanon.
The 39-Brookline followed the double-track to the left and on to the right-of-way that led to Brookline Boulevard.
The route ran along West Liberty Avenue to the Brookline Junction. It followed a looping right-of-way to the intersection of Brookline Boulevard and Pioneer Avenue, then followed the length of the boulevard to Breining Street. From there it proceeded into Overbrook and on to a junction with the Charleroi line, along Saw Mill Run, for the return trip to town.
In 1910, the Brookline route was altered. Instead of a continuous one-way loop from downtown Pittsburgh and back, the line, which had been double-tracked along the boulevard, beginning at West Liberty Avenue through to Edgebeook, was extended to a looping turnaround constructed astride the 1400 block of the emerging housing development called East Brookline.
A Pittsburgh Railways Jones Car, first introduced in the 1920s, marked for the 39-Brookline route stands at the
South Hills Junction in 1948. The original trolleys used in Brookline were four-wheelers known as box cars.
Streetcars now traveled in both directions along Brookline Boulevard. For the next fifty-six years, the 39-Brookline provided the growing neighborhood with reliable public transportation. In the early years, before automobiles became the standard mode of travel, the streetcar was the most common way to get from here to there within the city of Pittsburgh.
Slow But Steady Growth Of The Community
On January 4, 1908, West Liberty Borough was annexed into the City of Pittsburgh. Municipal dollars now began to flow into the fledgling community of Brookline. Along with improvements in the streetcar line, the boulevard road surface was paved for the first time using a mix of bricks and belgian block.
Brookline Boulevard in early 1909, looking from Flatbush Avenue towards Castlegate Avenue. The first building
on the left is Dooley's Meat Market, constructed in 1907. The firehouse behind it is still under construction.
Brookline Boulevard in 1910 at the corner of Chelton Avenue. The Freehold Real Estate office stands
on the corner island where present-day Triangle Park and the Veteran's Memorial reside.
The streetcar line ran down the center of the roadway. On each side of the right-of-way was one lane for horse-drawn wagon and vehicular traffic, and another for parallel parking.
Along the broad avenue were a mix of residential homes and commercial establishments. From Pioneer Avenue to the city line at Edgebrook Avenue, new houses appeared on the northern side. Across the street, larger two and three-story structures, with first-floor merchant space and apartments above, were constructed across the street.
To see a collection of Freehold Real Estate advertisements from 1905-1907, click here.
One of the first business establishments was Dooley's Meat Market, built in 1907 and located at 704 Brookline Boulevard. The original Brookline Methodist Church, at the corner of Wedgemere Avenue, and the two-story stone house at the corner of Pioneer which served as the office of Brookline's first physician, Dr. C.C. Lang, were also erected that same year.
Maps published in early-1910 showed six businesses and eight homes standing between Pioneer Avenue and the city line. This count included four three-story structures and the large estate home of David Hunter, located on a large lot at the corner of Pioneer, across the boulevard from the Lang residence.
Also shown are the Methodist Church and the Pittsburgh Bureau of Fire Engine House #57 at the corner of Castlegate Avenue. Construction of the historic firehouse began in 1910 and the building was officially dedicated on June 23, 1911.
Brookline's Engine House #57, shown here in 1920.
In 1912, another iconic Brookline Boulevard church was constructed. The Brookline Boulevard United Presbyterians built their Stone Chapel at the corner of Queensboro Avenue. Like the Methodist Church, the chapel was a much smaller version of the present-day church. Both churches were enlarged to their present-day grandeur in the 1920s.
In January 11, 1914, the Board of Trade, formed in 1907, installed new officers. H.H. Wolfe succeeded E.H. Melvin as president. H.F. Ruoff became vice-president; H.L. Angloch, second vice-president; J.H. Dumbell, secretary, and George Hughey, treasurer.
The new president appointed the following committees; Transportation - H. Ruoff, chairman; A.J. Shirring, J.P. Myron, R.S. Flinn, R.A. Armstrong and Edward Ebrenz. Health and sanitation - Dr. Steffy, chairman; Dr. O. Hogen, Dr. Marks, M. Rihn, F.O. Nixon and George Seska. Civic improvement - P.S. Space, chairman; J.T. Bealor, H.L. Angloch, George Turnbaugh, Edward S. Cook and C.E. Keck. Legislation - J.J. Sullivan, chairman; J.J. Lippencott, Joseph Hammerle, E.G. Fink, J.H. Evans and G.W. Wilson. Municipal and county affairs - Dr. R.A. Hutchinson, chairman; W.R. Cole, H.B. Cox, J.H. Weigman, Thomas Musgrove and R.D. Cree. Streets, sewers and lights - George Hughey, chairman; J.H. Mullholland, J.M. Knight, A.W. McCance, J.N. Sullebarger and C.D Cooley. Education - Joseph F. Moore, chairman; W.G. Gans, C.E. Fulton, Joseph G. Dooley, W.S. Foster and T.R. Williamson.
By early-1916 the number of homes and businesses along Brookline Boulevard had grown from seventeen to thirty-two. Many of the commercial establishments were grocery and meat markets. While housing development throughout the community continued at a brisk pace, this steady growth of the Commercial District proceeded into the following decade.
Brookline Boulevard, at the corner of Flatbush Avenue, in March 1916. Also visible are homes along Bellaire Avenue.
A view of Brookline Boulevard, looking towards Stebbins Avenue (left), and a new home along the residential side in 1916. Visible in the left photo is the United Presbyterian Church's original Stone Chapel at Queensboro and Chelton Avenues.
The Brookline News Agency and the office of Caterer C.M. Reeves, shown in 1916, located at 806 Brookline Boulevard.
This building, across from the Flatbush intersection, is the present-day location of Gordon's Lounge.
The Liberty Tunnels Bring Prosperity
One of the biggest contributors to growth and prosperity in Brookline came in 1924, with the opening of the Liberty Tunnels. The 5889 foot Twin Tubes, as they were commonly called, were an engineering marvel, bored through Mount Washington, that connected the South Hills communities with downtown Pittsburgh.
The southern portals of the Liberty Tunnels, at the junction of West Liberty Avenue and Saw Mill Run Boulevard, in 1930.
Opened in 1924, the Twin Tubes, like the streetcar service that began in 1904, were a major transportation
improvement that brought exponential growth and investment to the South Hills communities.
The Roaring Twenties were an era of sustained economic prosperity following the Great War. It was also the age of Henry Ford's Model T, and many families now owned an automobile. Travel time to and from the Golden Triangle was slashed to a matter of minutes.
Real estate sales and housing development in the southern neighborhoods entered a major boom phase. The population of Brookline more than doubled as a result. Three farms in Brookline that were appraised at $68,000 in 1920 saw their property valuation increase to $1.3 million. Individual housing and retail space also saw considerable gains.
The counter at the Kroger Grocery store at 944 Brookline Boulevard in 1925.
Brookline Boulevard rapidly took on a new look, with construction all along the commercial district. Providing the financing for much of this activity was the Brookline Savings and Trust Company, which opened its doors in 1926. Located at 820 Brookline Boulevard, the financial institution was instrumental in the development of the community.
By the end of the decade, there were nearly 100 buildings lining the thoroughfare from Pioneer Avenue to Edgebrook. The norther side of the street was a nearly continuous line of homes. The southern side lined with a variety of businesses, including two movie theatres, most with multiple apartments or merchant living quarters on the upper floors.
Brookline Boulevard in 1924, showing street conditions near Queensboro Avenue (left) and Castlegate Avenue.
The Upper And Lower End Of The Boulevard
The east-west main street through the Commercial District was flanked on either side by the upper and lower sections of Brookline Boulevard. The upper stretch, or the western end, ran from Pioneer Avenue to West Liberty Avenue and the Brookline Junction.
One of the original boulevard churches was built along the upper section at 403 Brookline Boulevard, just west of Pioneer Avenue at the Shawhan Avenue intersection. The St. Marks Lutheran chapel opened on September 20, 1908. Twenty years later, the Mission moved to a much larger church constructed at the corner of the boulevard and Glenarm Avenue.
The corner of West Liberty Avenue and Brookline Boulevard during street paving in 1909 (left), and a 1913 view of
the lower end of the boulevard. St. Marks Church, opened in 1908, can be seen to the left of the roadway.
In October 1909, this two-lane hilly portion of the boulevard, formerly known as Hunter Avenue and presently called Bodkin Street, was paved in belgian block. As the boundary of the Fleming Place and Hughey Farms Plan, homes were built on either side of the roadway. It was one of the main community gateways and saw increasingly heavy vehicular traffic.
The lower section of the boulevard, or the eastern end, from Edgebrook Avenue to Jacob Street, evolved in the mid-1910s during the development of the East Brookline housing plans. This stretch of the roadway followed the path of the streetcar line into Overbrook Borough.
A 1951 view of the lower end of Brookline Boulevard, along the 1400 block, looking west towards Breining Street.
Beyond Breining Street, it was extended as a two-lane residential roadway along the northern side of the Fairhaven Valley to Jacob Street, where the boulevard came to an end. A left turn at Jacob Street led to Whited Street and on to the Saw Mill Run corridor.
By the end of the 1920s, this lower section of the boulevard was lined with new residential housing. In 1930, Overbrook was annexed into the city, and the entire lower section of the boulevard was incorporated into the boundaries of the Brookline community.
Weathering The Great Depression Years
In 1929, Brookline's population had swelled to nearly 14,000. On school days, the boulevard was deluged with children walking to or from class. Overcrowding at Brookline and West Liberty Elementary led to the final major community improvement of the Roaring Twenties.
In September 1929, Brookline Elementary School celebrated the grand opening of their newly-built education wing, which nearly doubled the student capacity. It seemed as though the good times and continual prosperity would never end.
A new wing is added to Brookline Elementary School, located at the corner of Pioneer and Woodbourne Avenue, in 1929.
On "Black Tuesday," October 29, 1929, the Wall Street Panic struck and sent the country spiraling into the Great Depression. The community of Brookline joined the nation in struggling with the difficult economic times that followed.
One of the first casualties was the housing market. The once thriving enterprise suffered a series of foreclosures and defaults on loans. New construction and sales came to a halt. Merchants also felt the sting of the monetary crisis and some went out of business.
Looking southeast along the streetcar rails that ran down the center of Brookline Boulevard from near Pioneer Avenue (left),
and a 39-Brookline Jones Car approaches the Stebbins Avenue Car Stop in 1933. The second building from the
right is the original Brookline Savings and Trust building, with it's stately, pillared concrete facade.
With such a large industrial base, the City of Pittsburgh faired better than some other metropolitan areas, but times were still tough. Boulevard churches, with the help of local merchants and farmers, sponsored soup kitchens and clothing drives to help the needy.
The Brookline Savings and Trust Company also came to the aid of it's customers by offering innovative financial services and consumer outreach programs.
As a community, Brookliners came together and endured the hardships of these lean years. The valuable skills learned and the social bonds formed in this difficult time would bear fruit once again in the early-1940s, during the frugal rationing years of World War II.
Two views of the Brookline Boulevard Commercial District in 1933, from near Glenarm Avenue (left) and Flatbush Avenue.
Brookline Boulevard Triangle Park
Despite the struggling economy of the Depression Years, the Brookline Joint Civic Committee was busy working on several initiatives to modernize and improve the community. One such project was to establish a permanent Veteran's Memorial to honor Brookline soldiers who fought in the Great War.
In 1932, as a result of the decline in home sales, the Freehold Real Estate Company closed their Brookline Boulevard office. The firm that did so much to further the development of the community retreated to their downtown office and put their landmark parcel of property, the "Boulevard Triangle," on the market.
A 1916 map showing the Boulevard Triangle. Chelton Avenue is still listed as Chelsea.
Like many Brookline streets, old plot maps still show the former Borough names.
Interestingly, when Brookline was formed in 1905, Chelsea Avenue and the
Boulevard Triangle were both located across the official border of
West Liberty Borough in neighboring Baldwin Township.
The uniquely situated lot was purchased by James McGaffin, a prominent local businessman and a member of the Civic Committee. On April 18, 1934, McGaffin sold the triangle to the city Department of Parks for $5750 with the intent of establishing a permanent memorial.
The land was officially designated in the municipal ledger as Brookline Boulevard Triangle Park. Shortly afterwards, the original cannon and white marble memorial were mounted and dedicated by members of Brookline's American Legion Post #540.
The original cannon at Brookline's Veteran's Memorial and members of American Legion Post #540 on October 13, 1942.
That first cannon, a 1906 47mm artillery piece, stood in the park for eight years, until another global conflict called it back into service. In October 1942, Brookline's cannon was donated to Jones and Laughlin Steel to be melted down during a World War II scrap metal drive.
After the war, the park received a new cannon, this time a 1917 155mm Schneider howitzer. Made in France, the model was the standard field artillery piece of the American Expeditionary Force. In June 1946, the Triangle Park was re-dedicated to veterans of both World Wars.
Finally, in 1992, the aging marble memorial was replaced with a polished pink granite and bronze memorial honoring soldiers of all conflicts. The cannon itself, a reminder of the Great War, has been one of the most iconic features along Brookline Boulevard for the past eighty years.
Veteran's Memorial Park and the Brookline Cannon in the 1970s. The original white marble monument is partially visible.
Modernization Of Brookline Boulevard
One of the major goals of the Joint Civic Committee was the modernization of Brookline Boulevard as a whole. The community had outgrown the antiquated road conditions that existed at the time. Increasing vehicular, rail and pedestrian traffic had created serious safety concerns. The time had come for the boulevard to undergo it's first extreme makeover.
Proposals called for a wide range of infrastructure improvements, repaving the entire boulevard to include four traffic lanes from Pioneer to Edgebrook, and rerouting the western end of the road onto the trolley right-of-way to create a continuous four-lane thoroughfare all the way to West Liberty Avenue. The project sat idle while authorities lobbied for funding.
A 1928 map showing the former alignment of Brookline Boulevard from West Liberty Avenue to Pioneer Avenue
and the Pittsburgh Railways 39-Brookline streetcar right-of-way looping through the Fleming Place Plan.
In 1935, as the Nation's economy began to emerge from the Depression Era, federal dollars began to flow through New Deal programs like the Works Project Administration. That fall, work finally began on a major reconstruction of Brookline Boulevard.
The entire roadway was resurfaced in red and gray paving bricks, including the trolley right of way along the center. The tracks remained, and streetcars now shared the middle lanes with an ever-growing number of autombiles and trucks. Sewers, sidewalks, lighting and other utilities were replaced, along with other upgrades.
The intersection of Pioneer Avenue was completely rebuilt. The home located on the corner of Pioneer and Brookline Boulevard, the former office of Dr. Lang, stood in the path of the expanded intersection. The house was then owned by Mr. J.P. Myers.
The home that once stood on the corner of Pioneer Avenue and Brookline Boulevard, shown here in 1909, was moved
to an adjacent lot on Berkshire Avenue before the reconstruction project began in late-1935.
Rather than demolish the vintage stone house, Myers purchased the small frame house at the corner of Pioneer and Berkshire Avenue and had it razed. Contractors then moved his home across the alleyway (Trelona) and placed it on the vacant lot.
Myers then constructed a small gas and service station on the truncated lot where his house once stood. The old home and the gas station building, in later years a pizza shop, stood until 1999, when both were demolished during construction of the present-day CVS Pharmacy.
The biggest change to Brookline Boulevard during this reconstruction project was the creation of the boulevard loop. The roadway was rerouted onto the Pittsburgh Railways right-of-way, which looped through the Fleming Place properties to the Brookline Junction.
The corner of Brookline Boulevard and Pioneer Avenue in 1935 (left) during reconstruction. In the distance is the estate
of David Hunter, one of West Liberty's early landowners. It was razed in the 1940s to build an apartment complex.
The photo to the right shows the retaining wall that was built below the Jillson and Shawhan Avenue intersection.
When completed, the new Brookline Boulevard Loop was a fine four-lane gateway into the community.
The path was widened to accomodate four lanes of traffic and the surface was paved in belgian block. The streetcar tracks were placed in the center along the length of the street and connected with the Mount Lebanon line at West Liberty Avenue.
New sidewalks and a decorative steel guard rail were installed. Below the corner of Jillson and Shawhan Avenues, both of which were cut off during construction, a small retaining wall was built. Sixty years later that same wall would become the canvas for a familiar community welcome sign, the Brookline Mural.
By the fall of 1936, when the project ended, Brookline Boulevard had been transformed into a modern main street. The stunning stunning results were a major improvement that helped bring growth and prosperity to the boulevard and the community as a whole.
A beer delivery (left), and two shop owners having a chat along the 500 block of Brookline Boulevard in 1936.
A view towards the Pioneer Avenue Car Stop and loading platform in 1936. The home is along Bodkin Street.
It's Now Called Bodkin Street
Another big change that occured during the Boulevard Reconstruction Project of 1935/1936 was the creation of a new street, in a manner of speaking.
The realignment of the Pioneer Avenue intersection required the building of a large retaining wall that cut off the former western length of the main street. The old boulevard became a dead end that extended from the wall to the lower end of the new boulevard at West Liberty Avenue.
A short flight of city steps were built from Pioneer Avenue down to the existing street level to provide stranded Bodkin Street residents with access to the trolley car stop.
When Brookline Boulevard was rerouted onto the new loop, the portion of the street that was cut off and no longer part of the main drag, needed a new street designation. In July of 1935 City Council enacted a series of ordinances delineating the new footprint of streets like Shawhan, Edgevale, and Kenilworth Avenues, all redesigned during the project.
The retaining wall built during the 1935 reconstruction of Brookline Boulevard. The former section
of Brookline Boulevard now stood cut off to the right. It was now a distinct street in need of a name.
One of those ordinances dealt with this former length of Brookline Boulevard. On that day in July 1935, City Council ordained that it would become part of Wenzell Avenue, as it was long ago during the St. Clair Township days, and carry that name. Sometime later it was decided to give this roadway its own distinct name, and from thence forth it has been designated as Bodkin Street on city maps.
This was the fourth and final name change for this vintage stretch of South Hills roadway, which was one of the earliest on record. Originally it was a township road stretching from the state road (Pioneer Avenue) all the way to Greentree Road. It was called Wenzell Avenue. During the borough days, from 1876 to 1905 it was called Hunter Avenue. From 1905 to 1936 it was Brookline Boulevard. From 1936 until the present-day it has been called Bodkin Street.
Other major achievements of the Joint Civic Committee in the late-1930s were community advancements in education and recreation. The increasing student population was served by the construction of Carmalt (1937) and West Liberty (1939) Elementary Schools. The lack of a public recreation facility ended with the creation of Moore Park, another Works Project Administration contribution that opened in 1940.
The Proposed Eastern Extension
Another of the Joint Civic Committee initiatives pursued in the late-1930s that met with less success was the construction of an Eastern Extension of the boulevard, designed to link up with Saw Mill Run Boulevard.
The Brookline Boulevard Reconstruction Project only covered the roadway from West Liberty Avenue to the Edgebrook Avenue intersection. From that point on to Breining Street was still restricted to one lane in each direction, with the trolley line running down the center. From Breining to Jacob Street the road was further reduced to a narrow two-lane residential drive.
Brookline Boulevard in 1951 looking east towards the Breining Street intersection and the start of the two-lane residential
section of the roadway. Maps dating to 1916 show an alternate route that veared to the right into the valley.
Advocates argued that the lower end of the boulevard was never designed to be the main street, and the lack of a continuous four-lane thoroughfare was prohibitive to the future growth of the community. In addition to a number of safety concerns, the committee's proposal was intended to "make the boulevard go somewhere."
The planned boulevard extension would follow the course of the existing Pittsburgh Railways right-of-way through the Fairhaven Valley. This path served as the original 39-Brookline trolley route from 1905 to 1909.
The broad avenue would pass through the Brookdale housing tract, scheduled to be constructed in the undeveloped wooded section of the community, and meet Saw Mill Run Boulevard at a point near Overbrook School. City plot maps dating back to 1916 actually identify this route as the anticipated path of Brookline Boulevard.
Although the proposal came highly recommended by local civic leaders, it did not have the endorsement of City Council and the project was shelved. Although consigned to the drawing board, the Eastern Extension issue remained in the news for the next three decades.
A 1951 editorial cartoon that appeared in the Brookline Journal describing
the boulevard conditions to the east of Edgebrook Avenue.
Some adjustments were made in the mid-1950s to address pedestrian and vehicle safety concerns, most notably the removal of the metal white-striped utility poles that lined the boulevard from Edgebrook to Breining Street. These poles, which supported the trolley line, were the cause of several vehicle accidents.
Other concerns such as paving the road weren't addressed until 1966, when the trolley right-of-way was paved from Edgebrook to Breining, widening the road to four unobstructed lanes. From Breining on, the roadway has never been altered.
By the 1970s, the once-popular concept had faded from memory. The abandonment of the Brookdale plan, an expansion of Brookline Memorial Park and the increasing traffic congestion along Saw Mill Run ended any prospect of an Eastern Extension.
The lower section of Brookline Boulevard, near the Roseville Street and Greencrest Drive intersection, shown here in 1982.
The Era Of Post-War Prosperity
During the war years, the only change to occur along the boulevard was the construction of the Carnegie Library branch location at 730 Brookline Boulevard. Elsewhere, merchants and residents throughout the community did their best to cope with the restrictions of rationing and their concern about the hundreds of local men and women serving overseas.
When the Second World War came to a conclusion, Brookline veterans returned home to a country that was entering an era of unprecedented economic growth. The same was true, on a smaller scale, right here in Brookline.
Long-time merchant Morris Grumet stands outside of his Grocery Market, constructed at 1160 Brookline Boulevard in 1950.
Industry was booming in Pittsburgh and the working wage was on the rise. New home construction in the community reached levels not seen since the 1920s. Brookline's large middle-class population grew stronger as a result. There was plenty of money to spend, and Brookline Boulevard became the place to spread it around.
The Brookline Journal was a weekly newspaper that documented the life and times of the community from 1931 to 1982. Editions from the early-1950s give keen insight the life and times during these golden years.
1951 Review / Brookline Journal Collection ** 1952 Review / Brookline Journal Collection
DeBor Funeral Home, at the corner of Edgebrook Avenue, had its grand opening on the weekend of April 20-22, 1951.
The family-owned parlor is one of the longest-standing commercial establishments on Brookline Boulevard.
This surge in retail sales led to a corresponding spike in commercial construction. Along merchant sector, the remaining vacant lots were soon the scene of new buildings.
The Premier Photo Shop building (present-day Carnegie Library), the A&P Super Market (present-day Pitaland) and the Brookline Post Office were all built in the fifties. The Brookline Savings and Trust Company building was expanded and modernized, as was Melman's Super Market. The United Presbyterian Church was enlarged for the third time.
New storefronts also appeared on the residential side of the street. Many homeowners built ground-level additions in the front of their property, creating additional merchant space. The decade also saw three new buildings rise along the 1100 block, including DeBor Funeral Home.
The Brookline Savings and Trust, at 818 Brookline Boulevard, in 1953. The successful financial institution played a major
role in the development of the community. It was purchased in 1969 and is presently a branch office of PNC Bank.
Beyond Edgebrook Avenue, on the lower stretch of the boulevard, Grumet's Market and Brookline Fabric Company both built new stores. The largest commercial development was the East Brookline Shopping Center, located at the corner of Breining Street. It featured a Super Market, laundramat, pharmacy and a beauty salon.
On the downside, the Boulevard Theatre, which was opened in 1937, closed it's doors in 1952. The building was bought by the Cedars of Lebanon as a lodge. It was the second local theatre to shutter its doors. The nearby Brookline Theatre ceased operation in 1945. The loss of these vintage movie houses were the only negatives in this era of post-war prosperity.
Brookline Boulevard - An Outdoor Shopping Mall
In many ways, Brookline Boulevard had entered a Golden Age. By the end of the 1950s, there was practically nowhere left in the Commercial District on which to build and expand.
The grand roadway truly had become the centerpiece of the neighborhood, a vibrant, walkable outdoor shopping mall packed with a wide variety of stores and attractions that catered to almost every need of the local citizenry.
Brookline Boulevard in 1967, looking east from near the intersection with Castlegate Avenue. The Commercial District
was a thriving market place with a wide variety of stores and attractions to serve the community.
Along the main street were a number of grocery and meat markets, toy stores, hardware stores, gift shops, doctor's and dentist's offices, soda shops and pharmacies. There was a furniture store and separate clothing outlets for men, women and children.
Among the storefronts were bakeries, barber shops, appliance stores, repair shops, bowling alleys, pool halls, restaurants, bars, tailors, dry cleaners, banquet halls, night clubs, gas stations, realtors, a sporting goods store and much more.
Two trolley cars, one inbound and one outbound, pass near Flatbush Avenue along Brookline Boulevard in 1965.
For travelers and commuters, the 39-Brookline streetcar could take you from one end of the boulevard to the other, or reach out to all corners of the city of Pittsburgh.
By 1965 the population of Brookline had swelled to a peak of nearly 22,000 residents, the majority of whom did their shopping within minutes of home. The happy times of the 1950s and early-1960s could be considered the 20th Century zenith of Brookline Boulevard.
The Neighborhood Parade Ground
On holidays and special occasions, Brookline Boulevard has always served as the main location for parades and community celebrations. For many years, the Independence Day Parade was one of the most highly-anticipated events of the year.
In the earliest days of the community, a procession of bands, dance troupes, horse-drawn wagons, vintage automobiles, church groups and local dignitaries would make their way towards Pioneer Avenue on the 4th of July.
The Independence Day Parade in 1954 (left) and the Memorial Day Parade in 2012.
Afterwards, parade-goers would gather along the boulevard. Fireworks displays were followed by an evening of moving-pictures. Residents would sit on open ground along the high side of the boulevard near Flatbush Avenue and the movies would be projected onto bedsheets strung from poles on the commercial side.
Majorettes prepare for a War Bond Parade in October 1942.
As the years progressed, the parade route was extended to Brookline Elementary, where the community festival and fireworks display was held on the school field. Later, these activities were moved to Moore Park.
The Independence Day parades came to an end in the 1960s. They were just one of several held along Brookline Boulevard over the years. The annual Memorial Day Parade began in 1934 and has continued until the present-day. During World War II, parades were held during the many War Bond Drives.
Pittsburgh Mayor Sophie Masloff walks along with Charlie McLaughlin and
State Senator Mike Dawida during the Halloween Parade in 1992.
Other parades during the year are the Chamber of Commerce Halloween Parade and the Brookline Little League Parade. On occasion, special parades have been held, such as in 1965 when a fundraiser was held for Brookline Park, and in 1976 for the Bicentennial celebration.
Resurrection's Cub Scout Pack 106-601 passes Triangle Park on their way to Brookline Park during a 1965 fundraising
event (left), and ballplayers follow the stars and stripes during the annual Little League parade in 1976.
Streetcar Service Discontinued
For sixty-one long years, the primary method of public transportation in the neighborhood was the 39-Brookline trolley, which had been in operation since the birth of the community.
In September of 1966 the high-speed railway that had spurred the initial formation of Brookline came to an end. Now operated by the Port Authority of Allegheny County, the streetcar route was discontinued in favor of expanded bus service. Along with this came a change in the route designation to 41-Brookline.
Although the loss of the popular rail line was decried among many in the community, the change did give impetus to some much needed boulevard upgrades.
An outbound 39-Brookline moves along the 700-block of Brookline Boulevard, approaching the Flatbush Avenue Car Stop.
From Pioneer Avenue to Edgebrook Avenue, the boulevard was completely repaved with asphalt. This gave motorists a smooth, relatively noiseless ride for the first time. Also, the removal of the web-like grid of electrical guidelines was a welcome side effect, clearing away much of the overhead clutter that obscured the visual beauty of Brookline's main street.
A major benefit to East Brookline residents was the removal of the tracks from Edgebrook to Breining Street and the subsequent paving and widening of that stretch of the boulevard. This was an improvement the community had been waiting for since the glory days of the Joint Civic Committee in the 1930s.
In 1975, the remaining tracks that ran from Breining east to the trolley loop were removed during an expansion of Brookline Park. On the other end of the boulevard, along the western loop from Pioneer to West Liberty Avenue, the belgian block road surface and streetcar tracks remained in place until the early-1980s.
An outbound 39-Brookline trolley passes Birchland Street on its way to the loop, in 1966. When streetcar service
was discontinued, the right-of-way from Breining to Edgebrook was completely paved for vehicular traffic.
Over the years, the Brookline bus service has proven to be a convenient, safe and reliable transportation alternative for downtown commuters. And, like the trolley service before it, the network of bus routes reached out to all points in Pittsburgh.
Nostalgic streetcar enthusiasts who still yearned to ride the rails were delighted when, in 2004, a modern light rail station was installed in Brookline along the Shannon route. Known as South Bank Station, the loading platform is located off of Jacob Street in East Brookline.
Another link to Brookline's streetcar heritage was restored in 2011, when during a restructuring of existing bus services, the Port Authority changed the local route designation back to the traditional 39-Brookline.
The Turbulence Of The Late-Sixties
The late-1960s were an interesting and confusing time in America, as well as here in Brookline. While the Beatles ushered in the Summer of Love and the psychedelic years in 1967, an undercurrent of discontent and angst filtered through the younger generation.
The counter-culture movement and rebellious vibe led to increased drug activity and crime. This soon evolved into a nagging problem within in the community. The city responded with an increased police presence along the boulevard.
The Foodland Super Market on Brookline Boulevard in 1967. This is the location of present-day Pitaland Bakery.
Along with heightened racial tensions and resentment over America's role in the Vietnam War came an upsurge of illicit and disruptive behavior. The boulevard and rear alleyways gained a conspicuous reputation as a rather shady area in the evening hours.
Due to the diligence of the citizenry and the bold actions of law enforcement officials, the problem never reached alarming proportions. Brookline has traditionally been a community that rallies together to combat crime. This was a time that best illustrates that cooperation.
Showing Signs Of Age In The Super Seventies
The decade of the 1970s were a difficult time for the Steel City. Although the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Pittsburgh Steelers combined to give Pittsburgh the honorary title "The City of Champions," beneath the exhultation shown our beloved hometown baseball and football teams laid the bitter struggles of a region losing it's true identity.
The once imposing steel industry, described by publishers as "Hell With The Lid Off," was in the midst of a decline that would ultimately lead to it's demise in Pittsburgh. The burgeoning steel crisis, and other setbacks in the corporate and industrial base, left Pittsburghers to watch helplessly as the city faced the loss of its national image.
Despite the splendor and pageantry of the Bicentennial celebration in 1976, the nation itself was suffering from the sting of a prolonged recession. Political corruption was front page news and the lasting effects of the Vietnam War left the country bitter and divided.
Here in Brookline, the seventies were a also time of change. On the upside, long-awaited improvements were being made to Brookline Park. On the downside, the economic slide forced many residents to move out of the area and compelled others to adjust their spending habits. This put strain on the boulevard merchant sector.
Brookline's once magnificent and modern boulevard was beginning to show signs of old age. To make matters worse, impressions of inner city blight and tension began to creep into the fabric of the neighborhood.
Firemen inspect damage to the Brookline News Agency, Tryson's Shoes, Sesto's Barber Shop and Zitelli's Boulevard
Gardens after a fire on May 31, 1973. Also suffering minor damage in the blaze was Melman's Super Market.
One disaster that left an indelible mark on the boulevard was a fire on May 31, 1973. The blaze burned out of control for two hours, destroying two buildings and damaging three others. Claims totaled over $75,000. The lots were cleared and remained vacant for eight years.
By the latter part of the Super Seventies, the once-thriving East Brookline Shopping Center had been all but shuttered. Another devastating fire had done irreparable damage to much of the structure and only a convenient store was still in operation. Graffiti, litter and boarded windows foretold the imminent closure of that neighborhood landmark.
The East Brookline Shopping Center was a popular destination for those living in the 32nd Ward since the 1940s.
Shown here in the mid-1970s, the complex was razed in 1980 for construction of an apartment building.
Also shown are long-time boulevard establishments Mary and Bob's Restaurant and Jay's Hardware.
One regional development that, in the near future, would have a profound effect on the local Commercial District was the 1979 opening of Century III Mall in West Mifflin.
Located only a short drive from Brookline, the modern shopping mall, and the sprawling retail complex that grew around it, led to a major shift in consumer spending. The small business community would soon experience the lasting effects of this national trend.
The seventies saw the beginning of a downturn in the fortunes of Brookline Boulevard. By the end of the decade, the local population had declined by over 4000 residents. Throughout the community, "For Sale" signs were becoming a common site and there were already a handful of vacant storefronts along the boulevard.
A Resurgence Of Pride In The Early-1980s
The final two decades of the 20th Century were a time of both highs and lows. These years began with a flurry of positive energy. Through the hard work and dedication of the Brookline Area Community Council and the Chamber of Commerce, the neighborhood was recovering from the turbulence and neglect of the past several years.
Brookline Boulevard was the scene of two major construction projects. In 1982, both the Mazza Pavilion and the Parkside Manor senior highrise apartments opened their doors to new tenants. The Mazza building occupied the vacant lots along the 900-block and Parkside was built on the site of the former East Brookline Shopping Center.
Members of the Brookline Area Community Council in 1982 looking over
an informational pamphlet on the Community of Brookline.
That was also the year that the extensive decade-long renovation of Brookline Park, along the 1400 block, was finally completed. The public recreation facility now included a large multi-purpose field, two Little League baseball fields, a swimming pool, tennis courts, basketball courts, playground, abundant greenspace and a state-of-the-art Activities Building.
Brookline Boulevard was milled and paved for the first time in fifteen years, along with some minor infrastructure improvements. Several merchants seized the moment and remodeled the interior and exterior facade of their aging storefronts.
A view along the Brookline Boulevard Commercial District, looking from near Glenarm Avenue in 1985.
The new road surface and facade improvements, along with Brookline's glimmering new park and modern apartment buildings were a breath of fresh air all along the formerly stagnating boulevard. T-Shirts printed by the Community Council and available at merchant locations during that time period proudly proclaimed Brookline as a "Special Place."
To celebrate the resurgence of community spirit throughout the neighborhood, a festival was held in Brookline Park in June, and the inaugural Brookline Breeze 5K Fitness Run was held on September 3, 1982. Both events were very successful. The Junefests continued until 1986 while the Brookline Breeze celebrated its 33rd running in August 2014.
Pittsburgh Mayor Richard S. Caliguiri at
the Brookline Junefest in 1983.
Big Business Versus Small Business
Despite the upbeat mood of the early-1980s, negative undercurrents were beginning to swirl and would soon begin to tug at the very fabric and makeup of the boulevard Commercial District.
The success of the suburban shopping centers and the dawn of the super-stores began to take a heavy toll on many of the local small business owners along the boulevard.
Some of the hardest hit were the hardware stores, grocers, clothing outlets and appliance stores. The small businessman in many instances was unable to compete with the large volume franchise stores. As a result, retail sales at boulevard merchants plummeted as local shoppers migrated to the suburbs in search of bigger selections and better deals.
A panoramic view of Brookline Boulevard in 1985 -- Photos by Michael Haritan.
In the latter part of the 1980s, a succession of long-standing boulevard businesses were forced to close their doors. While the number of vacant storefronts continued to rise, community organizations searched for answers to stop the downward trend.
Establishments that did well during these changing times were specialty retailers, bars, restaurants, pizza shops and other service-oriented stores.
During these lean years, the solution seemed elusive, and concerned citizens watched as their once-vibrant boulevard slipped rapidly into a distressed state. Meanshile, the Chamber of Commerce clung to hopes of recovery and members did their best to weather the storm.
A 1990 painting by Bob Daley entitled "A Boulevard Sunset."
A Time Of Renewed Hope
The downward trend continued into the final decade of the 20th Century. The population continued to drop as more and more families moved to homes in the suburbs. The exodus led to a further decline in appearances along the boulevard.
For the majority of Brookliners, life went on as usual. The nation's economy was on an upswing. However, the state of Brookline's main street was in doubt. The Chamber of Commerce, along with other community action groups and city officials, searched for ideas to bring new life to Brookline's struggling commercial center.
The construction of the CVS Pharmacy at Pioneer Avenue acted as a catalyst in the revitalization of Brookline Boulevard.
One significant change that took place in 1999 was the razing of the four buildings at the corner of Pioneer Avenue for the construction of a modern CVS Pharmacy. The new boulevard attraction was to be the western anchor in the revitalization of the merchant sector.
It was unanimously agreed that the boulevard was the beating heart of the community. Over 4000 vehicles, and hundreds of pedestrians, passed by the commercial district on a daily basis. The success or decline of the boulevard would set the tone for the rest of the neighborhood.
Sixty years had passed since the last major overhaul of the boulevard had taken place. The roadway conditions were becoming a source of frustration and the basic infrastructure was crumbling. This was a deterent to new investment and became the primary focus of attention.
Sketches showing the planned redesign of the Pioneer Avenue/Brookline Boulevard intersection. These preliminary
drawings show only a portion of the proposed refurbishment of the boulevard commercial district.
After much deliberation, and assistance from city and state officials, plans were put on paper that outlined an initiative that would dramatically change the look of Brookline Boulevard.
As the clocks ticked towards the dawn of the 21st Century, it was a time of renewed hope for Brookline Boulevard and the entire neighborhood.
The New Millenium Brings Positive Change
The path to recovery began in the Spring of 2000, when design plans were presented for a complete reconstruction of Brookline Boulevard. City Councilman Michael Diven worked to secure federal funding to cover the cost of the multi-million dollar project.
The South Pittsburgh Development Corporation, a neighborhood community-action volunteer organization, took the lead on the initiative and, together with the Urban Renewal Authority, secured grant money to assist shop owners to refurbish their storefront facades.
Brookline Boulevard was full of vendors and party-goers during the Autumn Moon Festival in September 2000.
Positive changes were beginning to take place, and for the first time in several years, there was an influx of new merchants setting up shop in long-vacant storefronts. Many older establishments took advantage of the available grants and made improvements to their stores.
Just as the situation was beginning to improve, the City of Pittsburgh suffered a brief fiscal crisis. Funding for the boulevard reconstruction project was held in limbo while the city struggled to achieve financial stability.
Community groups came forward in 2009 with a joint effort to resurrect the project. With help from State Senator Wayne Fontana, State Representative Chelsa Wagner, and Pat Hassett of the City of Pittsburgh, the long-stalled initiative regained momentum.
Brookline Boulevard in May of 2011, showing the reconstructed Frank Mazza Pavilion.
Another major building project was the refurbishment of the Mazza Pavilion apartment building. In 2004, the building was closed due to structural defects and was scheduled to be demolished. Instead, the Housing Authority approved a plan to reconstruct the building. Work began in 2010 and the glimmering new apartment complex reopened to tenants the following year.
It would be another four years before the massive boulevard reconstruction project would begin. In that time, work continued on attracting new investment to the main street. Signs of recovery could be seen all along the main street. Times were changing for the better in Brookline.
The Boulevard Reconstruction Project
The long-awaited Brookline Boulevard Reconstruction Project began on February 25, 2013. During this monumental undertaking, the entire roadway, including sidewalks and infrastructure, was rebuilt. The construction zone stretched from Pioneer Avenue to Starkamp Avenue.
The $5.35 million project was scheduled to be completed in the Fall of 2013. Merchants, pedestrians and motorists all suffered from the inconveniences encountered during the long construction period. They further chafed when it was announced that the completion date would be postponed until the Spring of 2014.
New utility lines were put in place and all of the sidewalks were replaced. Progress was slow but steady.
The Brookline Chamber of Commerce reminds the community that small businesses remained open throughout the project.
Work proceeds near that Castlegate Avenue intersection (left) and at Pioneer Avenue. Throughout the seventeen-month
construction period, contractors managed to maintain access to all of the merchant establishments and keep
traffic flowing along the boulevard. This was no small task considering the vast scope of the project.
On May 6, 2014, long-suffering motorists got a taste of good things to come when the lower end of the boulevard, from Starkamp Avenue to Birchland Street, was paved by the city. All around the neighborhood there was a growing wave of welcome relief among residents and merchants that the long and arduous journey was nearing its end.
Then, on June 28, in the final act of the seventeen-month reconstruction effort, crews arrived to begin laying a smooth layer of black top along the commercial district. Three weeks later, when the top coat of asphalt was sealed and the new lines painted, the transformation of Brookline Boulevard was complete. The results were splendid.
Paving of the lower boulevard, near Whited Street (left), and the Commercial District at Starkamp Avenue.
Brookline's new boulevard, shown here on July 24, 2014, after the completion of the reconstruction project. The main
thoroughfare now features a unique blend of vintage 20th century architecture and modern 21st Century technology.
A Dedication Ceremony was held on July 24, 2014, attended by Mayor Bill Peduto, State Representative Erin Molchany, Councilwoman Natalia Rudiak, several local dignitaries and many others who had contributed to the project.
After over a decade of planning and many months of construction, Brookline Boulevard had taken on the look of an ultra-modern urban thoroughfare. In the Commercial District, all overhead wiring was removed and the amenities on ground level were new. Below ground, the water, electric and sewer lines were replaced.
Decorative landscaping was put in place and adjusted traffic patterns increased parking and pedestrian safety. All this was accomplished while retaining much of the vintage look of the old boulevard, further increasing the unique character and charm of this community jewel.
The boulevard as seen from atop the extended firehouse ladder truck, looking both directions from Castlegate Avenue.
Brookline Boulevard - The Heart Of It All
It was over 100 years ago that the West Liberty Improvement Company and the Freehold Real Estate Company gave birth to Brookline Boulevard as the main street around which the Community of Brookline would grow and proper.
During that century, Brookline has evolved into what many refer to as a "Suburb In The City." It has, and will continue to be, a great place to live and raise a family.
Today, the Commercial District along Brookline Boulevard is once again a vibrant center of activity. Since the reconstruction project, an influx of young professionals have brought investment dollars back into the community.
Our neighborhood Main Street has a long and distinguished history. Throughout its many years of service, for the generations of local residents whose fortunes have grown and thrived along with it, Brookline Boulevard has, and will continue to be, the heart of it all.
An Autumn sunrise as seen from the top of the Brookline firehouse tower on October 7, 2014.
Some Articles Featuring Brookline Boulevard
Post-Gazette - April 22, 2010:
"Brookline Neighborhood's Business District Is Just Right For A Food Walk"
Post-Gazette - August 11, 2010:
"Storytelling: Breezin' in Brookline - Memories from a Neighborhood Race"
Pop City - March 16, 2011:
"The Pop City Guide To Brookline"
"City Walkabout: Newcomers Find They Have Appetite For Busy Brookline"
Post-Gazette - January 17, 2013:
"Pittsburgh OKs Initial Funding To Rehabilitate Brookline Boulevard"
Post-Gazette - July 24, 2014:
"Brookline Boulevard Reopens, Business Owners Rejoice"
Illustration by Stacy Innerst - April 2012
Links To Photos Of Brookline Boulevard
Trolley Service (1905-1966)
The Brookline Plumber, 1905
Dooley's Meat Market, 1907
St. Mark Chapel, 1908 (2004)
Brookline Boulevard, 1909a
Brookline Boulevard, 1909b
Brookline Boulevard, 1909c
Brookline Firehouse, 1909
Brookline Pharmacy, 1909
Methodist Episcopal Church, 1909
Brookline Boulevard, 1910
View Towards Brookline Blvd, 1913
Pioneer Avenue, 1915
Brookline Blvd/W Liberty Ave, 1915
Knowlson Methodist Church, 1915
Harley Moving & Hauling, 1915
Independence Day, 1916
Fleming Place Plan, 1921
Boulevard Theatres (1921-1952)
Real Estate Brochures, 1924
New Building Construction, 1926
Brookline Boulevard Map, 1928
Brookline Junction, 1930
Carnegie Library (1930-present)
Brookline News Agency, 1933
Neuser's Market, 1933
McRoberts' Amoco, 1933
Veterans Memorial (1934-present)
Boulevard Reconstruction, 1935
Meyer's Service Station, 1936
Angie's Barber Shop, 1937
American Legion Hall, 1940
The Original "Cannon", 1942
Brookline Boulevard Parade, 1943
Neale's Repair Service, 1943
Women's Bowling League, 1944
Fire on Brookline Boulevard, 1945
Brookline Post Office, 1947
Junior Crime Spree, 1949
Boulevard Extension, 1949
Grumet's Market, 1950
The Great Blizzard of 1950
DeBor Funeral Home, 1951
Ebbitt Studio, 1951
Brookline Savings and Trust, 1952
United Presbyterian Church, 1953
Wreck on Brookline Boulevard, 1953
Melman's Market, 1954
Boulevard Merchant Listing, 1956
Post Office Dedication, 1958
Independence Day Video, 1959
St. Mark Church, 1960
Park Side Grill, 1961
Shulman's Dry Cleaning, 1962
Community Center Parade, 1965
An impressionist palette knife oil painting of Brookline Boulevard by Pen King (circa 2000).
531 Brookline Boulevard, 1970
Little League Parade, 1976
Mazza Pavilion, 1981
Parkside Manor Dedication, 1981
The Cannon, 1982
Stop-N-Go Mini-Mart, 1984
Brookline Breeze, 1987
Sidewalk Sale, 1988
Memorial Day Observance, 1989
Bryant's Hardware (1927-1990)
Hollywood in Brookline, 1990
Nolan's Hardware, 1995
The Brookline Mural, 1997
Autumn Moon Festival, 1999
Halloween Parade, 1999
Brookline Boulevard, 1999/2000
Brookline Blvd/Pioneer Ave, 2000
Carnegie Library Re-Opening, 2004
View Towards East Brookline, 2004
The Firehouse Tower, 2011
Snowy December Day, 2012
Boulevard Reconstruction 1, 2013
Paving Brookline Boulevard, 2014
Aerial View Of Boulevard, 2014
Brookline Unveiled Festival, 2014
Brookline As Seen From Above, 2014
Bus Wreck on the Boulevard, 2017
Repainting the Brookline Mural, 2017
Police Mounted Unit, 2018
The boulevard on a blustery late-autumn day, in November 2008, looking west from Triangle Park.
More Random Images Of Brookline Boulevard
A Short, But Sweet, Drone Video
Spread your wings and take a two minute flight above Brookline.
* Photos and video courtesy of Matt Lackner *
* The History Of Brookline Boulevard *
If you have any old photos of Brookline Boulevard that you would like to share with us and
have presented here, please contact us through our guestbook located on the homepage
... or you can send us a message via our Brookline Connection facebook page.
Below is a Dino Guarino print of Brookline Boulevard (circa 1965).
<Brookline History>
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opinion / reviews / widge's videos
by widge · Published August 7, 2009 · Updated December 15, 2015
[Montréal, Québec, Canada 18°C] Last night, I watched the five last episodes of the 2004 six-part television series, Human Cargo, directed by Brad Turner. I watched it on DVD borrowed from the well-stocked video library at La Grande Bibliothèque. The winner of seven Gemini Awards, including best director and best miniseries, the series follows parallel stories and characters closely related to human migration issues. The series is set mostly in Vancouver, where migrants seeking refugee status in Canada deal with the Immigration and Refugee Board’s (IRB) corruptibility, and in Burundi where a civil war between Tutsis and Hutus, exacerbated by human rights violations by a Canadian mining corporation.
I recommend Human Cargo for anyone interested in humanitarian aid. One of the main characters played by Cara Pifko, is the idealistic and naive daughter of IRB commissioner who heads to Burundi to work for an aid agency and discovers that international aid is not always helpful. International aid in volatile situations can provoke killings by warring factions from the value of the food and other resources it provides to people displaced by war.
The series also offers a critic of Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board processes and structure through the character of the politically connected commissioner (played by Kate Nelligan) whose racist tendencies and ignorance of foreign cultures are challenged by her daughter’s humanitarian foray and by the refugee applicants whose fate she decides upon. Her ability to empathize with refugee claimants is seriously tested by a Burundi man (played by Bayo Akinfemi) who lost everything in the civil war (including his family who found themselves in the displacement camp where the commissioner’s daughter worked) and managed to find his way to Vancouver along very difficult routes.
A particularly moving scene is when the Burundi man describes to the commissioner his capture by soldiers who bring him to the Canadian-run gold mine where he is locked up, forced to work the mine and tortured before escaping during a battle between the soldiers and private rebel security hired by the mining company.
Immediately after this scene, the commissioner meets up with a former lover who was previously employed in the Prime Minister’s Office. He is with the CEO of the Canadian mining company who was present during excecutions of the some of the forced-labour prisoners. The CEO is portrayed as an unsavoury character who believes that Canada was built on mining and its current position in the G8 is directly related to having access around the world to resources—at any cost.
The CEO’s bile-infested dialogue leads the commissioner to storm out of the meeting, resign from the Immigration and Refugee Board, and call for a reexamination of immigration policy and of the review of Canadian corporations’ behaviour around the world.
Oddly enough, the first email I received this morning had a link to the Canadian mining industry. It included an attachment of the May 2009 report, Mining Capital and the Corporatization of Public Education in Toronto: Building a Global City or Building a Globally Ignorant City? (.pdf).
The document reports on the Canadian mining industry’s “sustained effort to intervene directly in public institutions of education across Canada at all levels […] to promote its own sector-based interests.” According to the report, the re-education project launched by mining corporations and their lobbying affiliates “was launched in response to the growing criticism of the [mining] industry by environmentalists, indigenous communities, unions, and other civil society organizations in Canada and around the world, for its global environmental, labour, and human rights abuses.”
The well-documented report takes a look at “mining industry corporatization of public education in Toronto,” which is the world’s most important mining sector centre with more than 60% of all global mining financing coming from the Toronto Stock Exchange and “home to more mining corporations than anywhere else.” The report focusses on three sites where the mining industry has “directly intervened in public education in Toronto.” One is the Mining Matters education program established in 1994 by the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, a primary lobbying organization of the mining industry. Second is the sponsorship of mineral research and education at the University of Toronto. And the third is the mining and minerals permanent galleries and special exhibitions at the Royal Ontario Museum.
The report mentions a tour of Toronto’s cultural corridor and Discover District that reveals various mining corporations and their senior executives who provide public relations funding (self-proclaimed as ‘philanthropy’) in exchange for having their names and reputations affiliated with medical, education and arts centres.
The tour includes the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre (Munk is the chairman and founder of world’s largest mining corporation, Barrick Gold, that is suing small publisher and authors of Noir Canada : Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique for libel. The case was filed in the province of Québec, where the Minister of Justice, Jacques Dupuis, filed on June 13, 2009 a bill amending the Code of Civil Procedure to prevent misuse of the courts by filing SLAPPs: Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. The new bill will allow publisher, Écosociété, and the book’s authors to test the anti-SLAPP bill with Barrick Gold’s lawsuit. Shortly after Barrick’s lawsuit in Québec, another Canadian mining corporation, Banro filed a similar lawsuit against the same publisher in Toronto, Ontario, which doesn’t have anti-SLAPP legislation.)
Other sites on the tour include the University of Toronto’s Lassonde Mineral Engineering Program (named after gold-magnate Peter Lassonde) and its Munk Centre for International Relations. It continues northward to the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) new Micheal Lee-Chin Crystal that was modelled on the structure of a mineral formation.
The report states that the ROM “is ground zero for mining philanthropy in the city,” with its Teck Cominco Suite of Galleries of the Earth’s Treasures, the Vale Inco Limited Gallery of Minerals, the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame, the Munk Debates and recent special exhibition, the De Beers Nature of Diamonds.
Below is a video I edited a few years ago about resistence in Canada and in India of a proposed Alcan bauxite mine in Kashipur India:
A good source for information about Canadian mining activities around the world is Mining Watch.
Tags: AfricaCanadaeducationfilmminingrefugeeSLAPP
Next story Travel Health: Fourth and Final Visit for Vaccination Booster Shots (for a while)
Previous story Reportage, Journalism and Media Coverage in Conflict Situations
Immunization in Lurcuk Village, Tonj North County, Southern Sudan
by widge · Published March 24, 2009 · Last modified December 15, 2015
Sudanese-born Canadian May Fly Home on Friday (updated)
by widge · Published April 1, 2009 · Last modified December 15, 2015
kurye says:
A great article thank you.
widge says:
Hello Kurye, thanks for your interest. I’m curious to know what information in the article did you consider interesting?
Leave a Reply to kurye Cancel reply
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Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunal Arbitral Tributário (Centro de Arbitragem Administrativa — CAAD) (Portugal) lodged on 3 December 2018 — Totalmédia — Marketing Directo e Publicidade S.A. v Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira
Tribunal Arbitral Tributário (Centro de Arbitragem Administrativa — CAAD)
Applicant: Totalmédia — Marketing Directo e Publicidade S.A.
Defendant: Autoridade Tributária e Aduaneira
If after the ‘reverse merger’ in question, the interest and other financial charges on the loans taken out with third parties or associates (which but for the merger would be deductible by the company now being acquired), in order to purchase the shares of the subsidiary which is now the acquiring company, and transferred as a result of the merger, are interpreted as ceasing to be deductible for tax purposes from the profits of the acquiring company, will Article 23(1)(c) of the Corporation Tax Code, in the version in force in 2013, be compatible with EU law, in particular in the sense that that non-deductibility of the financial charges may constitute an impediment or restriction to the merger operations encompassed by Council Directive 2009/133/EC, 1 infringing the principles and objectives of that directive, as well as Article 4 thereof?
If the first question is answered to the effect that that non-deduction of financial charges for tax purposes is compatible with the Directive, will that answer remain unchanged by the fact that such a correction was not made on the basis of the anti-abuse provision of the Directive (Article 15) or national law reproducing it (Article 73(10) of the Corporation Tax Code), but another provision of national law (Article 23 of the Corporation Tax Code)?
1 Council Directive 2009/133/EC of 19 October 2009 on the common system of taxation applicable to mergers, divisions, partial divisions, transfers of assets and exchanges of shares concerning companies of different Member States and to the transfer of the registered office of an SE or SCE between Member States (OJ 2009 L 310, p. 34).
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$1.3 Million Grant for Philosophy of Religion in North America, Latin America, UK
Luis Oliveira, assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Houston, has received $1.3 million to lead an international project on the epistemology of religion. (more…)
$1.2 Million for Free Will Project in Colombia
Santiago Amaya (Universidad de los Andes) and Manuel Vargas (University of California, San Diego) have won a $1.2 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation for their project, “Free Will, Agency, and Responsibility.”
Philosophers Win $1.1 Million in Grants to Study Epistemology of Religion
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Philosopher Wins $1.8 Million Grant to Study Minority Entrepreneurship
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Untangling the Strings: The Limits of Acceptable Donor Influence in Academia (guest post by Chris Surprenant)
“Our donors are supporting our projects, not the other way around.”
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$1.37 Million Grant for Philosophy of Cosmology
Christopher Smeenk, associate professor of philosophy at Western University, and James Weatherall, professor of logic and philosophy of science at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), have been awarded a $1.37 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation for their project, “New Directions in Philosophy of Cosmology.”
$2.6 Milllion Grant for “The Geography of Philosophy”
Philosophers Edouard Machery (Pittsburgh) and Stephen Stich (Rutgers) and anthropologist H. Clark Barrett (UCLA) have been awarded a $2,569,563 grant from the John Templeton Foundation to fund their project, “The Geography of Philosophy: An Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Exploration of Universality and Diversity in Fundamental Philosophical Concepts.” (more…)
18 “Hope & Optimism” Projects Receive $2m Funding
Hope and Optimism: Conceptual and Empirical Investigations, an interdisciplinary initiative headed by Andrew Chignell (Cornell) and Samuel Newlands (Notre Dame) which last year received about $4.5 million from the John Templeton Foundation, has just announced $2 million in funding for 18 projects. Philosophers receiving funding in this round include:
Matthew Ben..
Experience Project Fellows Announced
The Experience Project, a Templeton-funded, $4.8 million, three-year initiative at the University of Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, has announced its Fellows for the 2015-16 and 2015-17 projects.
The project has two parts, one on Religious Experience and one on Transformative Experience. The Religious Experience Fellowship winners a..
$5.75 Million for Philosopher-Led Interdisciplinary Project on Public Discourse
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Arizona’s Freedom Center Wins $2.9m Grant
The John Templeton Foundation has awarded a $2.9 million grant to the University of Arizona’s Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, which is directed by David Schmidtz.
According to press release from the university:
The gift to the center, part of the UA’s College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, will be used to help the center to collaborate with the colle..
Plantinga Wins 2017 Templeton Prize
Alvin Plantinga, John A. O’Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, is the winner of the 2017 Templeton Prize. (more…)
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Funding and Philosophical Results (Updated w/ Replies by Dennett)
Suppose you were reviewing a scientific report that drew the conclusion that a diet without fat was in fact unhealthy, and that butter and cream and even bacon in moderation were good for you, and suppose further that the science was impeccable, carefully conducted and rigorously argued. Good news! Yes, but the author acknowledges in fine print that the research was..
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$2 Million in Fellowships for Improving Public Discourse
Humility and Conviction in Public Life, an interdisciplinary endeavor at the University of Connecticut directed by philosopher Michael P. Lynch and funded by the John Templeton Foundation, has awarded a total of $2 million to ten scholars engaged in various projects to improve public discourse. (more…)
Philosophy Talk Wins Templeton for “Philosophical Guide to the Cosmos”
John Perry and Ken Taylor, professors of philosophy at Stanford University and hosts of the radio program Philosophy Talk, have won a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to produce an eight-episode series called “A Philosophical Guide to the Cosmos.”
The series seems motivated by recent dismissals of philosophy by well-known scientists (see, for example here..
The $4.8 Million Experience
Samuel Newlands (Notre Dame), L. A. Paul (North Carolina), and Michael Rea (Notre Dame) have won a grant of $4.8 million from the Templeton Foundation for a three-year interdisciplinary project on the nature of experience. The project explores the nature and implications of transformative experiences, the character of religious and spiritual experiences, and how wor..
Dennett Withdraws from Templeton-Sponsored Event
Daniel Dennett (Tufts) has withdrawn from the popular World Science Festival upon learning of its funding from the John Templeton Foundation. Dennett, whose opposition to Templeton has been discussed here before, is reported by The Washington Post as saying:
“I would be very happy to have the Templeton Foundation sponsor research on religion and science,” he said..
May 11, 2015 34 7
Four Philosophers of Biology Win $2.1m
Alan Love (Minnesota), C. Kenneth Waters (Calgary), Marcel Weber (Geneva), and William Wimsatt (Minnesota, Chicago) have won a $2.1 million grant from the Templeton Foundation for their project “From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics”. The funding will support, among other things, summer institutes, lectures, post-docs, and graduate students. More infor..
November 2, 2015 0 11
Philosopher Awarded $5.1 Million for Study of Happiness
Philosopher Daniel Haybron (St. Louis University) has won a $5.1 million for a three year project on happiness and well-being. Most of that funding—$4.6 million— is coming from the John Templeton Foundation, with the remaining $453,000 coming from St. Louis University. From a press release from SLU:
Titled Happiness and Well-Being: Integrating Research Across..
Over $1m for the Philosophy of Quantum Gravity
Nick Huggett (UIC) and Christian Wüthrich (Geneva) have won a $1.1 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation to support their project, “Space and Time after Quantum Gravity,” on the philosophical implications of theories of quantum gravity (a continuation of their “Beyond Spacetime” project).
Professor Wüthrich writes:
The premise of the project is that..
More on Funding & Philosophy
A couple of weeks back we discussed questions related to funding and philosophy in the context of Daniel Dennett’s review of a recent book by Alfred Mele (original post; Mele’s reply). Matthew Brown, a philosopher of science (UT Dallas), thinks that one of the central questions raised there should get more attention. He wants us to “think past the specific details o..
Mele Replies to Dennett on Templeton Funding (Guest Post)
Yesterday’s post, “Funding and Philosophical Results,” on Daniel Dennett’s critique of Alfred Mele’s acceptance of money from the John Templeton Foundation, generated a fair amount of discussion, with contributions from Dennett and his critics. Al Mele has now written a reply to Dennett, presented in the guest post*, below.
Reply to Dennett
Dan Dennett sugges..
$2.1 Million for the Meaning of Life
Jennifer Frey (South Carolina) and Candace Vogler (Chicago) have received a $2.1 million grant for their project, “Virtue, Happiness, and Meaning of Life.” The project will be jointly hosted by the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Carolina and is funded prim..
Nancy Snow (Marquette) Wins $2.6 Million to Study Virtue
Nancy Snow (Marquette University) has won a $2.6 million grant from the Templeton Religious Trust for a project called “The Self, Motivation, and Virtue.” More info here and on the Marquette Philosophy Department’s home page.
Nearly $1 Million To Study Ethics of Gene Editing
The Hastings Center, an independent, interdisciplinary bioethics research institute in upstate New York, was recently awarded nearly $1 million from the John Templeton Foundation for a three-year project to study the ethical and social implications of gene editing methods (like Crispr-Cas9) on germline cells (changes to which would be passed down to future generatio..
April 21, 2016 10 5
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Home » Arts
It's hard not to take a shine to Holocaust Museum in Dallas' West End
Theater Critic Picks
The 8 most memorable onstage moments in Dallas-Fort Worth theater 2018
That Yet We Sleep, We Dream
Feminine Dallas theater company cultivates new and local work in its first season
Feminine Dallas theater company cultivates new work in first season
The season starts with a new Shakespeare adaptation. Lily & Joan/Facebook
The new women-led theater company Lily & Joan has unveiled its inaugural season with three works: a classic, a local-born play, and a world premiere musical.
Announced on December 17 at the female-focused troupe's Secret Garden Gala, held at House of Dirt, the season reflects the company's mission to intentionally and inclusively highlight the female perspective.
First up in April 2019 is a 90-minute adaptation of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, adapted by Lily & Joan co-founder Emily Faith. The intermission-less show will have an all female-identifying cast.
Next, in July 2019, is Marilyn Pursued by a Bear. Local playwright Nicole Neely describes the work as a companion piece to Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale that "explores the devastation of thought spirals and false accusations" as well as highlights the endurance of female bonds.
The season finale is a world premiere musical inspired by the life of Joan of Arc, and the namesake of Lily & Joan. Featuring local musicians and visual artists, Joan will "fully immerse audiences in a one-of-a-kind theatrical experience" while taking on the stigma surrounding mental health as well as the loss of identity. The original musical by Faith and her co-founder Erika Larsen will be produced November 2019.
Venues for all three productions have yet to be announced.
"We are so empowered by our first season's lineup," says Faith. "Introducing ourselves with an all-female Midsummer, a local female playwright, and a world premiere musical inspired by the stories of Joan of Arc is exactly how we wanted to take our first steps into the Dallas-Fort Worth theater community."
Lily & Joan is based in Dallas' Bishop Arts District, and has vowed to donate half of each production's proceeds to local women's organizations. In addition to Faith and Larsen, its company members include Alle Mims, Amy Thornhill, Debbie Ruegsegger, Jād Brennon Saxton, Katie Brown, Sakyiwaa Baah, Haley Nelson, and Olivia Grace Murphy.
Inclusion in 2019-20 is top goal for Dallas' Cara Mía Theatre Co.
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It's a very very very fine house
RP Logs » Archives: Logs » It's a very very very fine house
September 19, 2014: The search for the new Titans headquarter continues. Or has it come to an end?
Woodland area
Woodland area with a very interesting house.
Our House (Crosby Stills Nash & Young)
The price on this one was a bit high. There's a reason. It was pretty much perfect otherwise.
Not like the Haunt on the Hill, this one has a spring-well, certified potable, and all the necessary things for human habitation. Living quarters. What's wrong with it?
It's an old missile silo. It's been cleaned, converted, and refurbished. And it is WELL disguised … the place was owned by a fixer-upper type, someone known to the supers community as Lairmaster.
Yes. Lairmaster. The go-to guy for supervillain lairs and heroic HQs. The Frank Lloyd Wright of Hidden Bases. He lived in it and puttered with it for years before his accidental death in the unfortunate Dr. Nope affair; he'd been making an addition to that villain's volcanic lair when the kaiju Magmadrome decided to erupt the volcano to hatch its egg. Lairmaster's family hadn't known about it and they finally let it go after twenty years of unpaid taxes. Nobody wanted it. Until now. And it's been sitting on the tax books … it can be purchased for a … well, Gar could afford to buy it. With some help from his adoptive father.
The disguise that hides the lair is actually pretty nice. A "castle" styled home, with three towers and a circular courtyard, and each tower had rooms in them so it SEEMED like they were just rooms, and the walls were actually wide enough hallways to use as libraries and so forth, with the glass inside to take advantage of the courtyard. There were several entrances to the "secret" as well.
"This is not going to be the ordinary place," Gar says, getting out of the rented car. "This is definitely not ordinary."
Keith is pretty much speechless when he first sees the home as the car pulls up. When he finds his tongue, he slips out and blinks a couple of times. "Gar, this place looks like Loreena Mckennitt, Enya and J. K. Rowling use it as a meeting place for tea parties."
The redhead walks up to Gar's side, taking the sight in. Well, Robin would probably approve of this place. Last night, Keith had gone to Gotham… why, exactly, he hasn't told Gar. He's managed to get around the reason so far by dancing around the subject and instead mentioning that he met Robin. Or a Robin, at least, one with an accent, who had very pointed opinions about the Titans, and who assumed that they would welcome him with open arms and accept him as their leader.
And then Vorpal had called him a princess. Which is why he had come late back into the dorm last night, despite not being a work night for him. "This is going to be rather… how much did you say it was listed for, again?" He shoots Gar an inquiring look.
"I didn't. But it's under $300K. Titans Tower was 3 mil, I think," Gar says cheerfully. "It's probably gonna need some work… the silo part, did I tell you about the silo? Anyway. The above-ground is just a disguise. This is an architectural masterpiece, Vorp."
The Green Titan bounces on his heels a bit, and says, "So, I got a grant from Dayton Group to cover the costs… we just have to operate the Titans for two years to fulfill it."
"Well, and the rest of the Titans have to agree to that as well."
"Does this mean Kate is going to lose herself commenting on the trim and the mahogany for hours on end?" Keith grins, and then looks at Gar. Dayton Group. The name causes the redhead to raise an eyebrow. "Two years… we can do. But this won't get you into trouble?" He can see, though, that Gar is excited. "If that's the disguise… I can't imagine what the real thing's gonna look like. Shall we?"
"Trouble? What is this trouble of which you speak?" Gar says in an unrecognizable bad accent.
He walks up to the door and unlocks… and presses a series of numbers into a keypad … and unlocks and presses a second series of numbers into a keypad… and unlocks.
"Wow. Lairmaster was kind of paranoid," Gar says quietly, as the door recesses and rolls back along the curve of the wall, revealing a ground-floor room with a 15 foot ceiling, lit by the light coming through a window on the other side. There are a few pieces of furniture, covered by cloths, and from the inside, one can tell that the garden has gone insane in the courtyard.
"You any good at landscaping?"
"Everything green I've ever touched has wilted," Keith says helpfully. And adds, "You're the exception."
He looks at the garden, "Mistress Mary quite contrary, How does your garden grow? Not at all, she said…" He walks in, reaching out to pull up some of the cloths up to look at the furniture. "… but a courtyard garden would be lovely…"
"Now for the fun part," Gar says, clicking the button on the inside of the door. It slides back closed, but it seems easy enough to re-open from this side - it has a handle. The room has half-arched openings along the curved walls, and staircases are set along them leading to the upstairs rooms of the tower, but Gar doesn't go that way. The door opened along a track that abutted a squared-off protrusion into the room, and Gar taps his fingers along the ornately decorated "tree" laid out in jewels on the mahogany (yes) of the inward face. And, it swings open. There's a disconcertingly high-tech elevator inside, and there seems to be adequate power to feed it.
"OK, this is awesome," Gar says. "This place has geothermal power, did I mention? It's totally off the grid."
The elevator cage is easily opened, and has "up" and "down" and "stop" buttons. Down… reveals a hallway leading to the silo. There are lights. There is no trace of the missile originally stored here, which is probably good given the size of the silo. It's free of debris and garbage, which suggests that the water, visible 200 feet below, is supposed to be there.
"Oh my god…" It's not that Keith suffers from vertigo. But it is a rather impressive sight. He won't admit that he clings to Gar's arm as he looks down at the water, two hundred feet down. He's been running a lot lately, that's why his knees feel a little unsteady. "… to make this work into a headquarters… there's going to be a lot of construction and remodeling that needs to be done…" He breathes in.
Never in his life did he think he'd be able to see something like this, though, so this is pretty damned awesome. "… so that would be on top of the purchasing money from yo—the Dayton Group. You're gonna go broke, Gar."
"Nah. Look to our left," Gar grins. "LAIR Master did this place."
There's a steel catwalk grating — wide enough to be a cattle-walk — running the entire diameter of the silo, and to the left, a concrete-outlined hallway goes back. There's a room visible past it, only knowable by the reflective glass surface running along the wall, but and several such elongated rectangles can be seen dimly gleaming in the diffused light. The hallway is lit by a red light, and Gar leads to the opening. Peering back, it's lined with doors.
"If the plan on file was right, there's a power room, the computer that runs the place, and enough rooms to turn into a small hotel. I mean, the guy was used to designing for minions, right?"
"My god, this is amazing…" Keith shakes his head, looking around. "It's rather mind-blowing to believe that someone actually ran a career on this sort of business." The redhead scratches the back of his neck. "… this is definitely a step up from the Bates Motel… no, a step, leap, bound and a cha-cha-cha up." He ponders. "… how exactly did you find this listing, though? I'm only asking because… well…"
"Because it's not in the standard listings. I know," Gar says. "I had to contact one of my Dad's realtors. He has a guy that handles the really unusual places, like, specialty hotels and that kind of thing. Acquisitions. So this was something they'd looked at but had no use for it. It wouldn't be worth it to bring it up to code for a hotel. But it works for a base, right? There's a woods outside, and it's next to federal land so it won't be developed."
Keith takes this in and nods. "Okay. Well, your dad knows how to find discreet people for this sort of thing, so there goes the worry that someone may track us down when we don't want to." Keith nods and looks around. "You were right, this is an architectural marvel…" he looks around, leaning on the doorframe to one of the rooms. "Now we need to put it up to a vote to the rest of the team. The rooms in the towers, though- are they actual rooms or are they merely for show?"
"I'm pretty sure they're real," Gar says. "So we can even live above ground until we get too many people. Wish we could hire a groundskeeper though. Since nobody in the team could make a robot system to do all the work. So, what do you think. There's still repairs needed. I'm not sure how we'll hide our coming and going, but I think there might be a tunnel that would work for that - or we get the magical types to paint us a mural that goes somewhere."
Gar is still a bit nervous about this. There was a time when the Earlier Team got mad at him for spending his Dad's money too freely, but since he turned 21 he's not actually tapping his Dad's money any more. So no free jets.
"Well… I think it's the best prospect we've got so far." Keith walks over to Gar and takes one of his hands in his. "We've got… eight, nine members in the team, so the size is an advantage. The question I have, however…" the redhead reaches over and touches Gar's chin to look him in the eye, "Is how much is this going to set you back financially? Honestly? Don't try to hide the truth from me, Garfield. You know I can smell lies, and feast on the tears of small children." He smirks.
"Me? Keef. I got my inheritance from my first parents when I was 18, and my adoptive parents gave me an endowment when I turned 21. I could buy this place outright, and it wouldn't be a terrible hit. I'd rather not, so, I'm paying half, and the rest is really coming from a grant, because I want the team to incorporate and own it as a group."
Gar rubs his nose between his fingers, from the bridge down a bit.
"It's going to be a dollar buy-in to join the team, for legal purposes. I think. I really … Dad's not been easily available to talk with about this, he just send me a note saying 'do what you think is best, I trust you.' That's kind of not entirely helping, huh?"
~Smooth move, O'Neil. Why not ask him about how his parents died? Maybe ask him to do a little diorama?~
~Shaddup.~
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dig something like that up." He's never asked Gar about his financial situation, nor has he really cared to look it up. It is a general, and safe, assumption that he can live comfortably.
"I'm behind this. If the team likes it, then it's ours. I just didn't want you to have to take a hit for the team… wanna take a look at that garden up close?"
"Hey, it's all right. I had a good therapist, and it's a long time ago," Gar says, figuring that if Keith wants to know something, he'll just ask. After all, that's kind of what Gar told him to do. (Silly Changeling, you didn't really say it directly.)
The trek back to the elevator is relatively short. The ride to the ground floor is also short, but it's possible to go to the second floor above as well.
"OK, I think the … hmm," Gar says, noting that somehow, plants are overgrowing against the downstairs door. "We may need to go upstairs and out the window."
Keith blinks. "Did the plants just—" the redhead narrows his eyes. "Dear, did the agent tell you whom the Lairmaster was building this lair for?" He looks at the windows. Were those vines there before? Now he wishes he had paid more attention.
"Let's check the upstairs… quietly," Keith suggests and makes for the stairs. Pausing a second, he takes off his shoes. Just in case. Vibrations.
"The papers said he was working on it as a hobby site, living here himself with his kid from his first marriage. She's the one who signed it over for back taxes."
Gar hasn't noticed any unusual plant movement, but then he's part of the Red, not the Green, so he has no special sense to tell him if Lairmaster was growing something he oughtn't have — then again, he did have some mementos stored here, which were removed by the family years ago. The ones they knew about anyway.
"That must be one heck of a strange family tree." Keith mutters. Going upstairs, he looks at the detail and, well, the craftsmanship. "You know, I wish I had Kate's education. She'd probably be commenting on the finish and the polish, and here all I can say it's that it's purdy." He wants to take a look at one of the tower rooms, to boot. "… you know, I've been thinkin' about something. You've got your public image and your fan club, and you're very popular with the ladies, yaknow?" he asks, letting Gar lead him to the room while he looks at the finish on the walls.
"Well. With the ones who can overlook the lovely complexion," Gar says. "But what're you thinking about?"
Gar looks at the upper window. Behind, there's the upper part of the elevator, and this landing is here, and there's a fairly large room, a bit oddly shaped. The door is open - it's a single large bedroom, with a bathroom attached, and a walk-in closet. The landing overlooks the downstairs room as well, but the window actually opens to a small balcony.
"OK, that's openable," Gar says, and opens it. Below, there's a tree, and plants. The tree looks as if it fits in the "bowl" that was formed by a dome-shape above the shaft. The overgrown plants, from here, look like overgrown brambles of Himalayan Raspberry. Invasive, obnoxious, and with tasty fruit that isn't worth having them around. Large parts of the bramble appear to be dead, while the tree isn't necessarily happy. Whatever was supposed to keep the random seeds from getting in, apparently didn't work.
"Oh, Gar. It is a lovely complexion." Keith smiles a little, "What's there to overlook?" he reaches out to run a hand across Gar's cheek for a brief touch. There was something about the color that called out 'touch me' to Keith. He didn't know why.
The young man smirks. "Let me put it this way: It's your life that I've stepped into, and you've got interests riding on your image as an actor and celebrity. I know there are public figures who hide who they're seeing because they fear the repercussions they might have. Like that 'Oh my' guy from that other show."
He steps out onto the balcony and looks below. He looks very closely, and then exhales with relief. No, no plant movement. It must have been the wind. He has to admit that the place will look a lot nicer and friendlier once some things end up getting cleaned up. He could get used to a place like this.
But he wasn't going to cancel the lease on his apartment if they got this place. He learned that lesson the hard way. If anything, he'll have a place here and a place in Gotham. And Gar's dorm, because he wasn't going to stop visiting.
"I guess that what I'm thinking about is that I haven't asked you what you want in that aspect. If you'd rather present to the outside world that you're not seeing anyone because otherwise it might affect your following… that's within your right to ask." He turns to face Gar and leans on the balcony railing. There is a minute creak that is almost inaudible. He takes a deep breath to get a feel for the air in the area, with all of these invasive plants.
"My image as an actor … I do voice work. They don't see my face. I still do the conventions for fun, and because it gets me a free membership," Gar says in a quiet voice.
He leans back against the support pillar and pulls Keef to him.
"The Titans … back in the old days before it was the Titans … it was almost a social club for legacy kids, sidekicks so to speak. There was Robin, Speedy, Wonder Chick, and Kid Flash, and sometimes Aqualad. The sidekicks of the guys who were in that early team-up, the one that eventually inspired the Justice League. You know I was with that OTHER early team that kept having to deal with weird doomy stuff. So, our team was kind of weird. It was very … junior high. To be the leader, you had to be part of a power-couple. Sort of. Robin… had a girlfriend on the team. But Robin was like the Baby Batman … and a lot like the guy you described. He just assumed we were all following his lead. Which we usually did because he was pretty well trained, except that Speedy got sick of the 'power couple' deciding shit and Kid Flash would leave whenever it got irritating. So when this girl showed up with elemental earth powers, I vouched for her, because she was a jerk, and kind of weird, and reminded me of me a lot. So … we weren't the power couple. And Robin was a terrible leader in some ways — he had abso-fricking-lutely no emotional awareness. You think I don't talk about feelings? I express them. He just didn't have any except how dare you not do whatever I tell you even when people were hurting. He's grown up a lot, but it kind of messed us up. And my 'power couple' girl tried to kill us all and ended up killing herself. Which also sucked a lot."
"So the reason I'm not trying to point out that we're together is that I don't want any of that 'power couple' dynamic happening again. It's the wrong instinct. It's wolf-pack bonding, not family the way we need to be."
Keith allows himself to be pulled to Gar, resting against him. "Pfff, I don't mean I want advertisement, Garfield. All I wanted to know was whether or not you'd prefer I refrain from being affectionate with you anywhere except behind closed doors. The team is… Actually, considering the friendships I'm making, it is my only family. As are you. I think the dynamics in this team are different since we don't have a natural Alpha trying to dominate… and believe me, if that Robin tries to pull that, he's not going to be very successful. At least, as far as we have interacted as a team, we listen to each other and we make our voice heard, there's no one voice that weighs us all down."
The redhead shrugs a little and indulges himself a bit by resting his head on Gar's chest. "My personal preference is I wouldn't mind interacting like a normal couple. Not, you know, eating face in the middle of a meeting like I've seen some do — had that in higschool in the middle of student council, oh my god what the heck was wrong with them? — but, you know, not afraid to hug or stuff like that. It's up to you, though. And I know that if I'm ever making the wrong call, you're going to let me know about it. None of the pack mentality thing of 'I need to stand by my man, right or wrong.' We're going to disagree on stuff."
He looks up at Gar with a smirk, "Like the Waller plan. We've gone over that- but it's an example on something we've disagreed on… besides, the only other couple I see forming right now is either Bunker and Wiccan… or Zachary and Wiccan. Depending on who gets the nerves to ask first." Impish smirk.
"Seriously? Zachary?" Gar blinks. "OK, sure. Why not."
He has to think for a few moments, and spends them nuzzling, not cat nor dog, just generic mammal.
"OK. Please do not refrain from hugging or otherwise being affectionate with me if it seems like an appropriate thing to do. Obviously it's not appropriate during a fight, nor during student council meetings, but yeah, hugging, holding hands, and being physically close is perfectly fine."
Keith chuckles at this, and nuzzles back. "Even if that might end up on a tabloid somewhere? You know, 'Beast Boy Seen With Purple Cat: Getting Wild?' They keep getting your name wrong."
"The Enquirer mentioned the fire. Called me Wildcat. I think I'm better looking."
He realizes why he may have had an ominous feeling about the plants. In a way, this is a sort of luxury. Granted, for the whole team, but in a way it was also extended to him as part of the team… and there was something in him of pride that rebelled against that.
~Maybe it's ok. Just this once.~
~Once is fine~
~But I'm not going to be a dependant. I'm not going to be a burden to Gar.~
"I like the place. I hope the team does as well. You got a good scoop, Gar." He squeezes Gar and nuzzles him back. "I'll pitch in with the manual labor to clean this up, if the team likes it."
"Seems good to me too. We still need a public face, but for now, this'll do," Gar says. "Anyway… you know how it is with tabloids. If you see anything there you know it's a lie. Last year it was "Is Changeling Bat-Boy's Father?" … that one was REALLY annoying. They got the codename right in the stupidest headline."
"Hey, I remember that one. It was the one where they had the alleged interview with the dog from the future who warned us of an apocalypse." Keith laughs. He'd seen it in line at the grocery store and just had to flip through it.
"It's getting late. Do you wanna head back? We could bring the kids here tomorrow and see what they think." He pauses, "Also… this is a bit of a weird request. But I'd like to have a training session. I think we need to start having those as a team so we all know what we're capable of, and we learn how to work off each other's strengths. But for the first one… I'd like it to be you. I'm green as can be and you've got more experience, there's a lot I can learn from you."
Gar closes the window, and makes sure it's properly latched - don't want any problems if this doesn't go through properly, after all. He stands at the top of the stairwell, and looks back at Keith.
"Sure. What do you mean by 'training session' though?" Gar asks, grinning as he fast-foots his way down the stairs. fidadidadidapidapidadadadipadawhump!
The front door opens easily and closes and re-locks with only a single button sequence.
"Just a way to test our powers. A friendly spar, nothing too intense." Keith can't help it, he does slide down the banister. A little. "You guys had that with the other team, right? I figured… football teams go through drills, I am not entirely sure what super-teams do, but I always thought it was something along those lines."
As the front door closes behind him, he takes a few steps back to look at the castle-like domicile.
"We did. The very first thing we need to do is to get everyone to show what their general abilities are, and tell what we're NOT going to do because it's too dangerous. The second thing we need to do is to have everyone explain what their limits are, like, I am pretty much always green, and always animals, and you have to have the full length mirror to change to human, and enough to see your own eyes to change to cat-form," Gar says. "But we don't need to explain everything. That's a trust issue. So I won't be explaining what happens if I over-use Dad's helmet. You don't need to explain the scar."
The rental car is MUCH easier to fit inside. Poor little Smrt Cr is in the shop, having the hamsters ground or something.
From the driveway, the castle appears to just be the one front tower with the curving walls and (from the right angles) the tree inside barely peeking over the wall-tops.
"Right. Taking care of business. Getting organized and getting us well-oiled and greased." Because Keith was not going to let some entitled Robin walk into his family and turn it into a dictatorship. "I want us to do things right, I want to be good at what I do. It's how we stay alive… and maybe…" to make his mother proud?
He looks at Garfield. If Alanna O'Neil had known what her baby boy would turn out to be… in more ways than just purple, how would she have reacted?
He wanted to think she'd have understood. But then again… she was very Catholic. It was one of the reasons why he never said anything.
And Gar's adoptive father was distant. He might as well be dead. Themes that repeated.
"What would you call it when you feel… pleasure, or a good feeling, when you look at the achievements of someone you care about?" He slides the seatbelt around him with a click, looking at the castle as Gar turns the engine.
"Vicarious pride, maybe?" Gar says. "There's probably a throat-destroying German word for it, taking joy in the accomplishment of loved ones."
One consultation with an elderly phone later, Keith smirks. "The internet claims the word is something like 'Familiestolzempfindung.'" He butchers that, horribly. "But I think someone's trying to pull my leg." He puts his phone away and rests his hand on Gar's, on the gear shift. "Whatever the exact term is. I'm proud of you… do you want to go by the dorm and see if Miguel's back from his route? We could take him out for Mexi — " pause " — chinese?"
"Chinese sounds very good right now," Gar says. "I kinda forgot to eat as a human today, and I don't want to tell you what I was when I did eat."
Well, it wasn't anything TOO creepy, honestly; Gar's just being a tease.
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Recently a much greater understanding has developed about the causes of knee dysfunction. Knowledge has been available for a long time about torn knee cartilages and ligaments, arthritis, and loose bodies in the knee. Newer knowledge explains why many of these conditions develop - even torn cartilage and ligaments. Certainly a ligament or cartilage tear can be a direct, primary development, caused by a person being tackled in football or from some other direct injury. Often these injuries develop when a football player is running and suddenly cuts, or when a person is simply getting up from a stooped position. In other words, the problem develops during an activity similar to that done on a day-to-day basis without injury. Suddenly, for some reason, an injury develops from the same activity.
The knee is generally considered a simple hinge-type joint which is moved through its range of motion by the muscles attached to it, primarily giving movement to straighten or bend the leg. The joint contains two pads, called the similunar cartilages. Sometimes the cartilage can be torn and require surgery. Surgery may also be necessary to remove loose bodies from inside the joint, and to tie torn ligaments back together.
The muscle were once considered simply the motors that move the bones of this joint. However, it has been recognised in applied kinesiology that the muscles also provide stabilisation to the joint, along with the ligaments which limit the joint's range of motion. Many knee problems are the direct result of improper support to the knee joint from the muscles which attach above and below it.
If one or a group of these muscles becomes weak, the knee loses its stability in that direction. For example, if the muscle(s) on the middle side of the knee is weak, there is little to keep the knee from bending toward the center. If this condition is present and an individual strains his knee in that direction, there ins't much to keep the knee from jamming. This can cause something as simple as a trick knee or a much more serious condition, such as a catching of the cartilage as the knee goes through its range of motion, causing a tear to occur.
By testing the individual muscles which support the knee, an applied kinesiologist can find the area of limited strength. Further evaluation of the weakened muscle gives the doctor information to effect its strengthening. Usually, the cause of the problem is rapidly found and removed, providing an immediate strengthening of the muscle(s) at fault.
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WW2 Catalina flying boats return to Fermanagh base
I've been looking forward to writing up this one all week, as it concerns one of my favourite aircraft - the Consolidated PBY Catalina. Not only that, it also involves the experiences and reminiscences of two ex-pilots who appear to have grasped the opportunity to fly in one of the few remaining airworthy examples with both hands - and why not?! It sounds like they had a wonderful time and it's lovely to hear their recollections.
As well as the memories there is of course the interesting historical reminder of one of the ways in which the "neutral" Republic of Ireland was involved in the Second World War. I myself was aware of similar operations (although not this particular one, I must admit) and of the part played by the Catalina in the sinking of the Bismarck, but as with so much about World War II it is important that such stories remain in the public consciousness - so it's good to see this 70th anniversary being celebrated and reported in such a fashion.
Like so many great aircraft of the war, the Cat has many impressive stories surrounding it and is a wonderful aircraft to see in the air - and on the water! I well remember one year at my local airshow in Southend a Catalina performing a touch-and-go landing on a (rather rough!) Thames Estuary. I've even dug out and dusted off my (I say "my" - this was actually built by my father, so long ago that I was probably younger than the "suitable age"! It's still available, though!) own Airfix model that hasn't seen the light of day for years, especially for this post.
Although the American-designed Catalina had first flown in 1935 it wasn't until 4 years later that the British Air Ministry took an interest in it, and even then they only ordered one example for evaluation. Having received this somewhat conservative order, Consolidated simply plucked a completed Catalina straight off the production line in San Diego and stuck a crew in it who, thanks to the aircraft's colossal 2,500-mile range, flew it directly from San Diego to Felixstowe in England. When it arrived, many of those watching from the ground refused to believe that it had flown non-stop across the Atlantic, since its engines were still purring away happily without the slightest sign of strain or oil. They were even more sceptical when the crew explained that, with the aid of the standard yet sophisticated on-board radio equipment, they had been in wireless contact with San Diego as they had landed. Even then it wasn't until 1941 that the Catalina entered service with RAF Coastal Command, to perform some of the feats mentioned in this accompanying article.
Elsewhere Cats were performing valuable service with most branches of the U.S. armed forces, most notably as air-sea rescue craft with the U.S. Navy. In one incident, on the 29th May 1945, a Catalina was sent up to provide support for a B-29 bombing raid on Japan. On its return one bomber did indeed ditch in the Pacific and the Cat was sent to pick them up. On arrival at the crash site, the Cat promptly landed in open sea and retrieved the bomber crew from their dinghy. However on attempting to take off again, it was struck forcibly by three large waves which ripped the port engine and part of the wing clean off. Crashing through the cockpit, it seriously injured the pilot. The co-pilot was able to radio a back-up rescue submarine and, despite the substantial damage to its structure the Catalina remained afloat until the sub arrived the following day to pick up both crews.
Such are just two stories to go with the one detailed in the original news piece, there are undoubtedly many more involving this fantastic aeroplane. May it continue to fly and keep the memories of its pilots and crew alive for many years to come.
Posted by Bruce Partington-Plans on Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Labels: 1940s, Catalina, Consolidated, Ireland, PBY, seaplane, Second World War
Richard Hannay Wednesday, 5 October 2011 at 18:29:00 BST
One of my favourite types too since childhood - they look beautiful, plus flying boats alone are interesting enough no matter how good they look
Arthur Conan Doyle's first novel hits shops
WW2 Catalina flying boats return to Fermanagh base...
Babbage Analytical Engine designs to be digitised
Tornado steam locomotive sets new record
Penny farthing 'back on the production line'
Documentary showcases woman pilots of the 1920s
Seaplane flypast marks 1931 Schneider Trophy victo...
Boardwalk Empire Is Bringing Back Old School Subwa...
Cord's grandson honours his work
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Author Archives: radiotones
New album ‘Colourblind’ – May 2012
Posted on February 10, 2012 by radiotones
I’VE BEEN planning a follow-up to All You Need to Know for a long time…..the idea is to release a new album every three years or so, but somehow it’s taken nearly six!
I’d like to be able to say that Cy and I are constantly coming up with new songs and bursting to get them recorded, but the truth is that the film and TV music work gets right in the way of songwriting much of the time, and it’s difficult to think about lyrics, middle eights, choruses and the like when you’ve a deadline to produce albums of Celtic themes or pipe bands for TV and radio productions.
They’re really good fun too, and in less work-dominated lives we might be able to do both, but we have been gradually introducing new original songs into the live set over the years, while working away at a few songs we’ve been really excited about.
At the same time, I’ve been tripping over all sorts of brilliant songs by other writers, and have so much enjoyed playing and singing them it became a priority to stop talking about recording a new album and just get on with it!
The first two albums are hugely important to me, of course, and in their way are milestones not just in my musical career (if you want to call it that!) but in my life itself. Both were commissioned and fully funded by independent record labels, and I will be eternally grateful to Downtown Records and to The Music Kitchen for their faith in me and the terrific support I got from both.
This time, however, I decided to spend a lot more time on the recording process, and in the current climate for indie labels, this would be difficult financially, so Cy and I decided to finance the master recording ourselves, through our own production company Ranza Music. All well and good, but to release a quality CD album, recording’s just the start of the process. There’s artwork, CD pressing, distribution costs, press and radio promotion – all the expensive stuff.
Luckily, a good pal of mine, Adam Armit, who owns the highly-respected Edinburgh-based Circular Records, offered to release the new album on the label, and so things were set in motion. I can’t tell you how pleased and honoured I am to be part of the Circular roster.
It’s an eclectic and very discerning label, and to be part of a catalogue that includes virtuoso jazz guitarist Nigel Clark, legendary harper Savourna Stevenson, the amazing Scottish Guitar Quartet, hip-hop stars Stanley Odd and Americana band Hobotalk among others is a real privilege.
Recording of the new album began in early August 2011, and was completed four months later. As with the previous two CDs, everyone connected with playing and recording was a friend of ours – musicians, sound and mastering engineers, arrangers, backing vocalists – and the list of contributors reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of traditional and contemporary music (to use a well-worn cliche…). Apart from Cy and I, there’s Stevie Lawrence, Chris Stout, Finlay Macdonald, Mike Bryan, Dougie Stevenson, Sandy Brechin, John Goldie, Ray Laidlaw, Allan Cuthbertson, Paul Edwards, with a guest appearance on backing vocals from my old band The Clydesiders – Sandy Kelso, John Graham and Dave Whitton – and my beautiful daughter Julie.
The ‘friends only’ rule extends to the artwork, with the sleeve design and studio photography by alt-blues star Dave Arcari (swapping the National guitar for a Nikon SLR for a short while) and cover photo by Steve Richards, who lives near me in my home village of Gartmore, while the sleeve notes are written by my pal (and fellow old car enthusiast) Rab Noakes, who also wrote one of the songs on the album.
Colourblind is a mix of Duncan & Cy songs, traditional Scottish works and some very carefully chosen covers by top songwriters of the past and present, and release is scheduled for May 2012. Vast amounts of time and love have gone into it, and I hope that comes across to the listener, whoever he or she may be.
Sep 8: The Wee Folk Club - Edinburgh
Jan 16, 2020: Inchture Folk Night - Inchture, Perthshire
Mar 17, 2020: Star Folk Club - Glasgow
Apr 27, 2020: Glenfarg Folk Club - Kinross
• iTunes
• Circular Records
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Leader in Law
By CityBusiness
Mickey Stephens deLaup
Raymond P. Augustin, Jr.
Valerie Schexnayder
James K. Sticker, III
Francine Giugno
Megan Richardson
Julie Kinkaid Parks
Mickey Stephens deLaup, APLC is committed to excellent service and skilled representation for our clients, keeping in mind the economic realities of litigation.
Mickey Stephens deLaup, APLC is an AV rated insurance defense firm specializing in handling and litigating civil and administrative matters throughout the state of Louisiana. The firm is located in Metairie in close proximity to New Orleans, Louisiana.
Mickey S. deLaup is AV rated by Martindale-Hubbell and has over 32 years of litigation experience. She has worked in the private and public sectors. She has also handled complex legal matters while working in-house with a major insurer.
Firm attorneys have experience in handling and litigating cases in nearly all of the 64 Louisiana parishes, the five Louisiana Courts of Appeal and the Louisiana Supreme Court, as well as Louisiana Federal Courts in the Eastern, Middle and Western Districts (click here to view map of Louisiana parishes).
Ms. deLaup has been named to the exclusive Super Lawyers list as one of the top attorneys in Louisiana for the past four years. No more than 5 percent of the lawyers in the state are selected. Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement.
Ms. deLaup has been listed in Who’s Who in America for the last four years. She was also recently honored as a 2014 CityBusiness Leader in Law. Leadership in Law recognizes 50 area professionals for their professional and community involvement and achievements that have set the pace for the overall community.
Ms. deLaup is also listed in the Martindale – Hubbell Bar Registry of Pre-eminent Women Attorneys for 2012 and 2013. In addition, she has been recognized previously as one of the Top Lawyers in the New Orleans area in insurance, litigation, and product liability.
The firm strives to provide its clients with quality services at economical prices while providing cost-effective results. We are committed to excellent service and skilled representation for our clients, keeping in mind the economic realities of litigation.
Insurance Coverage Defense
Public Entity Defense
2701 Metairie Road
Copyright © 2017. Mickey S. deLaup, APLC. All rights reserved | Disclaimer
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Spec Building Sold for 850K
Home » gmg
Jan 5 by gmg
The Development Authority of the City of Milledgeville and Baldwin County have sold spec building to the firm Strapack, Inc. for $850,000. The spec building is located on highway 22 in the Industrial Park. Built in 2007, the building is 62,500 sq.ft. and sits on 15 acres.
The real estate deal was finalized December 28, 2015, closing out the year on a positive note and as one of two projects realized in the 4th quarter of 2015. The unanimous vote by the Development Authority’s Board of Directors allows for immediate work by Strapack to prepare for operations to begin early in 2016. Strapack, Inc. will invest between $4 and $6 million in the purchase price and planned build-out development of the building.
Initially, Strapack, Inc. will employ 10 people and company officials have indicated plans for future expansion with additional job positions to be created. No tax abatement was given as part of the contract, so sale of the property will be an immediate benefit on the tax digest.
Filed Under: In the News Tagged With: authority, baldwin county, development, economic, growth, industrial, Matt Poyner, milledgeville, real estate, sold, spec, Strapack
Apr 8 by gmg
MILLEDGEVILLE — By the time an industrial site consultant reaches Milledgeville, the community has already survived an in-depth vetting process. Matt Poyner, executive director of The Development Authority of the City of Milledgeville and Baldwin County (DAMBC), has named Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Texas as some of the top states looking at Baldwin County. “That’s where the majority of these major site consultants work,” he said. “It lends me to think we are doing something right because our activity has increased from some of these major U.S. firms, as well as international locations.”
Locally-based Goebel Media Group started web development upgrades in summer 2012 shortly after Poyner became the executive director. According to Poyner, “It took four or five months to get it up and running and the site is top-notch.” Recent review of the site by a marketing representative evaluated it as standing tall among similar sites. “It is important to know that industry professionals identify our site as providing current, relevant data to site visitors,” he said.
For prospective companies utilizing online resources, the Internet can be a discouraging or advantageous primary investigative tool. The DAMBC puts considerable time and effort into the website as a tool to showcase the attributes of Milledgeville to business and industry. Web analytics from developmilledgeville.com show a 62 percent page view increase over first quarter 2013 numbers. The DAMBC can use web analytic information to tailor recruiting for specific national and international firms.
The development authority’s project load has increased dramatically. The state economic development connections are taking notice of Milledgeville’s potential, sending target manufacturing, aerospace, logistics, shared services and high water user companies to the community by way a Request for Information (RFI). Executive Director Poyner also points out, “By the time we are notified of a project, our community has been vetted multiple times through a process matching sites to project specifications. When we get an RFI, we’re one of the final candidates remaining of about 100 communities, or more, initially considered. That’s why it is important to have a good site with relevant information that encourages increased traffic and length of time on our site. I’m proud of where we are.”
Milledgeville-Baldwin County served as a host community March 18 for the annual International VIP tour coordinated by the Georgia Department of Economic Development. This was the first time in 29 years that Milledgeville made the tour. The hospitality and energetic community blew away 33 consulates representing countries in Europe, Asia, Canada, Africa and Mexico. “People getting their feet in Milledgeville is what we need,” Poyner said. “That’s starting to take off for us and we are in the conversation.” Recent Business Retention and Expansion Program (BREP) surveys showed current industries planned expansions and felt positive about Baldwin County operations. “It’s comprehensive service from start to finish. We want to provide the tools and support businesses need to grow and achieve success.” Poyner said.
Poyner urges the community to stay tuned for an upcoming uniquely innovative website upgrade.
Jan 11 by gmg
Recent months have presented local residents a unique opportunity to share their thoughts on their community and the direction they would like to see the community take in the future.
Key local entities, including the Baldwin County Board of Education, the Chamber of Commerce and the Development Authority, are in the midst of strategic planning phases in an effort to formulate a new community vision and strategic plan.
The local Chamber and Development Authority have a partnership with other key stakeholders, including local governing bodies, colleges and the hospital, to develop a new strategic plan for the community.
One part of this process involves community feedback. Local residents can assist in this part by sharing their thoughts online. An online survey is available for the community to provide insight into what local residents think and how they view the community in which they live. Take a few minutes to weigh and help formulate a new vision for Baldwin County’s future. This is a chance for local residents to have a greater voice in where Baldwin County progresses to over the course of the next few years. It’s a chance to gauge what locals think is important and what they think should be areas of focus for the future.
The online survey, which launched Monday morning, can be found on the Chamber’s website at www.milledgevillega.com. Survey respondents also have a chance to enter to win one of five $50 gift certificates to local Chamber businesses.
The survey will be available for the public’s input over the next three weeks.
For more information about the strategic plan or the survey call the Chamber at 478-453-9311.
Source: Union Recorder
Dec 31 by gmg
The Milledgeville-Baldwin County Chamber of Commerce and the Development Authority is thrilled to welcome a new member to its team.
Milledgeville native Hank Griffeth will fill officially begin his duties as the director of operations March 3 following his retirement from Central Georgia Technical College (CGTC) March 1. He will manage day-to-day operations for the local Chamber and Development Authority.
“When the opportunity availed itself, it gave me the opportunity to do something different, so I decided to go for it. I’m very appreciative of the boards of both organizations,” he said. “I’m most looking forward to selling Milledgeville-Baldwin County to folks visiting our community and trying to get folks to do business in the community. My experience in the educational area, especially in technical education, will be advantageous for the Chamber and community in terms of working with folks to get that done.”
For the past 12 and a half years, Griffeth worked at CGTC in various roles. Since 2007, he has served as the vice president of satellite operations, where he was responsible for the operation of the college’s Milledgeville campus and its workforce development centers in Putnam, Crawford and Monroe counties. In this role he worked closely with the Chambers of Commerce and Development Authorities in those counties to provide assistance with workforce and business development as well as community advancement.
“We’re extremely excited to have [Griffeth’s] unique combination of experience and expertise in workforce development and in operations coming on board as the director of operations, which is the first joint position with the Development Authority,” said April Bragg, CEO of the local Chamber. “He’s already been part of our team, and being able to leverage that in a greater capacity is a tremendous opportunity. We anticipate him to hit the ground running.”
Before going to work with CGTC in 2001, Griffeth worked in administrative and teaching positions at Georgia College for 14 years, with his last six years serving as director of the University Career Center and instructor of political science. He is a certified economic development trainer with the Technical College System of Georgia’s (TCSG) QuickStart program and he completed the TCSG Executive Leadership Academy in December 2007.
Griffeth has served in various volunteer roles with both the Milledgeville-Baldwin County and Eatonton-Putnam Chambers of Commerce, including chair of the board of directors in Putnam. He is a graduate of Leadership Baldwin and Leadership Putnam, and recently served on the University of Georgia College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences Alumni Board as vice chair of the Development and Finance Committee. Griffeth is also a volunteer firefighter for the Baldwin County Fire Rescue and a member of Northside Baptist Church where he sings in the chancel choir. Griffeth is married to the former Cindy Harrison and they have two grown children and one grandchild.
“I love this community; it’s where I grew up. I’m very fortunate to have the opportunity to work much of my professional life here,” he said. “I’m very excited to have a new opportunity to try to give even more. I want to make this a community that will thrive so my children, and now my grandson, can stay here, work here and continue to raise their families here if they choose too.”
Griffeth said he plans to discuss the vacant position at CGTC with CGTC President Dr. Ivan Allen in order to find the most qualified individual to fulfill the job duties.
“The college will go through the normal hiring procedures, and I anticipate the person will have the same responsibilities that I do. I think [Allen] would like to have someone local to do the job, but it depends on the labor pool. I’m working on finishing up a couple of projects so those can be carried forward in the future,” Griffeth said. “I have no words to express how appreciative I am to everyone at CGTC, and for the opportunities given to me by leadership; I feel very blessed and fortunate. I look forward to continuing to work with the college to get people hired in the community and work in economic development in the community to get folks to do business here. This was a difficult decision to make, but the anticipation of starting something new is really exciting.”
Milledgeville and Baldwin County leaders in economic development recognized several contributors and bade a fond farewell to two behind-the-scenes forces to the local engine Wednesday.
Milledgeville-Baldwin County Development Authority board chair Dr. Jo Ann Jones and executive assistant Annette Ford were recognized for their years of service during the annual Economic Development Appreciation Day breakfast held in the Legislative Chambers at the Old Capital Building at Georgia Military College.
Ford has served as executive assistant to the Development Authority director for more than 15 years. Jones has served on the Development Authority board since 1999. She retired from Georgia College & State University in 2011 where she spent her career in Higher Education Administration and is the Dean Emeritus of the J. Whitney Bunting College of Business.
Guests at Wednesday’s breakfast included the other honorees along with former local Development Authority directors Angie Gheesling and Kathyjo Gordon. Gheesling, Houston County Development Authority executive director, and Gordon, Development Authority of Jones County director, expressed their appreciation to Jones and Ford for their tutelage early on in their careers.
Gheesling remarked that both women possess a special “stickability” that has been an asset to the local community.
Jones said the crux of work of economic development comes down to people.
“This is a people thing,” Jones said of her tenure on the Development Authority board. “Economic development … it takes a village. I’m so pleased to have been a part of this village.”
Also recognized Wednesday was fellow outgoing board member Earl Seagle and Volunteer of the Year, Billy Matthews. The Baldwin County Board of Commissioners, Central Georgia Technical College, the City of Milledgeville, Doyle Beckham, Georgia College, Georgia Military College, Goebel Media Group, Lee & Turner accounting firm, the Middle Georgia Regional Commission, the Milledgeville-Baldwin County Chamber of Commerce, Performance Food Group, The Brick, The Goodie Gallery and Bug House Pest Control were also recognized for their service and assistance to the Development Authority.
Executive Director Matt Poyner said the past 12 months in local economic development could not have been as fruitful without the support of local entities and board volunteers. Among the highlights of the year he touted was the recent clearing work completed at the industrial park. Poyner said 44 acres have been cleared at the park and are now “pad-ready” for prospects. Improvements have also been completed around the spec building. Two local industries underwent expansions this year, adding 75 new jobs, and Baldwin County is also on the short list for another major expansion, Poyner said.
He thanked the local city and county governments for their cooperation on the industrial park upgrades.
“They were extremely helpful in assisting,” he said. “We appreciate them working with us and being a partner for that development.”
Three-year projections based on the recent Business Retention and Expansion Program (BREP) surveys suggest an additional 600 hires by current businesses and industry in the future.
While the field for new job prospects is highly competitive on the regional, state, national and global fronts, signs point to positives.
“We’re working very hard to move this community forward,” said Poyner. “The competition is fierce … but I’m confident we’re going in the right direction.”
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ABOUT SALVADOR DA BAHIA
Published on Wednesday, 13 February 2013 16:49
Home to 2.7 million residents, Salvador is the capital of the north-eastern Brazilian state of Bahia and the country’s third most populous city after São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Known for its cuisine, music and architecture, it also is the centre of Afro-Brazilian culture, with up to 80 percent of its population being able to trace their ancestors to the almost 5 million slaves who were shipped into the country via its ports during the Portuguese colonial period, to work in the nearby sugar cane plantations.
It was established in 1549 on a small peninsula at the northern tip of Baía de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints), on Brazil’s Atlantic coast, and soon became the Portuguese colony’s first capital, remaining so until 1763, when Rio de Janeiro took over that role. Today, the federal capital of the country is Brasilia.
The city is built on two planes, with the upper city, Cidade Alta, and the lower city, Cidade Baixa, connected by the famous Elevador Lacerda, a 72-meter-high concrete structure with four elevator cars that transport 50,000 people daily.
Salvador’s historic centre is located in the Cidade Alta (Upper Town), and is known as Pelourinho. Home to the largest concentration of 17th and 18th century colonial architecture in all of the Americas, it was named a world cultural site by UNESCO in 1985. Today is it home to rich collection of cafes, restaurants and shops, housed in distinctive pastel-coloured buildings.
While most associate Rio de Janeiro with the carnival, for Brazilians Salvador is frequently voted the best place to enjoy this huge annual celebration. The experience between the two is different, with the music of the Samba characterising the event in Rio, while in Salvador the music is called Axé, which fuses different African and Caribbean genres. Claiming title to the world’s biggest street party, the carnival takes place over six consecutive days every February, with around 2 million people parading along the streets of the city.
Bahia is the fourth most populated and fifth largest of Brazil’s 26 states. In addition to important agricultural, industrial and petroleum sectors, the state also has considerable mineral deposits, including gold, emerald, sapphire, aquamarine and topaz.
In 1842, large diamond deposits were discovered in Bahia, along the banks of the rio Mucugê in a mountainous region that became known as Chapada Diamantina. The discovery created a diamond-rush to the region. Although its known gem-quality deposits are today depleted, the area is still one of the few locations on earth that produces carbonado, a rare, semi-porous, black polycrystalline variety of diamond. In 1985, the Chapada Diamantina region was declared a national park.
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Siksa Valley: Turning Gilgit-Baltistan’s barren lands into green miracles
I had never been past Khaplu in the Ganche District of Baltistan, a lovely green valley encircled by towering mountains. I had stayed a few times at the picturesque Khaplu Fort Palace Hotel, which has painstakingly been restored by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.
Hence, I was excited to actually drive past Khaplu and head further north towards our border area with India’s Ladakh region. This is a restricted area controlled by the Army and most tourists are turned back. Luckily, we had clearances as we were heading to a village called Siksa, around an hour and a half drive from Khaplu, where Aisha Khan, the intrepid CEO of the Mountain and Glacier Protection Organisation (MGPO) was implementing a water replenishment project with the support of United Nations Development Programme-Pakistan (UNDP) and the Coca Cola Foundation.During our journey, we stopped at perhaps what is one of the most stunning views in Pakistan – the lookout point for Masherbrum or K1 Mountain. Almost 8,000 metres high, its summit was lost in the clouds but the vast, flat valley before us and the snowy peaks beyond were an incredible sight.After taking in the breathtaking view, we reluctantly got back in our jeeps and headed to the fertile Siksa Valley, whose residents proudly claim that after Hunza Valley, they are the most progressive and well-educated of the high mountain communities of the Gilgit-Baltistanregion. Certainly, Siksa is a lovely valley, with its terraced fields and neat houses adorned with flowerpots.
Welcome to PakistanSiksa Valley: Turning Gilgit-Baltistan’s barren lands into green miraclesBy Rina Saeed Khan an hour ago3SHARES SHARE TWEET EMAIL(R to L): Sakina, Khanum and their friend pose for a photo next to a water channel in Siksa Valley, Gilgit-Baltistan. PHOTO: RINA SAEED KHANI had never been past Khaplu in the Ganche District of Baltistan, a lovely green valley encircled by towering mountains. I had stayed a few times at the picturesque Khaplu Fort Palace Hotel, which has painstakingly been restored by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture.The Khaplu Fort Palace HotelHence, I was excited to actually drive past Khaplu and head further north towards our border area with India’s Ladakh region. This is a restricted area controlled by the Army and most tourists are turned back. Luckily, we had clearances as we were heading to a village called Siksa, around an hour and a half drive from Khaplu, where Aisha Khan, the intrepid CEO of the Mountain and Glacier Protection Organisation (MGPO) was implementing a water replenishment project with the support of United Nations Development Programme-Pakistan (UNDP) and the Coca Cola Foundation.During our journey, we stopped at perhaps what is one of the most stunning views in Pakistan – the lookout point for Masherbrum or K1 Mountain. Almost 8,000 metres high, its summit was lost in the clouds but the vast, flat valley before us and the snowy peaks beyond were an incredible sight.After taking in the breathtaking view, we reluctantly got back in our jeeps and headed to the fertile Siksa Valley, whose residents proudly claim that after Hunza Valley, they are the most progressive and well-educated of the high mountain communities of the Gilgit-Baltistanregion. Certainly, Siksa is a lovely valley, with its terraced fields and neat houses adorned with flowerpots.View point of Masherbrum peak in Ganche district, Karakoram.In Siksa, I got a tour of the village and was accompanied by the shy Khanum, a villager who lives above Siksa, and Sakina, a confident mother of three children. They told me:“Thanks to the new water storage tank, all these fields have turned green.”They proceeded to inform me a little bit about their village and themselves. As is the norm in many mountain villages here, both Khanum and Sakina tend the fields and look after their households on their own as their husbands work in Skardu, which is almost a four-hour drive from there. Khanum pointed out the terraced fields below the towering mountains, watered by the channels, where vegetables like organic tomatoes, onions, aubergines, okra and pumpkins were growing. No pesticides or fertilisers are used in these high mountains, as the soil is full of minerals. Khanum plucked out some freshly grown ripe tomatoes to show us and they looked delicious. They both enlightened me,“The soil of Siksa is very fertile; all we needed was enough water for irrigation. We are so grateful to the NGO for helping us.Interestingly, the community contributed around one-fifth to the project cost and the labour.The water storage tank was built a year ago, and is supplied by a pipeline that transports water from a natural spring high up in the mountains above Siksa, situated at an elevation of around 11,000 feet. The pipeline is buried in the soil so it does not freeze in the winter. It is a simple technology based on the steep gradient of the mountain slopes, but it has proved to be a near miracle for the 500 households of Siksa village. The storage tank high above the village supplies water to various irrigation channels flowing down to the settlements below.I climbed up to take a look at one of them and indeed the water was gushing down the slopes. Today, around 4,000 community members are benefiting from this scheme. The storage tank has a capacity of 8,000 gallons (from both spring water and snow melt). It was inaugurated in the spring of 2017 and that summer, they had their first big crop of vegetables. This year, another bumper crop has arrived of tomatoes, onions and potatoes, which they can sell to the nearby markets.For More detail:https://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/71762/siksa-valley-turning-gilgit-baltistans-barren-lands-into-green-miracles/
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Products > Commercial HVAC
Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC)
Mitsubishi CITY MULTI
Mitsubishi Electric is a world leader in all types of quality products. Our consumer products, like high-definition televisions and home theater systems, have won awards for innovation and quality.
Semi-conductors, opto-electronics devices, communication products, power generation systems, and, of course, heating and air-conditioning systems are all a part of the global Mitsubishi Electric family.
Quality describes the products engineered and manufactured by Mitsubishi Electric. Quality is what comes to mind when we think of Mitsubishi televisions, elevators, and air-handling systems – quality because the majority of components found in Mitsubishi Electric products are made by Mitsubishi Electric factories. Quality comes from a company that controls its own research, development, design, materials and manufacturing.
From beginning to end, it is all Mitsubishi Electric engineering. It is all about quality.
The technological advances developed by Mitsubishi Electric are apparent as innovative features throughout all of Mitsubishi Electric’s products. Efficient and technologically advanced motors, controls, INVERTER-driven compressors and microprocessors are all developed by Mitsubishi Electric and used in CITY MULTI Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) zoning systems. Cross-functional engineering allows Mitsubishi Electric to provide innovative new products in the United States that have proven track records worldwide
Mitsubishi Electric Cooling and Heating Solutions promotes environmental awareness not only by putting innovative technology to work for you, but also in the products themselves of the design and manufacture for example:
Eco-friendly refrigerant - Environmentally-friendly R410A refrigerant offers zero Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) and allows for higher heat transfer coefficient (COP). This innovative feature means a reduction in equipment size, a reduction in piping size and higher pressure for greater performance. Smaller equipment also means less impact on the environment at the end of the product’s life cycle.
All Mitsubishi Electric products follow standards and guidelines as set forth by the ENERGY STAR, EPA, AHRI, ASHRAE, UL, ETL and ISO.
Recycling design
Our air conditioners are specially designed to allow for easy cleaning, efficient disassembly and more practical recycling. The number of parts used in indoor units has been reduced by adopting modular components, a process which also simplifies materials separation for recycling.
Minimal impact on landfills
All air-conditioning products use long-life washable filters rather than disposable filters. To date, as much as 89.8 percent of the materials used to build a standard CITY MULTI system component are recyclable.
Smart energy usage
Mitsubishi Electric INVERTER zoning systems smartly deliver only the amount of capacity needed– unlike a typical full-power ON system. Individual indoor air handlers are installed each zone. These air handlers measure the load for each zone and deliver only the capacity needed directly there, reducing energy costs from long duct runs. Smarter sensing technology and microprocessors enhance the system’s ability to accurately measure room temperature
CITY MULTI advantage
The best way to ensure total comfort for the occupants of offices, schools, hospitals, assisted-living facilities, hotels and other is to provide each individual zone with a personalized comfort system. Zoning offers maximum individual comfort and energy savings because each zone receives conditioning only when it needs it. Each zone of the CITY MULTI system has its own indoor unit or group of indoor units that precisely control the indoor temperature, while operating with minimal energy usage.
You set the comfort level, then relax. The CITY MULTI VRF (Variable Refrigerant Flow Zoning) system takes advantage of INVERTER technology by varying the speed of the compressor in the outdoor unit to meet the changing load requirements in each of the indoor zones.
Whisper Quiet
CITY MULTI is designed to provide the quietest possible operation for both indoor and outdoor environments. Indoor units operate as low as 24 dB(A), and outdoor units operate as low as 58 dB(A). That’s a major benefit, especially for hospitals, other health care facilities, schools, and libraries. CITY MULTI dependably provides comfortable cooling and heating all year long.
The CITY MULTI technology is designed to allow building owners and designers as many opportunities as possible to attain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) points when designing and applying CITY MULTI. Mitsubishi Electric is a corporate member of U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and is committed to sustainable products and design.
CITY MULTI VRF technology may contribute to a building receiving LEED points in areas of Energy and Atmosphere and Indoor Air Quality.
Commercial HVAC Products
City Multi
R2 Series
10 Earl's Lane
Smiths FL06
COPYRIGHT 2019 EFFtech. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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LG ELECTRONICS SUPPLIES ITS MOST ADVANCED TECHNOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS
The installation of the video scoreboards of the Wanda Metropolitano begins
June 2, 2017 - 16:29
Our new home will have three giant screens in the stands and a 360º ribbon board, one-of-a-kind in Spanish football stadiums.
Technology will be one of the pillars of the Wanda Metropolitano. The club has been working for months on the experience of the spectator and has counted with the best partners. Regarding the screens, our partner is LG Electronics, the club’s image and sound technology supplier, which will supply the three video scoreboards, 900 great format IPTVs monitors distributed throughout the stadium and a 360º ribbon board, one-of-a-kind in Spain.
Today has begun the installation of the video scoreboards in the north end, one of the three that will be used to interact with the fans during the matches. Two of these video scoreboards are in the north and south ends and occupy 84 m2 (15 x 5,6m). The other one, 56m2 (10 x 5,6 m), is in the upper stand of the east side.
The audio-visual experience will be spectacular since we will add a 360º ribbon board to these giant screens, the first in a football stadium in our country. A ring between the lower and middle stand made up by more than 530 m2 of LED panels.
The location of the screens has been designed to make the visibility of the fans possible from any point in the stadium. The objective is that the Atlético fans can enjoy exclusive contents that add to the sports show. A unique experience for the red and white family.
etiquetas: Wanda Metropolitano, 2016-2017, Atlético de Madrid
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Wikipedia: Africa
Filed under: — admin @ 3:44 pm
For other uses, see Africa (disambiguation).
30,221,532 km² (11,668,598.7 sq mi)
922,011,000[1](2005, 2nd)
30.51/km² (about 80/sq mi)
Madeira Islands
African Languages and many others
UTC-1 (Cape Verde) to UTC+4 (Mauritius)
Africa is the world’s second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² (11.7 million sq mi) including adjacent islands, it covers 6 percent of the Earth’s total surface area and 20.4 percent of the total land area.[2] With about 922 million people (as of 2005)[3] in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.2 percent of the world’s human population. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. There are 46 countries including Madagascar, and 53 including all the island groups.
Africa, particularly central eastern Africa, is widely regarded within the scientific community to be the origin of humans and the Hominidae tree (great apes), as evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their possible ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago – including Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis and H. ergaster – with the earliest Homo sapiens (human) found in Ethiopia being dated to ca. 200,000 years ago.[4]
Africa straddles the equator and encompasses numerous climate areas; it is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones.[5] Because of the lack of natural regular precipitation and irrigation as well as glaciers or mountain aquifer systems, there is no natural moderating effect on the climate except near the coasts.[citation needed]
2.1 Climate, fauna, and flora
3.1 Early civilisations and trade
3.2 Pre-colonial exploration
3.3 Colonialism and the “scramble for Africa”
3.4 Post-colonial Africa
4.1 Country name changes
7 Languages
8.1 Music and dance
8.2 Legends of Africa
9 Territories and regions
Afri was the name of several peoples who dwelt in North Africa near Carthage. Their name is usually connected with Phoenician afar, “dust”, but a 1981 theory[6] has asserted that it stems from a Berber word ifri meaning “cave”, in reference to cave dwellers.
In Roman times, Carthage became the capital of Africa Province, which also included the coastal part of modern Libya. The Roman suffix “-ca” denotes “country or land”.[7] The later Muslim kingdom of Ifriqiya, modern-day Tunisia, also preserved a form of the name.
Other etymologies that have been postulated for the ancient name “Africa”:
the 1st-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (Ant. 1.15) asserted that it was named for Epher, grandson of Abraham according to Gen. 25:4, whose descendants, he claimed, had invaded Libya.
the Latin word aprica, meaning “sunny”, mentioned by Isidore of Seville (sixth century) in Etymologiae XIV.5.2
the Greek word aphrike, meaning “without cold.” This was proposed by historian Leo Africanus (1488–1554), who suggested the Greek word phrike (φρίκη, meaning “cold and horror”), combined with the privative prefix “a-“, thus indicating a land free of cold and horror.
The Irish female name Aifric is sometimes Anglicised as Africa, but the personal name is unrelated to the geonym: Latin references to a place called Africa predate the Romans’ first encounters with Celtic tribes and their languages by many years.
Main article: Geography of Africa
A composite satellite image of Africa
Africa is the largest of the three great southward projections from the main mass of the Earth’s exposed surface. Separated from Europe by the Mediterranean Sea, it is joined to Asia at its northeast extremity by the Isthmus of Suez (transected by the Suez Canal), 163 km (101 miles) wide.[8] (Geopolitically, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula east of the Suez Canal is often considered part of Africa, as well. [6] [7]) From the most northerly point, Ras ben Sakka in Tunisia (37°21′ N), to the most southerly point, Cape Agulhas in South Africa (34°51’15” S), is a distance of approximately 8,000 km (5,000 miles);[9] from Cape Verde, 17°33’22” W, the westernmost point, to Ras Hafun in Somalia, 51°27’52” E, the most easterly projection, is a distance of approximately 7,400 km (4,600 miles).[10] The coastline is 26,000 km (16,100 miles) long, and the absence of deep indentations of the shore is illustrated by the fact that Europe, which covers only 10,400,000 km² (4,010,000 square miles) – about a third of the surface of Africa – has a coastline of 32,000 km (19,800 miles).[10]
Africa’s largest country is Sudan, and its smallest country is the Seychelles, an archipelago off the east coast.[11] The smallest nation on the continental mainland is The Gambia.
According to the ancient Romans, Africa lay to the west of Egypt, while “Asia” was used to refer to Anatolia and lands to the east. A definite line was drawn between the two continents by the geographer Ptolemy (85–165 AD), indicating Alexandria along the Prime Meridian and making the isthmus of Suez and the Red Sea the boundary between Asia and Africa. As Europeans came to understand the real extent of the continent, the idea of Africa expanded with their knowledge.
Climate, fauna, and flora
The climate of Africa ranges from tropical to subarctic on its highest peaks. Its northern half is primarily desert or arid, while its central and southern areas contain both savanna plains and very dense jungle (rainforest) regions. In between, there is a convergence where vegetation patterns such as sahel, and steppe dominate.
Africa boasts perhaps the world’s largest combination of density and “range of freedom” of wild animal populations and diversity, with wild populations of large carnivores (such as lions, hyenas, and cheetahs) and herbivores (such as buffalo, deer, elephants, camels, and giraffes) ranging freely on primarily open non-private plains. It is also home to a variety of jungle creatures (including snakes and primates) and aquatic life (including crocodiles and amphibians)(see also: Fauna of Africa).
Main article: History of Africa
1890 map of Africa
Africa is considered by most paleoanthropologists to be the oldest inhabited territory on Earth, with the human species originating from the continent. During the middle of the twentieth century, anthropologists discovered many fossils and evidence of human occupation perhaps as early as 7 million years ago. Fossil remains of several species of early apelike humans thought to have evolved into modern man, such as Australopithecus afarensis (radiometrically dated to approximately 3.9–3.0 million years BC),[12] Paranthropus boisei (c. 2.3–1.4 million BC)[13] and Homo ergaster (c. 600,000–1.9 million BC) have been discovered.[2]
The Ishango bone, dated to about 25,000 years ago, shows tallies in mathematical notation. Throughout humanity’s prehistory, Africa (like all other continents) had no nation states, and was instead inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers such as the Khoi and San.[14][15][16]
At the end of the Ice Ages, estimated to have been around 10,500 BC, the Sahara had become a green fertile valley again, and its African populations returned from the interior and coastal highlands in Sub-Saharan Africa[citation needed]. However, the warming and drying climate meant that by 5000 BC the Sahara region was becoming increasingly drier. The population trekked out of the Sahara region towards the Nile Valley below the Second Cataract where they made permanent or semi-permanent settlements. A major climatic recession occurred, lessening the heavy and persistent rains in Central and Eastern Africa. Since then dry conditions have prevailed in Eastern Africa, especially in Ethiopia in the last 200 years.
The domestication of cattle in Africa precedes agriculture and seems to have existed alongside hunter-gathering cultures. It is speculated that by 6000 BC cattle were already domesticated in North Africa.[17] In the Sahara-Nile complex, people domesticated many animals including the pack ass, and a small screw horned goat which was common from Algeria to Nubia.
Agriculturally, the first cases of domestication of plants for agricultural purposes occurred in the Sahel region circa 5000 BC, when sorghum and African rice began to be cultivated. Around this time, and in the same region, the small guinea fowl became domesticated.
According to the Oxford Atlas of World History, in the year 4000 BC the climate of the Sahara started to become drier at an exceedingly fast pace.[18] This climate change caused lakes and rivers to shrink rather significantly and caused increasing desertification. This, in turn, decreased the amount of land conducive to settlements and helped to cause migrations of farming communities to the more tropical climate of West Africa.[18]
By 3000 BC agriculture arose independently in both the tropical portions of West Africa, where African yams and oil palms were domesticated, and in Ethiopia, where coffee and teff became domesticated. No animals were independently domesticated in these regions, although domestication did spread there from the Sahel and Nile regions.[19] Agricultural crops were also adopted from other regions around this time as pearl millet, cowpea, groundnut, cotton, watermelon and bottle gourds began to be grown agriculturally in both West Africa and the Sahel Region while finger millet, peas, lentil and flax took hold in Ethiopia.[20]
The international phenomenon known as the Beaker culture began to affect western North Africa. Named for the distinctively shaped ceramics found in graves, the Beaker culture is associated with the emergence of a warrior mentality. North African rock art of this period depicts animals but also places a new emphasis on the human figure, equipped with weapons and adornments. People from the Great Lakes Region of Africa settled along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea to become the proto-Canaanites who dominated the lowlands between the Jordan River, the Mediterranean and the Sinai Desert.
By the 1st millennium BC ironworking had been introduced in Northern Africa and quickly began spreading across the Sahara into the northern parts of sub-Saharan Africa[21] and by 500 BC metalworking began to become commonplace in West Africa, possibly after being introduced by the Carthaginians. Ironworking was fully established by roughly 500 BC in areas of East and West Africa, though other regions didn’t begin iron working until the early centuries AD. Some copper objects from Egypt, North Africa, Nubia and Ethiopia have been excavated in West Africa dating from around 500 BC, suggesting that trade networks had been established by this time.[18]
Early civilisations and trade
About 3300 BC, the historical record opens in Africa with the rise of literacy in the Pharaonic-ruled civilisation of Ancient Egypt, which continued, with varying levels of influence over other areas, until 343 BC.[22][23] Prominent civilisations at different times include Carthage, the Kingdom of Aksum, the Nubian kingdoms, the empires of the Sahel (Kanem-Bornu, Ghana, Mali, and Songhai), Great Zimbabwe, and the Kongo.[24][25]
After the Sahara had become a desert it did not present an impenetrable barrier for travellers between north and south. Even prior to the introduction of the camel[26] the use of oxen for desert crossing was common, and trade routes followed oases that were strung across the desert. The camel was first brought to Egypt by the Persians after Persia conquered Egypt in 525 BC, although large herds did not become common enough in North Africa to establish the trans-Saharan trade until the eighth century AD.[27] The Sanhaja Berbers were the first to exploit this.
In the early seventh century, the newly formed Caliphate expanded into Egypt, and then into North Africa. Soon after the local Berber elite were integrated into Muslim Arab tribes. When the Ummayad capital Damascus fell in the eight century, the Islamic center of the Mediterranean shifted from Syria to Qayrawan in North Africa. Islamic North Africa had become diverse, and a hub for mystics, scholars, jurists and philosophers. During the above mentioned period, Islam spread to sub-Saharan Africa, mainly through trade routes and migration. [28]
Pre-colonial Africa possessed perhaps as many as 10,000 different states and polities[29] characterised by different sorts of political organisation and rule. These included small family groups of hunter-gatherers such as the San people of southern Africa; larger, more structured groups such as the family clan groupings of the Bantu-speaking people of central and southern Africa and heavily-structured clan groups in the Horn of Africa, the Sahelian Kingdoms, autonomous city-states such as the Swahili coastal trading towns of the East African coast, whose trade network extended as far as China, and large slave-trading empires that dominated the weaker tribes around them.
Between the seventh and fifteenth centuries, the Arab slave trade emerged, which by the twentieth century would eventually take as many as 18 million slaves from Africa to parts of the Muslim world.[30][31] This was as voluminous as the later Atlantic slave trade. [32]
In 1418, the fifth expedition by Chinese admiral Zheng He reached Africa’s east coast. The two later Zheng He voyages, the last in 1432, also sailed to East Africa. The Chinese traveled at least as far as Malindi in Kenya. 1482, the Portuguese established the first of many trading stations along the coast of Ghana at Elmina. The chief commodities dealt in were slaves, gold, ivory and spices. The European discovery of the Americas in 1492 was followed by a great development of the slave trade, which, before the Portuguese era, had been an overland trade almost exclusively[33], and never confined to any one continent.[34]
In West Africa, the decline of the Atlantic slave trade in the 1820s caused dramatic economic shifts in local polities. The gradual decline of slave-trading, prompted by a lack of demand for slaves in the New World, increasing anti-slavery legislation in Europe and America, and the British navy’s increasing presence off the West African coast (see West Africa Squadron), obliged African states to adopt new economies. The largest powers of West Africa: the Asante Confederacy, the Kingdom of Dahomey, and the Oyo Empire, adopted different ways of adapting to the shift. Asante and Dahomey concentrated on the development of “legitimate commerce” in the form of palm oil, cocoa, timber and gold, forming the bedrock of West Africa’s modern export trade. The Oyo Empire, unable to adapt, collapsed into civil wars.[35]
Pre-colonial exploration
In the mid-nineteenth century, European explorers became interested in exploring the heart of the continent and opening the area for trade, mining and other commercial exploitation. In addition, there was a desire to convert the inhabitants to Christianity. The central area of Africa was still largely unknown to Europeans at this time. David Livingstone explored the continent between 1852 and his death in 1873; amongst other claims to fame, he was the first European to see the Victoria Falls. A prime goal for explorers was to locate the source of the River Nile. Expeditions by Burton and Speke (1857–1858) and Speke and Grant (1863) located Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria. The latter was eventually proven as the main source of the Nile. With subsequent expeditions by Baker and Stanley, Africa was well explored by the end of the century and this was to lead the way for the colonization which followed.
Colonialism and the “scramble for Africa”
This section does not cite any references or sources. (March 2007)
Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
Main article: Colonization of Africa
Map showing European territorial claims on the African continent in 1914
In the late nineteenth century, the European imperial powers engaged in a major territorial scramble and occupied most of the continent, creating many colonial nation states, and leaving only two independent nations: Liberia, an independent state partly settled by African Americans; and Orthodox Christian Ethiopia (known to Europeans as “Abyssinia”). Colonial rule by Europeans would continue until after the conclusion of World War II, when all colonial states gradually obtained formal independence.
Colonialism had a destabilising effect on a number of ethnic groups that is still being felt in African politics. Before European influence, national borders were not much of a concern, with Africans generally following the practice of other areas of the world, such as the Arabian Peninsula, where a group’s territory was congruent with its military or trade influence. The European insistence of drawing borders around territories to isolate them from those of other colonial powers often had the effect of separating otherwise contiguous political groups, or forcing traditional enemies to live side by side with no buffer between them. For example, although the Congo River appears to be a natural geographic boundary, there were groups that otherwise shared a language, culture or other similarity living on both sides. The division of the land between Belgium and France along the river isolated these groups from each other. Those who lived in Saharan or Sub-Saharan Africa and traded across the continent for centuries often found themselves crossing borders that existed only on European maps.
In nations that had substantial European populations, for example Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa, systems of second-class citizenship were often set up in order to give Europeans political power far in excess of their numbers. In the Congo Free State, personal property of King Leopold II of Belgium, the native population was submitted to inhumane treatment, and a near slavery status assorted with forced labor. However, the lines were not always drawn strictly across racial lines. In Liberia, citizens who were descendants of American slaves had a political system for over 100 years that gave ex-slaves and natives to the area roughly equal legislative power despite the fact the ex-slaves were outnumbered ten to one in the general population.
Europeans often altered the local balance of power, created ethnic divides where they did not previously exist, and introduced a cultural dichotomy detrimental to the native inhabitants in the areas they controlled. For example, in what are now Rwanda and Burundi, two ethnic groups Hutus and Tutsis had merged into one culture by the time German colonists had taken control of the region in the nineteenth century. No longer divided by ethnicity as intermingling, intermarriage, and merging of cultural practices over the centuries had long since erased visible signs of a culture divide, Belgium instituted a policy of racial categorization upon taking control of the region, as racially based categorization and philosophies were a fixture of the European culture of that time. The term Hutu originally referred to the agricultural-based Bantu-speaking peoples that moved into present day Rwanda and Burundi from the West, and the term Tutsi referred to Northeastern cattle-based peoples that migrated into the region later. The terms described a person’s economic class; individuals who owned roughly 10 or more cattle were considered Tutsi, and those with fewer were considered Hutu, regardless of ancestral history. This was not a strict line but a general rule of thumb, and one could move from Hutu to Tutsi and vice versa.
The Belgians introduced a racialized system; European-like features such as fairer skin, ample height, narrow noses were seen as more ideally Hamitic, and belonged to those people closest to Tutsi in ancestry, who were thus given power amongst the colonised peoples. Identity cards were issued based on this philosophy.
Tunisia was the first country in Africa to gain Independence, doing so in 1956. The decades-long struggle for independence from France was led by Habib Bourguiba, founder of the Republic of Tunisia.
Post-colonial Africa
Today, Africa contains 53 independent and sovereign countries, most of which still have the borders drawn during the era of European colonialism.
Since colonialism, African states have frequently been hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism. The vast majority of African nations are republics that operate under some form of the presidential system of rule. However, few of them have been able to sustain democratic governments, and many have instead cycled through a series of coups, producing military dictatorships. A number of Africa’s post-colonial political leaders were military generals who were poorly educated and ignorant on matters of governance. Great instability, however, was mainly the result of marginalization of other ethnic groups and graft under these leaders. For political gain, many leaders fanned ethnic conflicts that had been exacerbated, or even created, by colonial rule. In many countries, the military was perceived as being the only group that could effectively maintain order, and it ruled many nations in Africa during the 1970s and early 1980s. During the period from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, Africa had more than 70 coups and 13 presidential assassinations. Border and territorial disputes were also common, with the European-imposed borders of many nations being widely contested through armed conflicts.
Cold War conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as the policies of the International Monetary Fund, also played a role in instability. When a country became independent for the first time, it was often expected to align with one of the two superpowers. Many countries in Northern Africa received Soviet military aid, while many in Central and Southern Africa were supported by the United States, France or both. The 1970s saw an escalation, as newly independent Angola and Mozambique aligned themselves with the Soviet Union and the West and South Africa sought to contain Soviet influence by funding insurgency movements. Some countries were ruled by communist parties that sought to impose Soviet policies resulting in atrocities such as the Ethiopian famine of 1984–85.
AIDS has also been a prevalent issue in post-colonial Africa. See article AIDS in Africa.
Political map of Africa. (Hover mouse to see name, click area to go to article.)
The African Union (AU) is a federation consisting of all of Africa’s states except Morocco. The union was formed, with Addis Ababa as its headquarters, on June 26, 2001. In July 2004, the African Union’s Pan-African Parliament (PAP) was relocated to Midrand, in South Africa, but the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights remained in Addis Ababa. There is a policy in effect to decentralise the African Federation’s institutions so that they are shared by all the states.
The African Union, not to be confused with the AU Commission, is formed by an Act of Union which aims to transform the African Economic Community, a federated commonwealth, into a state, under established international conventions. The African Union has a parliamentary government, known as the African Union Government, consisting of legislative, judicial and executive organs, and led by the African Union President and Head of State, who is also the President of the Pan African Parliament. A person becomes AU President by being elected to the PAP, and subsequently gaining majority support in the PAP.
President Gertrude Ibengwe Mongella is the Head of State and Chief of Government of the African Union, by virtue of the fact that she is the President of the Pan African Parliament. She was elected by Parliament in its inaugural session in March 2004, for a term of five years. The PAP consists of 265 legislators, five from each constituent state of the African Union. Over 21% of the members are female.[citation needed]
The powers and authority of the President of the African Parliament derive from the Union Act, and the Protocol of the Pan African Parliament, as well as the inheritance of presidential authority stipulated by African treaties and by international treaties, including those subordinating the Secretary General of the OAU Secretariat (AU Commission) to the PAP. The government of the AU consists of all-union (federal), regional, state, and municipal authorities, as well as hundreds of institutions, that together manage the day-to-day affairs of the institution.
Failed state policies, inequitable global trade practices, and climatic conditions (especially drought) have resulted in many widespread famines, and significant portions of Africa remain with distribution systems unable to disseminate enough food or water for the population to survive. What had before colonialism been the source for 90% of the world’s gold has become the poorest continent on earth, its former riches enjoyed by those on other continents. The spread of disease is also rampant, especially the spread of the HIV and the associated AIDS, which has become a deadly pandemic on the continent.
There are clear signs of increased networking among African organisations and states. In the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (former Zaire), rather than rich, non-African countries intervening, neighbouring African countries became involved (see also Second Congo War). Since the conflict began in 1998, the estimated death toll has reached 4 million.[36] Political associations such as the African Union offer hope for greater co-operation and peace between the continent’s many countries. Extensive human rights abuses still occur in several parts of Africa, often under the oversight of the state. Most of such violations occur for political reasons, often as a side effect of civil war. Countries where major human rights violations have been reported in recent times include the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Côte d’Ivoire.
Country name changes
See also: Africanization
Numerous African countries have undergone name changes during the previous century as the result of consolidations and secessions, territories gaining sovereignty, and regime changes.
Portuguese West Africa 1975 Angola, Republic of
Dahomey, Republic of 1975 Benin, Republic of
Bechuanaland, Protectorate 1966 Botswana, Republic of
Upper Volta 1984 Burkina Faso
Oubangui-Chari 1960 Central African Republic
Zaire, Republic of 1965 Congo, Democratic Republic of the
Middle Congo 1960 Congo, Republic of the
Ivory Coast, The 1985 Côte d’Ivoire, Republic of
Afars and the Issas, Territory of 1977 Djibouti, Republic of
Spanish Guinea 1968 Equatorial Guinea, Republic of
Abyssinia 1941 Ethiopia, Federal Democratic Republic of
Gold Coast 1957 Ghana, Republic of
French West Africa (part of) 1958 Guinea, Republic of
Portuguese Guinea 1974 Guinea-Bissau, Republic of
Basutoland, Territory of 1966 Lesotho, Kingdom of
Nyasaland Protectorate 1964 Malawi, Republic of
French Sudan 1960 Mali, Republic of
South West Africa 1990 Namibia, Republic of
German East Africa / Ruanda-Urundi 1962 Rwanda, Republic of / Burundi, Republic of
British Somaliland / Italian Somaliland 1960 Somalia Republic
Zanzibar / Tanganyika 1964 Tanzania, United Republic of
Buganda 1962 Uganda, Republic of
Northern Rhodesia 1964 Zambia, Republic of
Southern Rhodesia 1980 Zimbabwe, Republic of
Main article: Economy of Africa
African Economic Community map
Although it has abundant natural resources, Africa remains the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continent, due largely to the effects of: tropical diseases, the slave trade, corrupt governments, failed central planning, the international trade regime and geopolitics; as well as widespread human rights violations, the negative effects of colonialism, despotism, illiteracy, superstition, tribal savagery and military conflict (ranging from war and civil war to guerrilla warfare to genocide).[37] According to the United Nations’ Human Development Report in 2003, the bottom 25 ranked nations (151st to 175th) were all African nations.[38]
Widespread poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition and inadequate water supply and sanitation, as well as poor health, affect a large majority of the people who reside in the African continent, where 36.2% of the population is living on under $1 per day. Africa is by far the world’s poorest inhabited continent, and on average, in 2003 it was poorer than it was in 1973.[39]
Some areas, notably Botswana and South Africa, have experienced economic success. The latter has a wealth of natural resources, being the world’s leading producer of both gold and diamonds, and having a well-established legal system. South Africa also has access to financial capital, numerous markets, skilled labor, and first world infrastructure in much of the country and has one of the major stock exchanges of the continent, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.
Over a quarter of Botswana’s budget (also a major diamond producer) goes toward improving the infrastructure of Gaborone, the nation’s capital, largest city, and one of the world’s fastest growing cities. Other African countries are making comparable progress, such as Ghana, Cameroon and Egypt.
On the other hand, 80% of Zimbabweans are unemployed. Two million of the country’s residents have fled to Botswana and South Africa. Inflation rates, which fluctuate wildly, average out to more than 1000% a year, and the Zimbabwean dollar has depreciated against the U.S. dollar from 38 to 1 in 1999 to more than 5,000 to 1. Hunger and starvation are widespread, and consumer shortages abound. Since 1998, Zimbabwe’s per capita gross domestic product has slid from about $700 to less than $200. Death rates have skyrocketed, and school attendance has plummeted. Once a country with a strong economy for Sub-Saharan Africa’s standards, natural resources and a tolerant society, Zimbabwe is now one of the poorest and most bitterly divided countries in the continent, brought to ruin in less than two decades.
Nigeria sits on one of the largest proven oil reserves in the world and has the highest population among nations in Africa, with one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
From 1995 to 2005, economic growth picked up, averaging 5% in 2005. However, some countries experienced much higher growth (10+%) in particular, Angola, Sudan and Equatorial Guinea, all three of which have recently begun extracting their petroleum reserves or have expanded their oil extraction capacity.
Total GDP (nominal) in 2006[40]
(billion US$)
GDP (PPP) per capita in 2005[41]
(US$)
HDI in 2005[42]
Algeria &&&&&&&&&&&&0114.730000114.73 &&&&&&&&&&&05985.&&&&&05,985 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.7330000.733
Angola &&&&&&&&&&&&&044.&3000044.03 &&&&&&&&&&&03533.&&&&&03,533 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4460000.446
Benin &&&&&&&&&&&&&&04.7800004.78 &&&&&&&&&&&01390.&&&&&01,390 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4370000.437
Botswana &&&&&&&&&&&&&010.33000010.33 &&&&&&&&&&012057.&&&&&012,057 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.6540000.654
Burkina Faso &&&&&&&&&&&&&&06.2100006.21 &&&&&&&&&&&01140.&&&&&01,140 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3700000.370
Burundi &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.8100000.81 &&&&&&&&&&&&0699.&&&&&0699 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4130000.413
Cameroon &&&&&&&&&&&&&018.32000018.32 &&&&&&&&&&&01995.&&&&&01,995 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5320000.532
Cape Verde &&&&&&&&&&&&&&01.1400001.14 &&&&&&&&&&&02831.&&&&&02,831 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.7360000.736
Central African Republic &&&&&&&&&&&&&&01.4900001.49 &&&&&&&&&&&&0675.&&&&&0675 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3840000.384
Chad &&&&&&&&&&&&&&06.5400006.54 &&&&&&&&&&&01749.&&&&&01,749 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3880000.388
Comoros &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4.0E+50.40 &&&&&&&&&&&01063.&&&&&01,063 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5610000.561
Democratic Republic of the Congo &&&&&&&&&&&&&&08.5400008.54 &&&&&&&&&&&&0264.&&&&&0264 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4110000.411
Congo &&&&&&&&&&&&&&07.3900007.39 &&&&&&&&&&&03621.&&&&&03,621 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5480000.548
Côte d’Ivoire &&&&&&&&&&&&&017.48000017.48 &&&&&&&&&&&01575.&&&&&01,575 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4320000.432
Djibouti &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.7600000.76 &&&&&&&&&&&01964.&&&&&01,964 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5160000.516
Egypt &&&&&&&&&&&&0107.480000107.48 &&&&&&&&&&&05051.&&&&&05,051 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.7080000.708
Equatorial Guinea &&&&&&&&&&&&&&08.5600008.56 &&&&&&&&&&011999.&&&&&011,999 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.6420000.642
Eritrea &&&&&&&&&&&&&&01.&900001.09 &&&&&&&&&&&&0689.&&&&&0689 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4830000.483
Ethiopia &&&&&&&&&&&&&013.32000013.32 &&&&&&&&&&&&0591.&&&&&0591 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4060000.406
Gabon &&&&&&&&&&&&&&09.5500009.55 &&&&&&&&&&012742.&&&&&012,742 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.6770000.677
Gambia &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5100000.51 &&&&&&&&&&&&0726.&&&&&0726 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5020000.502
Ghana &&&&&&&&&&&&&012.91000012.91 &&&&&&&&&&&01225.&&&&&01,225 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5530000.553
Guinea &&&&&&&&&&&&&&03.3200003.32 &&&&&&&&&&&&0946.&&&&&0946 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4560000.456
Guinea-Bissau &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3.0E+50.30 &&&&&&&&&&&&0569.&&&&&0569 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3740000.374
Kenya &&&&&&&&&&&&&021.19000021.19 &&&&&&&&&&&01359.&&&&&01,359 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5210000.521
Lesotho &&&&&&&&&&&&&&01.4800001.48 &&&&&&&&&&&01415.&&&&&01,415 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5490000.549
Liberia &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.6300000.63 &&&&&&&&&&&&0383.&&&&&0383 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.&&&&&00.? N/A
Libya &&&&&&&&&&&&&050.32000050.32 &&&&&&&&&&010727.&&&&&010,727 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.8180000.818
Madagascar &&&&&&&&&&&&&&05.5.0E+55.50 &&&&&&&&&&&&0988.&&&&&0988 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5330000.533
Malawi &&&&&&&&&&&&&&02.2300002.23 &&&&&&&&&&&&0691.&&&&&0691 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4370000.437
Mali &&&&&&&&&&&&&&05.9300005.93 &&&&&&&&&&&01027.&&&&&01,027 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3800000.380
Mauritania &&&&&&&&&&&&&&02.6600002.66 &&&&&&&&&&&01691.&&&&&01,691 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5500000.550
Mauritius &&&&&&&&&&&&&&06.4500006.45 &&&&&&&&&&010155.&&&&&010,155 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.8040000.804
Morocco &&&&&&&&&&&&&057.31000057.31 &&&&&&&&&&&03547.&&&&&03,547 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.6460000.646
Mozambique &&&&&&&&&&&&&&07.6100007.61 &&&&&&&&&&&&0743.&&&&&0743 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3840000.384
Namibia &&&&&&&&&&&&&&06.3700006.37 &&&&&&&&&&&04547.&&&&&04,547 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.6500000.650
Niger &&&&&&&&&&&&&&03.5400003.54 &&&&&&&&&&&&0613.&&&&&0613 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3740000.374
Nigeria &&&&&&&&&&&&0114.690000114.69 &&&&&&&&&&&01892.&&&&&01,892 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4700000.470
Réunion (France) &&&&&&&&&&&&&015.98000015.98[43] &&&&&&&&&&019233.&&&&&019,233 (nominal)[43] &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.8500000.850 (in 2003)[44]
Rwanda &&&&&&&&&&&&&&02.4900002.49 &&&&&&&&&&&&0813.&&&&&0813 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4520000.452
São Tomé and Príncipe &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.1200000.12 &&&&&&&&&&&01460.&&&&&01,460 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.6540000.654
Senegal &&&&&&&&&&&&&&08.9400008.94 &&&&&&&&&&&01676.&&&&&01,676 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4990000.499
Seychelles &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.7500000.75 &&&&&&&&&&013887.&&&&&013,887 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.8430000.843
Sierra Leone &&&&&&&&&&&&&&01.4400001.44 &&&&&&&&&&&&0790.&&&&&0790 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.3360000.336
Somalia &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.&600000.06[41] &&&&&&&&&&&&0199.&&&&&0199 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.&&&&&00.? N/A
South Africa &&&&&&&&&&&&0254.990000254.99 &&&&&&&&&&&08477.&&&&&08,477 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.6740000.674
Sudan &&&&&&&&&&&&&037.57000037.57 &&&&&&&&&&&02249.&&&&&02,249 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5260000.526
Swaziland &&&&&&&&&&&&&&02.6500002.65 &&&&&&&&&&&04384.&&&&&04,384 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5470000.547
Tanzania &&&&&&&&&&&&&012.78000012.78 &&&&&&&&&&&01018.&&&&&01,018 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4670000.467
Togo &&&&&&&&&&&&&&02.2100002.21 &&&&&&&&&&&&0888.&&&&&0888 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5120000.512
Tunisia &&&&&&&&&&&&&030.3.0E+530.30 &&&&&&&&&&&06461.&&&&&06,461 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.7660000.766
Uganda &&&&&&&&&&&&&&09.3200009.32 &&&&&&&&&&&&0991.&&&&&0991 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5050000.505
Zambia &&&&&&&&&&&&&010.91000010.91 &&&&&&&&&&&01175.&&&&&01,175 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.4340000.434
Zimbabwe &&&&&&&&&&&&&&05.&100005.01 &&&&&&&&&&&&0538.&&&&&0538 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&00.5130000.513
Main articles: African people and Demographics of Africa
The last 40 years have seen a rapid increase in population; hence, this population is relatively young. In some African states half or more of the population is under 25 years old.[45]
Speakers of Bantu languages (part of the Niger-Congo family) are the majority in southern, central and East Africa proper. But there are also several Nilotic groups in East Africa, and a few remaining indigenous Khoisan (‘San’ or ‘Bushmen’) and Pygmy peoples in southern and central Africa, respectively. Bantu-speaking Africans also predominate in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and are found in parts of southern Cameroon and southern Somalia. In the Kalahari Desert of Southern Africa, the distinct people known as the Bushmen (also “San”, closely related to, but distinct from “Hottentots”) have long been present. The San are physically distinct from other Africans and are the indigenous people of southern Africa. Pygmies are the pre-Bantu indigenous peoples of central Africa.
The peoples of North Africa comprise two main groups; Berber and Arabic-speaking peoples in the west, and Egyptians in the east. The Arabs who arrived in the seventh century introduced the Arabic language and Islam to North Africa. The Semitic Phoenicians, the European Greeks, Romans and Vandals settled in North Africa as well. Berbers still make up the majority in Morocco, while they are a significant minority within Algeria. They are also present in Tunisia and Libya. The Tuareg and other often-nomadic peoples are the principal inhabitants of the Saharan interior of North Africa. Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan-speaking group (though many also speak Arabic), who developed an ancient civilisation in northeast Africa.
During the past century or so, small but economically important colonies of Lebanese and Chinese have also developed in the larger coastal cities of West and East Africa, respectively.
Some Ethiopian and Eritrean groups (like the Amhara and Tigrayans, collectively known as “Habesha”) speak Semitic languages. The Oromo and Somali peoples speak Cushitic languages, but some Somali clans trace their founding to legendary Arab founders. Sudan and Mauritania are divided between a mostly Arabized north and a native African south (although the “Arabs” of Sudan clearly have a predominantly native African ancestry themselves). Some areas of East Africa, particularly the island of Zanzibar and the Kenyan island of Lamu, received Arab Muslim and Southwest Asian settlers and merchants throughout the Middle Ages and in antiquity.
Beginning in the sixteenth century, Europeans such as the Portuguese and Dutch began to establish trading posts and forts along the coasts of western and southern Africa. Eventually, a large number of Dutch augmented by French Huguenots and Germans settled in what is today South Africa. Their descendants, the Afrikaners and the Coloureds, are the largest European-descended groups in Africa today. In the nineteenth century, a second phase of colonisation brought a large number of French and British settlers to Africa. The Portuguese settled mainly in Angola, but also in Mozambique. The French settled in large numbers in Algeria where they became known collectively as pieds-noirs, and on a smaller scale in other areas of North and West Africa as well as in Madagascar. The British settled chiefly in South Africa as well as the colony of Rhodesia, and in the highlands of what is now Kenya. Germans settled in what is now Tanzania and Namibia, and there is still a population of German-speaking white Namibians. Smaller numbers of European soldiers, businessmen, and officials also established themselves in administrative centers such as Nairobi and Dakar. Decolonisation during the 1960s often resulted in the mass emigration of European-descended settlers out of Africa – especially from Algeria, Angola, Kenya and Rhodesia. However, in South Africa and Namibia, the white minority remained politically dominant after independence from Europe, and a significant population of Europeans remained in these two countries even after democracy was finally instituted at the end of the Cold War. South Africa has also become the preferred destination of white Anglo-Zimbabweans, and of migrants from all over southern Africa.
European colonisation also brought sizeable groups of Asians, particularly people from the Indian subcontinent, to British colonies. Large Indian communities are found in South Africa, and smaller ones are present in Kenya, Tanzania, and some other southern and East African countries. The large Indian community in Uganda was expelled by the dictator Idi Amin in 1972, though many have since returned. The islands in the Indian Ocean are also populated primarily by people of Asian origin, often mixed with Africans and Europeans. The Malagasy people of Madagascar are a Austronesian people, but those along the coast are generally mixed with Bantu, Arab, Indian and European origins. Malay and Indian ancestries are also important components in the group of people known in South Africa as Cape Coloureds (people with origins in two or more races and continents).
Main article: African languages
Map showing the distribution of African language families and some major African languages. Afro-Asiatic extends from the Sahel to Southwest Asia. Niger-Congo is divided to show the size of the Bantu sub-family.
Many African countries today have more than one official language.
By most estimates, Africa contains well over a thousand languages (some have estimated over two thousand), most of African origin and a few of European origin. Africa is the most polyglot continent in the world; it is not rare to find individuals there who fluently speak not only several African languages, but one or two European ones as well. There are four major language families native to Africa.
The Afro-Asiatic languages are a language family of about 240 languages and 285 million people widespread throughout East Africa, North Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia.
The Nilo-Saharan language family consists of more than a hundred languages spoken by 30 million people. Nilo-Saharan languages are mainly spoken in Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, and northern Tanzania.
The Niger-Congo language family covers much of Sub-Saharan Africa and is probably the largest language family in the world in terms of different languages. A substantial number of them are the Bantu languages spoken in much of sub-Saharan Africa.
The Khoisan languages number about fifty and are spoken in Southern Africa by approximately 120,000 people. Many of the Khoisan languages are endangered. The Khoi and San peoples are considered the original inhabitants of this part of Africa.
Following colonialism, nearly all African countries adopted official languages that originated outside the continent, although several countries nowadays also use various languages of native origin (such as Swahili) as their official language. In numerous countries, English and French (see African French) are used for communication in the public sphere such as government, commerce, education and the media. Arabic, Portuguese, Afrikaans and Malagasy are other examples of originally non-African languages that are used by millions of Africans today, both in the public and private spheres.
Main article: Culture of Africa
African culture is characterised by a vastly diverse patchwork of social values, ranging from extreme patriarchy to extreme matriarchy, sometimes in tribes existing side by side.
Modern African culture is characterised by conflicted responses to Arab nationalism and European imperialism. Increasingly, beginning in the late 1990s, Africans are reasserting their identity. In North Africa especially the rejection of the label Arab or European has resulted in an upsurge of demands for special protection of indigenous Amazigh languages and culture in Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. The re-emergence of Pan-Africanism since the fall of apartheid has heightened calls for a renewed sense of African identity. In South Africa, intellectuals from settler communities of European descent increasingly identify as African for cultural rather than geographical or racial reasons. Famously, some have undergone ritual ceremonies to become members of the Zulu or other community.
Much of the traditional African cultures have become impoverished as a result of years of neglect and suppression by colonial and neo-colonial regimes. There is now a resurgence in the attempts to rediscover and revalourise African traditional cultures, under such movements as the African Renaissance led by Thabo Mbeki, Afrocentrism led by an influential group of scholars including Molefi Asante, as well as the increasing recognition of traditional spiritualism through decriminalization of Vodou and other forms of spirituality. In recent years African traditional culture has become synonymous with rural poverty and subsistence farming.
Urban culture in Africa, now associated with Western values, is a great contrast from traditional African urban culture which was once rich and enviable even by modern Western standards. African cities such as Loango, M’banza Congo, Timbuktu, Thebes, Meroe and others had served as the world’s most affluent urban and industrial centers, clean, well-laid out, and full of universities, libraries, and temples.
The main and most enduring cultural fault-line in Africa is the divide between traditional pastoralists and agriculturalists. The divide is not, and never was based on economic competition, but rather on the colonial racial policy that identified pastoralists as constituting a different race from agriculturalists, and enforcing a form of apartheid between the two cultures beginning in the 1880s and lasting until the 1960s. Although European colonial powers were largely industrial, many of the administrators and philosophers, whose writings provided rationale for colonialism, applied quasi-scientific eugenics policies and racist politics on Africans in experiments of misguided social engineering.
Most of the racial recategorisation of Africans to fit European stereotypes was contradictory and incoherent. However, because their legalism and laws that emanated from these policies were backed by police force, the scientific establishment and economic power, Africans reacted by either conforming to the new rules, or rejecting them in favour of Pan-Africanism. All across Africa communities and individuals were measured by colonial eugenics boards and reassigned identities and ethnicities based on pseudoscience. The schools taught that in general Africans who resembled Europeans in some physical or cultural aspect were superior to other Africans and deserved more privileges.
The easiest way to divide Africans was along economic lines. Pastoralists, agriculturalists, hunter-gatherers and Westernised Africans, all formed distinctly identifiable cultures each of which came to play a different and disfiguring role in Africa’s modern politics. The Westernised Africans, specifically Senegalese and Sudanese Nubians from urban centers such as Dakar and Khartoum, were used to serve as the bulk of colonial troops against the rural Africans. Pastoralists were radicalised by the wholesale confiscation of grazing lands in favour of plantations. Agriculturalists came into conflict for land and water with pastoralists after the traditional sharing arrangements had been destroyed by colonial policies.
75,000 year old Nassarius shell beads found in Blombos Cave, South Africa
In addition, a growing body of speculative anthropology and race science made false claims about the superiority and inferiority of Africans with different cultural and economic backgrounds. The vast majority of the scholarship on Africa was extraneous and catered to the demand for exotic and outlandish representations of Africa. The enforcement of the government decrees and policies tended to produce effects that confirmed the prejudices of the European colonialists.
African art and architecture reflect the diversity of African cultures. The oldest existing examples of art from Africa are 75,000 year old beads made from Nassarius shells that were found in Blombos Cave. The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt was the world’s tallest structure for 4,000 years until the completion of Lincoln Cathedral around 1300. The stone ruins of Great Zimbabwe are also noteworthy for their architecture, and the complex of monolithic churches at Lalibela, Ethiopia, of which the Church of St. George is representative, is regarded as another marvel of engineering.
Main article: Music of Africa
The music of Africa is one of its most dynamic art forms. Egypt has long been a cultural focus of the Arab world, while remembrance of the rhythms of sub-Saharan Africa, in particular West Africa, was transmitted through the Atlantic slave trade to modern samba, blues, jazz, reggae, rap, and rock and roll. The 1950s through the 1970s saw a conglomeration of these various styles with the popularization of Afrobeat and Highlife music. Modern music of the continent includes the highly complex choral singing of southern Africa and the dance rhythms of soukous, dominated by the music of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Recent developments include the emergence of African hip hop, in particular a form from Senegal blended with traditional mbalax, and Kwaito, a South African variant of house music. Afrikaans music, also found in South Africa, is idiosyncratic being composed mostly of traditional Boer music, while more recent immigrant communities have introduced the music of their homes to the continent.
Indigenous musical and dance traditions of Africa are maintained by oral traditions and they are distinct from the music and dance styles of North Africa and Southern Africa. Arab influences are visible in North African music and dance and in Southern Africa western influences are apparent due to colonisation.
Many African languages are tone languages, in which pitch level determines the meaning. This also finds expression in African musical melodies and rhythms. A variety of musical instruments are used, including drums (most widely used), bells, musical bow, lute, flute, and trumpet.
African dances are important mode of communication and dancers use gestures, masks, costumes, body painting and a number of visual devices. With urbanisation and modernisation, modern African dance and music exhibit influences assimilated from several other cultures.
Legends of Africa
Main article: Legends of Africa
Africa has a wealth of history which is largely unrecorded. Many myths, fables and legends abound.
53 African countries have football teams in the Confederation of African Football, while Cameroon, Nigeria, Senegal, and Ghana have advanced to the knockout stage of recent FIFA World Cups. South Africa will host the 2010 World Cup tournament, and will be the first African country to do so.
Cricket is also popular in some African nations, with South Africa and Zimbabwe holding Test status and Kenya also being a significant force in One-Day International cricket. The three countries jointly hosted the 2003 Cricket World Cup.
A number of African nations, especially Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco, have fielded world-class long-distance runners such as Abebe Bikila and Cosmas Ndeti.
South Africa hosted and won the 1995 Rugby World Cup and also won the 2007 Rugby World Cup.
Main article: Religion in Africa
Different Africans profess a wide variety of religious beliefs[46] and it is difficult to conclude accurate statistics about religious demography in Africa as a whole. Estimations from World Book Encyclopedia claim that there are 150 million African Muslims and 130 million African Christians, while Encyclopedia Britannica estimates that approximately 46.5% of all Africans are Christians and another 40.5% are Muslims with roughly 11.8% of Africans following indigenous African religions. A small number of Africans are Hindu or Baha’i, or have beliefs from the Judaic tradition. Examples of African Jews are the Beta Israel, Lemba peoples and the Abayudaya of Eastern Uganda.
The indigenous Sub-Saharan African religions tend to revolve around animism and ancestor worship. A common thread in traditional belief systems was the division of the spiritual world into “helpful” and “harmful”. Helpful spirits are usually deemed to include ancestor spirits that help their descendants, and powerful spirits that protect entire communities from natural disaster or attacks from enemies; whereas harmful spirits include the souls of murdered victims who were buried without the proper funeral rites, and spirits used by hostile spirit mediums to cause illness among their enemies. While the effect of these early forms of worship continues to have a profound influence, belief systems have evolved as they interact with other religions.
The formation of the Old Kingdom of Egypt in the third millennium BCE marked the first known complex religious system on the continent. Around the ninth century, Carthage (in present-day Tunisia) was founded by the Phoenicians, and went on to become a major cosmopolitan center where deities from neighboring Egypt, Rome and the Etruscan city-states were worshipped. Today, many Jewish peoples also live in North Africa, particularly in Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
The founding of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria is traditionally dated to the mid-first century, while the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Church officially date from the fourth century. These are thus some of the first established Christian churches in the world. At first, Christian Orthodoxy made gains in modern-day Sudan and other neighbouring regions. However, after the spread of Islam, growth was slow and restricted to the highlands.
Many Sub-Saharan Africans were converted to Western Christianity during the colonial period. In the last decades of the twentieth century, various sects of Charismatic Christianity rapidly grew. A number of Roman Catholic African bishops were mentioned as possible papal candidates in 2005, the most prominent of those being Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze. African Christians appear to be more socially conservative than their co-religionists in much of the industrialized world, which has quite recently led to tension within denominations such as the Anglican and Methodist Churches.
The African Initiated Churches have experienced significant growth in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Islam entered Africa as Arab Muslims conquered North Africa between 640 and 710, beginning with Egypt. They settled in Mogadishu, Melinde, Mombasa, Kilwa, and Sofala, following the sea trade down the coast of East Africa, and diffusing through the Sahara desert into the interior of Africa — following in particular the paths of Muslim traders. Muslims were also among the Asian peoples who later settled in British-ruled Africa. During colonial times, Christianity had success in converting those who followed traditional religions but had very little success in converting Muslims, who took advantage of the urbanization and increase in trade to settle in new areas and spread their faith. As a result, Islam in sub-Saharan Africa probably doubled between 1869 and 1914.[47]
Islam continued this tremendous growth into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Today, backed by gulf oil cash, Muslims have increased success in proselytizing, with a growth rate, by some estimates, that is twice as fast as Christianity in Africa.[48]
Territories and regions
Main articles: Regions of Africa and List of African countries
The countries in this table are categorised according to the scheme for geographic subregions used by the United Nations, and data included are per sources in cross-referenced articles. Where they differ, provisos are clearly indicated.
Regions of Africa: Northern Africa Western Africa Middle Africa Eastern Africa Southern Africa
Physical map of Africa.
Satellite photo of Africa.
Name of region[49] and
territory, with flag
(1 July 2002 est.)
(per km²)
Eastern Africa:
Burundi 27,830 6,373,002 229.0 Bujumbura
Comoros 2,170 614,382 283.1 Moroni
Djibouti 23,000 472,810 20.6 Djibouti
Eritrea 121,320 4,465,651 36.8 Asmara
Ethiopia 1,127,127 67,673,031 60.0 Addis Ababa
Kenya 582,650 31,138,735 53.4 Nairobi
Madagascar 587,040 16,473,477 28.1 Antananarivo
Malawi 118,480 10,701,824 90.3 Lilongwe
Mauritius 2,040 1,200,206 588.3 Port Louis
Mayotte (France) 374 170,879 456.9 Mamoudzou
Mozambique 801,590 19,607,519 24.5 Maputo
Réunion (France) 2,512 743,981 296.2 Saint-Denis
Rwanda 26,338 7,398,074 280.9 Kigali
Seychelles 455 80,098 176.0 Victoria
Somalia 637,657 7,753,310 12.2 Mogadishu
Tanzania 945,087 37,187,939 39.3 Dodoma
Uganda 236,040 24,699,073 104.6 Kampala
Zambia 752,614 9,959,037 13.2 Lusaka
Zimbabwe 390,580 11,376,676 29.1 Harare
Middle Africa:
Angola 1,246,700 10,593,171 8.5 Luanda
Cameroon 475,440 16,184,748 34.0 Yaoundé
Central African Republic 622,984 3,642,739 5.8 Bangui
Chad 1,284,000 8,997,237 7.0 N’Djamena
Congo 342,000 2,958,448 8.7 Brazzaville
Democratic Republic of the Congo 2,345,410 55,225,478 23.5 Kinshasa
Equatorial Guinea 28,051 498,144 17.8 Malabo
Gabon 267,667 1,233,353 4.6 Libreville
São Tomé and Príncipe 1,001 170,372 170.2 São Tomé
Northern Africa:
Algeria 2,381,740 32,277,942 13.6 Algiers
Egypt[50] 1,001,450 70,712,345 70.6 Cairo
Libya 1,759,540 5,368,585 3.1 Tripoli
Morocco 446,550 31,167,783 69.8 Rabat
Sudan 2,505,810 37,090,298 14.8 Khartoum
Tunisia 163,610 9,815,644 60.0 Tunis
Western Sahara[51] 266,000 256,177 1.0 El Aaiún
Spanish and Portuguese territories in Northern Africa:
Canary Islands (Spain)[52] 7,492 1,694,477 226.2 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria,
Ceuta (Spain)[53] 20 71,505 3,575.2 —
Madeira Islands (Portugal)[54] 797 245,000 307.4 Funchal
Melilla (Spain)[55] 12 66,411 5,534.2 —
Southern Africa:
Botswana 600,370 1,591,232 2.7 Gaborone
Lesotho 30,355 2,207,954 72.7 Maseru
Namibia 825,418 1,820,916 2.2 Windhoek
South Africa 1,219,912 43,647,658 35.8 Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Pretoria[56]
Swaziland 17,363 1,123,605 64.7 Mbabane
Western Africa:
Benin 112,620 6,787,625 60.3 Porto-Novo
Burkina Faso 274,200 12,603,185 46.0 Ouagadougou
Cape Verde 4,033 408,760 101.4 Praia
Côte d’Ivoire 322,460 16,804,784 52.1 Abidjan, Yamoussoukro[57]
Gambia 11,300 1,455,842 128.8 Banjul
Ghana 239,460 20,244,154 84.5 Accra
Guinea 245,857 7,775,065 31.6 Conakry
Guinea-Bissau 36,120 1,345,479 37.3 Bissau
Liberia 111,370 3,288,198 29.5 Monrovia
Mali 1,240,000 11,340,480 9.1 Bamako
Mauritania 1,030,700 2,828,858 2.7 Nouakchott
Niger 1,267,000 10,639,744 8.4 Niamey
Nigeria 923,768 129,934,911 140.7 Abuja
Saint Helena (UK) 410 7,317 17.8 Jamestown
Senegal 196,190 10,589,571 54.0 Dakar
Sierra Leone 71,740 5,614,743 78.3 Freetown
Togo 56,785 5,285,501 93.1 Lomé
Total 30,368,609 843,705,143 27.8
Africa Portal
List of African countries by population
Urbanization in Africa
Topics in Africa
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People · Countries by population · Countries by population density · HIV/AIDS · Urbanization (Lists of most populous cities and largest metropolitan areas)
Countries by GDP · Countries by HDI · Central banks and currencies · Poverty · Renewable energy · Stock exchanges
Countries (by geographical area) · Ecology · List of impact craters · List of islands · List of rivers · Regions
Colonisation (European exploration · African slave trade · Scramble for Africa) · Decolonisation · Economic history · Empires · Military history (List of conflicts)
African Union · Elections in Africa · Human rights in Africa · Pan-Africanism
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2004 in Africa · 2005 in Africa · 2006 in Africa · 2007 in Africa · 2008 in Africa · 2009 in Africa
Categories: Africa | Continents | Titular Sees of the Coptic Orthodox Church
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Michael McIntyre: SOLD OUT
Sorry this event has sold out
Thu 20 Jun, 7:00pm
Spark Arena, 42 Mahuhu Cres, Auckland CBD
All Ages Licensed
Britain’s biggest comedian Michael McIntyre is set to return to New Zealand with his eagerly awaited new tour and this time he is going global!
Michael McIntyre’s Big World Tour will see the BAFTA award-winning comedian perform in arenas around the world. The tour, which started in late 2017, will come to New Zealand in June 2019.
Michael McIntyre’s spot-on observational comedy and trademark ability to turn everyday situations into master-classes of human exasperation, has struck chords with millions of fans, resolutely cementing him as one of the UK’s most loved and treasured comedy performers today.
In the UK, Michael has sold over 1.5 million tickets, including a record-breaking 28 performances at London’s 16,000 capacity O2 Arena where he was awarded the keys to the venue in 2015, alongside musical talents Prince, Take That and One Direction.
Around the world, Michael has previously sold out arenas in New Zealand, Australia and Dubai and he holds the record for the biggest selling comedy shows in South Africa and Norway.
2016 saw the launch of Michael’s own television show Michael McIntyre’s Big Show. In 2017, the show earned two nominations at the prestigious BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Entertainment Performance, which Michael went on to win - the show itself earned a nomination for Best Entertainment Program. The last series averaged over 6.5 million viewers and the show returned for its third series in November 2017.
His other TV accolades include; hosting the Royal Variety Performance twice, Michael McIntyre's Comedy Roadshow, Michael McIntyre's Easter Night At The Coliseum, Michael McIntyre's Very Christmassy Christmas Show and as a judge on Britain's Got Talent.
Michael has released four best-selling DVDs by Universal Pictures (UK) - Live and Laughing in 2008, Hello Wembley in 2009 (which became the fastest-selling UK stand-up DVD of all time), 2012's Showtime and 2015's Happy & Glorious, both of which became Christmas DVD best-sellers. Collectively Michael has sold a staggering 3.5 million DVD's to date.
His debut autobiography Life & Laughing was released in 2010 by Penguin Books. With hundreds of thousands of copies sold the book landed the coveted Christmas number one slot and became one of the best-selling non-fiction books that year.
Steve Martin and Martin Short
Spark Arena, CBD, Auckland
Tue 19 Nov
The Dice Show
The Classic Studio, CBD, Auckland
Thu 23 Jan 2020
50% Happy / Half of What is Wrong With Me
Big Wednesday - Fresh Comedy
The Classic Comedy Club, CBD, Auckland
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Capital Kuala Lumpur
Primary Natural Resources tin, petroleum, timber, copper, iron ore.
MALAYSIA IS LOCATED in the heart of Southeast Asia and is divided into two geographical sections: Peninsular Malaysia and the East Malaysian provinces of Sabah and Sarawak, which are located in northern BORNEO, some 403 mi (650 km) across the South China Sea. Malaysia’s peninsular neighbors are THAILAND to the north and the island country of SINGAPORE in the south. The Andaman Sea and the MALACCA Straits are on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, while the South China Sea borders both the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia and the East Malaysian provinces of Sabah and Sarawak. Sabah and Sarawak border Kalimantan (the Indonesian part of Borneo) and Sarawak surrounds the tiny enclave of BRUNEI. Because of Malaysia’s location on a peninsula, it has 2,900 mi (4,675 km) of coastline.
Peninsular Malaysia’s 50,580 square mi (131,000 square km) accounts for 40 percent of the country’s landmass. There are several mountain ranges running north to south along the backbone of the peninsula, and a narrow causeway that connects it with Singapore to the south. A wide, fertile plain extends along the West Coast next to the Malacca Straits, while a narrow coastal plain runs along the east coast next to the South China Sea.
East Malaysia (76,458 square mi or 198,000 square km) lies east of Peninsular Malaysia across the South China Sea and occupies a broad strip running from the westernmost to the northernmost tip of the island of Borneo. Dense jungles and tropical RAINFORESTs cover East Malaysia. Because of the rugged conditions, most of the local natives use the large river networks as the main means of transportation.
Malaysia is hot and humid all year round and over 60 percent of the country is considered to be rainforest. The east coast of Peninsular Malaysia has a distinct rainy season because of the monsoon climate. The wettest season on the west coast of the peninsula is between September and December, while on the east coast and in Sabah and Sarawak, the rainy season comes between October and February. The rains often come in short, strong bursts where the water seems to come straight down as if being poured out of a bucket. When they just as quickly disappear, the humidity level soars and you wish for another rain.
As the economy develops, Malaysia is becoming more and more urban, with cities accounting for 40 percent of the total population. The principal urban concentration is in the Klang Valley, around the capital city of Kuala Lumpur (1.4 million), where the population has been growing annually at a rate of 7 percent. Peninsular Malaysia is also more heavily populated than East Malaysia with nearly 85 percent of the country’s total population. Malaysia is also a very young country, with 38 percent of the total population under the age of 15 and only 4 percent over the age of 65. Malays and other indigenous ethnic groups (together known as Bumiputras) account for 59 percent of the population, the Chinese 24 percent and Indians 8 percent. The official language is Bahasa Malaysia (Malay), but English still predominates in industry and commerce. The official religion of the country is Islam, but there is freedom of worship.
Malaysia has historically been an exporter of primary products such as rubber, tin, palm oil, and timber. Malaysia has long been an important exporter of palm oil (50 percent of world production), generating exports of about $2 billion annually. In the mid-1970s export manufacturing, in particular of textiles and electronics, began to develop, based on an accommodative government attitude toward incoming foreign investment and a skilled low-cost labor force. As a result, Malaysia has become one of the world’s three largest manufacturers of semiconductors and air conditioners. Malaysia’s economy has enjoyed very positive real annual growth during the last decade, with the manufacturing sector contributing more than 40 percent of the total growth, and the finance, agriculture, and transport sectors each contributing about 10 percent. Malaysia is often cited as one of the Asian Tigers because of its relatively high gross domestic product per capita. The key industries in Peninsular Malaysia include rubber and oil palm processing and manufacturing, light manufacturing industry, electronics, tin mining and smelting, and logging and processing timber. Sabah in East Malaysia is known for its logging and petroleum production, while agricultural processing, petroleum production and refining, and logging are done in Sarawak.
Because of the Malacca Straits, which provide an inside passage from the South China Sea to INDIA, Malaysia has been a strategic factor in trade for thousands of years. From the 900s on, there were numerous Chinese and other settlements established to support the great sailing fleets moving goods between Asia, India, and the MIDDLE EAST. With the formation of the Dutch East India Company, the region became a stronghold for Europeans trying to protect their interests in the highly profitable spice trade and ultimately led to the founding of SINGAPORE. In 1957, the Federation of Malaya, comprising the 11 states of Peninsular Malaysia, gained independence from the UNITED KINGDOM. The federation became known as Malaysia with the accession of three further states, Singapore, Sarawak, and Sabah, in 1963. In August 1965, Singapore withdrew from the federation to become an independent sovereign state. Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy. Its head of state is the king, who is elected for a five-year term by the nine hereditary sultans of the eleven states of Peninsular Malaysia.
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Home » International
Surviving the Arab Spring: the Legitimate Regime
Submitted by richard.rider on 06 Oct 2011 15:22
Richard Rider, Editorial Reseacher, Government Gazette
Amidst the toppling of authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, four countries appear to have weathered the storm. The long established monarchies in Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Oman draw their legitimacy through myriad cultural and historical values, which enable them to adapt to social pressures, unlike the purely authoritarian political regimes in Libya and Egypt. The key to survival seems to be legitimacy.
As the reforms, protests and revolutions in the Middle East continue into a ninth month the initial momentum is starting to dissipate. The world is watching in anticipation for events to unfold. However, amid all this excitement and upheaval, which heralds the beginning of a new political era in the Middle East, several regimes appear to have emerged relatively unscathed from the Arab Spring – Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Oman. Whether they have emerged completely intact is beyond the scope of this article, but their apparent robustness is worth further reflection.
When regimes, one by one, felt the force of a politically motivated public, it seemed as though the entire region would be engulfed in an increasingly popular uprising. The protests in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Oman have been similar to others in the region, as they strove to achieve political liberalisation and social and economic prosperity. Yet the scale of these protests has been minimal by comparison and has been effectively checked by the ruling elites.
Moreover, these regimes were not entirely dissimilar to those in neighbouring states; they have limited or no political freedom (in 2011 every country in the region, bar Israel was deemed either ‘Part Free’ or ‘Not Free’ by Freedom House) and their human rights records are far from exemplary. Yet despite these similarities, the localised movements in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Oman failed to gain the momentum achieved by similar uprisings elsewhere in the region.
So why have these regimes managed to survive in an increasingly hostile environment?
The answer lies not in the protests themselves, but rather in the nature of the regimes and the leading figures within the fabric of the ruling elite. Whilst on the surface both types of regime have similarly low levels of political participation and social freedom, the respective ways in which they maintain this control vary greatly.
The regimes of Egypt and Libya, for example, were born out of popular uprisings; their leaders doggedly forged ‘artificial’ national identities based largely on the cult of personality. Libya, Tunisia, Egypt and Syria have in the past relied upon suppressive tactics to quieten dissent and halt political liberalisation. For example in 1982 a popular uprising in Hama, Syria, was crushed resulting in the reported deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians.
In contrast, the monarchies of the Middle East have relied on ‘legitimacy through myth’ – they have created a traditional cultural, political and social ideology based upon a shared heritage. In this way legitimacy is reinforced through association with shared values. In other words, the monarchies form part of their national identity. An obvious example is the monarchy in Morocco, which claims direct decent from the Prophet Mohammed. In this way King Mohammed VI is not just the political head of state but also a significant religious figure. The legitimacy of the monarchy is inextricably linked to a much deeper sense of cultural identity than the purely, or at least ostensibly, political authoritarian regimes in Syria, Egypt and Libya.
The traditional legitimacy of Middle Eastern monarchies extends far beyond the political boundaries that ultimately undermined the regimes of Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi. For example, when the protests spread through to Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia, there were very few, if any, calling for the removal of King Abdullah Al Saud, King Mohammed VI, King Abdullah II or Sultan Qaboos Bin Said.
Indeed, the principal demand directed towards the regimes was that the monarchies should relinquish some of their powers of influence within government – demands that were far less dramatic and consequential than those faced by President Assad or President Saleh. In fact, if anything, these demands provided the ruling elite with the opportunity to champion the protesters’ causes. King Abdullah II of Jordan wasted no time in seizing the initiative. Instead of ignoring and then crushing the voice of popular reform with brutal efficiency he has begun to instigate reforms that many hope will bring about a significant redistribution of political power. King Abdullah II is able to cede certain aspects of his authority without compromising his legitimacy to rule because his authority is entrenched in areas other than political control.
The status of these leaders as cultural icons as well as political institutions has meant that the regimes have managed to position themselves vocally on the side of the reformists, disengaging from the stale governments that caused the initial unrest. In stark contrast, the authoritarian regimes were unable to disassociate themselves from the corruption, precisely because they sat on top of society rather than formed a central part of it.
Ultimately the regimes in Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Oman have survived these past months due to their ability to adapt to the changing situations and separate themselves from the political institutions. Through careful political guile they have positioned themselves on the side of the reformers. The question now is whether this is enough to prevent the fates that befell the Libyan and Egyptian regimes, come a second wave of protests.
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Are there still apostles today and, if so, how do we know they are authentic?
EVETTE LEWIS answers ...
I honestly don't know the answer to this - I know we are all called 'Priests' and 'Princes' and 'Saints'. Personally, I think some are called to minister, some to encourage, some to teach. The Apostles such as Peter and Paul were really quite something, and their testimonies were allowed into the Bible. I don't really know of anyone in our generation who have had the same status.
Our World: Soros’s campaign of global chaos
Major media outlets in the US have ignored the leak of thousands of emails from billionaire George Soros’s Open Society Foundation by the activist hacker group DCLeaks. The OSF is the vehicle through which Soros has funneled billions of dollars over the past two decades to non-profit organizations in the US and throughout the world. According to the documents, Soros has given more than $30 million to groups working for Hillary Clinton’s election in November, making him her largest single donor. So it is likely the case that the media’s support for Clinton has played some role in the mainstream media’s bid to bury the story.
"At Night in the Temple" and "The Morning and Evening Sacrifice"
Alfred Edersheim's "At Night in the Temple" and "The Morning and Evening Sacrifice" are taken from his book, "The Temple"
"The Creation"; "The Flood", "Thoughts on the Identity of the Pharaoh of the Exodus and Israel in Egypt"; and "Jephthah"
Edersheim's "The Creation"; "The Flood", "Thoughts on the Identity of the Pharaoh of the Exodus and Israel in Egypt"; and "Jephthah"; are from his "Bible History".
"The Fraternity of the Pharisees"; and "Relation of the Pharises to the Sadducess and Essenes, and to the Gospel of Christ"
Edersheim's "The Fraternity of the Pharisees"; and "Relation of the Pharises to the Sadducess and Essenes, and to the Gospel of Christ"; are from his "Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Time of Christ".
'Another taste of heaven' 'This is a move of God' 'I thought I had died and gone to heaven!' 'This was Church!'
This is just some feedback we have had from our recent Foundations conference at Brunel Manor. For more about this conference, click here. For more on our conferences in 2017, click here.
A very big thank you to you, Monica, José, Sarah and the rest of the team for another taste of heaven at the Foundations South West conference. For me it was akin to arriving at Elim with its 12 springs of water after a long and thirsty walk through the wilderness! Once again, two of the greatest elements of the conference were the FREEDOM and the FELLOWSHIP. In particular, the freedom to pray and praise spontaneously was a tremendous and freeing blessing. In many church circles such spontaneous worship is, at best, considered a little odd, and, at worst, frowned upon and stamped out. Praise the Lord for Foundations! I particularly found great freedom in the messianic dancing – something that I would have been far too shy to try at any other conference – but at Foundations there is the freedom to do it. Once again, I leave a Foundations conference with a chink taken out of my “fear” of man. Hallelujah! After a day and half of the Foundations experience, on Sunday morning, my heart was overflowing with love for my fellow Foundationers. What a special bunch. The Foundations experience allows the Spirit to move in mighty ways, enabling true and deep fellowship to be enjoyed between virtual strangers. Some of the greatest work was undoubtedly done by the Holy Spirit in the one-on-one conversations – and praise the Lord that at Foundations there is the time and space for these; we were able to minister and be ministered to as gifts of the Spirit were used and perhaps even discovered for the first time. And the bonfire worship was a wonderful new addition! Having sampled Foundations for a second time I am now convinced that this is a move of God. May the Lord fulfil this vision in this nation and beyond for the sake of the house of the Lord our God! May the Lord bless you all for what you have given to the Body of Christ. Shalom to you all. Barry
Dear Steve and Monica. Thank you for a truly wonderful weekend. I was so excited on the Friday night that I texted back to my church leaders that 'I thought I had died and gone to heaven' with the worship!!!!! Whew. So many are asking about what happened and what we learned and did that I am finding it difficult to find the words to give it justice, so thank you for this summary, which is a good start.. Shalom. Marion
The united spirit of love, fellowship, desire to learn and grow in the Lord. Thank you to everyone involved in organising and running this event. I was only there for the day but wanted more! Although active and fairly intense, I was energised and invigorated by the whole experience. This was Church! Betty
'Chesed’ new! every morning!
John McLaughlan looks at an often-misrepresented word and marvels at the LORD’s view of us, His people
Chesed, a Hebrew word used about 240 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, conveys aspects of the LORD’s nature that we human beings can perhaps grasp more easily than some of his other qualities.
'I Was a Monster': Woman's Shocking Transformation After Abandoning Heroin and Embracing Jesus
An Arizona woman's Facebook post documenting her stunning transformation from drug addict to doting mother and aspiring prison minister has gone viral in recent days, with the woman fully crediting God for saving her life. It was Dec. 6, 2012, when Dejah Hall, 26, says she finally hit rock bottom and got the help she needed. Hall, who was addicted to meth, cocaine and heroin, said her life had spun completely out of control. "I was a monster in every sense of the word," she told KNXV-TV. Hall said that her drug addiction started with pills and "just went downhill from there," eventually leading her to heroin and meth and to a place in which she no longer cared if she lived or died. But it was a candid conversation with her grandfather that served as her final breaking point. "My grandfather was sitting in his wheelchair and he looked at me and said, 'You're hurting me, Dejah,'" Hall recalled. "I really looked at who I had become, a disgusting person."
'Post-truth' WORLD
Hitler published a ‘Jew-free’ Bible. The UN has just given the Middle East 3000 years of ‘Jewfree history’ . Chuck and Karen Cohen reveal how “truth is fallen in the street”…
UN Security Council resolution 2334, passed on Dec. 23, 2016, said all the land Israel liberated in 1967, including Jerusalem and the Western Wall, is illegally occupied "Palestinian Territory," and demanded Israel to halt all "settlement" activity. The Obama administration betrayed Israel by abstaining, thus letting it pass. Yet these verses aided us in prayer in the face of this anti-God, anti-Israel global decree.
"YHWH brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He breaks the plans of the people. The counsel of YHWH stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations." (Ps. 33:6-11) In Isaiah, God the Creator declares, "Behold, the nations are like a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the scales… All nations before Him are as nothing; and to Him they are seen to be less than nothing, vanity." (Isa. 40:15, 17; see also 21-23) So the arrogance of the United Nothings is to think they decide what happens with God's land and people. Great judgment will come because of this resolution. When it does, we need to declare, "This is that which was spoken…"
'We still haven't learned the lesson of the Battle of Cable Street 80 years on'
Willie Myers, then 14, found himself in a sea of protesters as 7,000 uniformed fascists tried to force their way through London’s East End. When Willie Myers, aged 14, went to defy Sir Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts marching through his neighbourhood he had no idea he was about to be embroiled in a terrifying battle that would change history. He found himself in a sea of protesters as 7,000 uniformed fascists tried to force their way through London’s East End where 60,000 beleaguered Jews lived in abject poverty. The Blackshirts had a police escort of more than 10,000 officers – 4,000 on horseback – to clear the way for them. And when mounted police charged into the crowd wielding batons the Jewish schoolboy feared for his life.
Greek v Hebrew
Hebrew roots
Israel, History
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Home » Context of 'July-December 1994: Over Half of American Abortion Clinics Subjected to Violence during Last Half of 1994'
Context of 'July-December 1994: Over Half of American Abortion Clinics Subjected to Violence during Last Half of 1994'
This is a scalable context timeline. It contains events related to the event July-December 1994: Over Half of American Abortion Clinics Subjected to Violence during Last Half of 1994. You can narrow or broaden the context of this timeline by adjusting the zoom level. The lower the scale, the more relevant the items on average will be, while the higher the scale, the less relevant the items, on average, will be.
May 1994: FACE Act Becomes Law; Protects Abortion Providers, Women’s Clinics
President Clinton signs the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act into law. The law provides for the legal protection of abortion clinics and women’s health clinics against violence perpetuated against them. The law was proposed after an abortion provider, Dr. David Gunn, was shot to death in Florida in 1993 (see March 10, 1993); that same year, 12 arsons, one bombing, and 66 blockades were carried out against abortion clinics. FACE forbids the use of “force, threat of force, or physical obstruction” to prevent someone from providing or receiving reproductive health services. The law also provides for both criminal and civil penalties for those who break the law. [US Department of Justice, 7/25/2008; National Abortion Federation, 2010] The FACE Act works in concert with two Supreme Court decisions, Madsen v. Women’s Health Center and NOW et al v. Scheidler to establish “buffer zones” around women’s clinics and allow anti-abortion organizations to be investigated under federal racketeering statutes. [Kushner, 2003, pp. 40] Signing the FACE Act into law, Clinton says, “We simply cannot—we must not—continue to allow the attacks, the incidents of arson, the campaigns of intimidation upon law-abiding citizens that [have] given rise to this law.” Clinton cites the murder of Gunn and the shooting of Dr. George Tiller (see August 19, 1993) as incidents that FACE is designed to address. He adds: “No person seeking medical care, no physician providing that care should have to endure harassments or threats or obstruction or intimidation or even murder from vigilantes who take the law into their own hands because they think they know what the law ought to be.” [Washington Independent, 6/12/2009] In 2010, the National Abortion Federation will note that while FACE “has had a clear impact on the decline in certain types of violence against clinics and providers, specifically clinic blockades,” violence against abortion clinics and abortion providers has continued. [National Abortion Federation, 2010]
Entity Tags: Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, National Abortion Federation, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton
July-December 1994: Over Half of American Abortion Clinics Subjected to Violence during Last Half of 1994
During this six-month period, 52 percent of the women’s health clinics providing abortions in the US are subjected to violence, including arson, bombings, and shootings (see July 29, 1994, September 1994, and December 30, 1994 and After). Numerous abortion clinics and providers in Canada are also targeted by anti-abortion activists (see November 8, 1994). According to author and researcher Harvey Kushner, anti-abortion extremists escalated their violence against abortion providers because of the Clinton administration’s repeal of many anti-abortion regulations perpetuated by the Reagan and Bush administrations, and the passage of the FACE Act (see May 1994). [Kushner, 2003, pp. 39-40]
Entity Tags: Clinton administration, Harvey Kushner
July 29, 1994: Abortion Provider, Volunteer Escort Gunned Down outside Florida Clinic
Paul Hill, speaking to reporters after his conviction for murder. [Source: Trosch (.org)]Dr. John Britton, a physician and abortion provider, and volunteer security escort Jim Barrett, a retired Air Force colonel, are shot to death outside the Ladies Center in Pensacola, Florida, by Paul Hill, a leader of the radical anti-abortion group American Coalition for Life Activists (ACLA—see July 1993). [Washington Post, 1998; Kushner, 2003, pp. 39; Fox News, 9/3/2003] Eight years before, several officials at the same clinic were attacked by anti-abortion protesters (see March 26, 1986). Hill later says he was inspired by the 1993 murder of another Pensacola abortion provider, Dr. David Gunn (see March 10, 1993). He bought a new shotgun after the Gunn slaying, and practiced on a firing range. The morning of the murder, as Britton, Barrett, and Barrett’s wife June enter the clinic parking lot, Hill opens fire, shooting Barrett in the head and chest. He then reloads and shoots Britton and Barrett’s wife. Dr. Britton is fatally wounded in the head and chest, while Mrs. Barrett sustains wounds in her arm. Hill then puts the shotgun down to avoid being shot himself by police, and walks away from the scene. He is arrested within minutes, and tells officers, “I know one thing, no innocent babies are going to be killed in that clinic today.” [Fox News, 9/3/2003] Hill will be executed for his crimes in 2003 (see September 3, 2003).
Entity Tags: David Gunn, John Britton, June Barrett, Jim Barrett, Paul Hill
Timeline Tags: US Health Care, Domestic Propaganda, US Domestic Terrorism
November 8, 1994: Abortion Provider Shot in Vancouver Home
Dr. Garson Romalis, a physician and abortion provider, is shot in the leg in his Vancouver home while eating breakfast. The bullet that injures Romalis comes through his back window. [Washington Post, 1998; Associated Press, 5/31/2009] Anti-abortion advocate James Kopp will later be charged with Romalis’s shooting (see March 29, 2001). The assaults on Romalis and other Canadian abortion providers (see November 10, 1995 and November 12, 1996) become known as the “Remembrance Day” shootings; Canada’s Remembrance Day honors its war veterans, and the holiday has been informally adopted by the anti-abortion movement as a day to highlight its opposition to abortion. [Womens eNews, 3/30/2001]
Entity Tags: James Kopp, Garson Romalis
December 30, 1994 and After: Abortion Clinic Receptionists Murdered by Anti-Abortion Advocate
John Salvi shortly after his arrest. [Source: Sonya Rapoport]Anti-abortion activist John Salvi, a former hairdresser, murders two receptionists at two separate women’s clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts.
Murders Receptionists, Sprays Bullets in Clinics - Salvi quietly enters a Planned Parenthood clinic, asks receptionist Shannon Lowney, “Is this Planned Parenthood?” and then shoots her to death with a .22-caliber semiautomatic rifle. Salvi then sprays the lobby with gunfire and departs. Minutes later, he enters the Preterm Health Services building two miles away and kills the receptionist, Lee Ann Nichols (some media sources identify her as “Leanne Nichols”). He again sprays the building with gunfire, but this time flees after security guard Richard Seron returns fire, in the process dropping a satchel containing a second gun and some 700 rounds of hollow-point ammunition. Eyewitness Angel Rodriguez later tells reporters: “He was completely calm and took his time. He kept the gun low on his hip and ran backwards, firing at least five shots. He was trying to scare people, and it worked.”
Shooting at Norfolk, Virginia Clinic - Police identify Salvi through a gun shop receipt he has left behind in the satchel, but are unable to find him until law enforcement officials arrest him for a non-fatal shooting at a women’s clinic in Norfolk, Virginia. In all, Salvi kills two and wounds five more.
Condemnation - Some anti-abortion groups are quick to condemn the shootings. The Reverend Flip Benham, leader of Operation Rescue (OR—see 1986), tells reporters: “You don’t use murder to solve the problem of other murder. It is heresy.” Eleanor Smeal of the Fund for the Feminist Majority says, “While there are two sides to the issue of abortion, there are no two sides to the issue of shooting people for their opinions.” Law enforcement officials cannot find direct ties between Salvi and anti-abortion organizations.
'Ready to Go Off' - A woman who attended beauty school with Salvi, Karen Harris, later recalls: “He never showed emotion. He always had a straight face. But the main thing was how he would stare at people. He’d just stare and stare and wouldn’t look away.” Doreen Potter, who employed Salvi at a hair salon, later recalls that he flew into a rage a week before the shootings when she told him he couldn’t cut a client’s hair. After the incident, she will say, “this guy looked like he was ready to go off.” [Time, 1/9/1995; Washington Post, 3/19/1996; Washington Post, 1998; Kushner, 2003, pp. 39; CBS News, 4/19/2007; Associated Press, 5/31/2009]
Federal Authorities Ignored Warnings of Violence at Brookline Clinic - Planned Parenthood officials will later say that they had received an increased number of threats to their Brookline clinic in recent weeks, in part because that clinic is involved in testing the controversial RU-486 “morning after” conception prevention pill. They also say they had requested extra federal protection (see February 1994), a claim the US Attorney for the area refuses to discuss with reporters. [Time, 1/9/1995]
Convicted of Murder, Suicides in Cell - Shortly after his arrest, anti-abortion activists will rally in support of Salvi outside his Norfolk prison (see January 1995). In 1996, Salvi will be convicted of the deaths and sentenced to life without parole; soon after, he will commit suicide in his jail cell (see March 19, 1996).
Entity Tags: Karen Harris, Operation Rescue, Eleanor Smeal, John Salvi, Fund for the Feminist Majority, Lee Ann Nichols, Doreen Potter, Shannon Lowney, Angel Rodriguez, Philip (“Flip”) Benham, Richard Seron, Planned Parenthood
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Home » Entities » Greater New Bethel Baptist Church
Profile: Greater New Bethel Baptist Church
Greater New Bethel Baptist Church was a participant or observer in the following events:
June 13, 1998: Funeral of Slain African-American Draws Civil Rights Leaders, Politicians from across Nation
Civil rights leaders, politicians, and local residents gather in Jasper, Texas, to mourn the violent death of James Byrd Jr., an African-American brutally murdered by white supremacists (see June 7, 1998 and After). Byrd’s funeral service is held in the Greater New Bethel Baptist Church, where Byrd’s father is a deacon and his mother a Sunday School teacher. Two hundred guests fill the sanctuary while another 600 participate outside the building. One speaker after another says that Byrd’s death should bring whites and blacks together in outrage and determination to end racial violence. The Reverend Jesse Jackson, a national civil rights leader, refers to his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in saying: “Dr. King would say that unearned suffering is redemptive, that there’s power in the blood of the innocent. Brother Byrd’s innocent blood alone could very well be the blood that changes the course of our country, because no one has captured the nation’s attention like this tragedy.” Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater is one of several speakers that acknowledge the family’s wish for a small, private funeral ceremony. Speaking to Byrd’s sister Clara Taylor from the podium, Slater says: “We know, Clara, that you wanted to be left alone. But we can’t. We have to be with you. We have to be with this family and we have to be here in Jasper. Because we can ill afford to have what has happened here happen any place else across this land.” Other speakers include civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), and Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA). The Byrd family banned reporters and photographers from the service. A small number of the area’s white residents take part in the service; many area residents, both black and white, wear yellow ribbons honoring Byrd’s memory, and some area stores and buildings fly their flags at half mast. A small number of African-American men from the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panthers conduct a march from the sheriff’s office into Byrd’s neighborhood, wearing paramilitary garb, carrying shotguns and rifles, and advising black residents to arm themselves; according to news reports, the marchers are generally ignored. [New York Times, 6/13/1998]
Entity Tags: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Clara Taylor, James Byrd, Jr, Maxine Waters, New Black Panthers, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Rodney Slater, Greater New Bethel Baptist Church, Nation of Islam
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Plastic Chef
I've been an avid fan of the Iron Chef series on Food Network, both the (campy but fun) original, and the new "American" version. Unlike most of the network's shows, I don't really come away having learned much that I can apply in my own kitchen (unfortunately, squid ink ice cream is a kosher no-no), but it's always fun to watch incredibly talented food-meisters perform feats of culinary derring-do.
I was especially pumped up about the much-touted Mega Challenge on January 3rd; Batali, Lagasse and Flay all in the same place at the same time?! Nirvana!
The "hook" was that the "secret ingredient" was, in fact, "ingredientS:" veggies from the White House garden. Very cool idea, whatever one's politics.
And so the three master chefs, joined by White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford, rooted through the copious vegetation, selecting fresh produce by the basketful, destined for culinary legend.
Or so we were lead to believe. The truth is somewhat less appetizing:
"As first reported on AOL's Politics Daily blog, the fruits and vegetables used on the show weren't from the White House. They were stunt produce. Ringers."
No one really believes that any of the the show's "secret" ingredients is actually unknown to the chefs beforehand. It's a bit of suspension-of-disbelief that really harms no one.
But this...this is different:
The episode consistently referred to the vegetables as having come from the WH garden. Every chef participated in the fraud.
"Fraud," Henry? Please! It's a cooking show, for heaven's sake. It's not the Nightly News.
True enough, but the advertisers are now complicit in the perpetuation of this myth, as are all the chefs and sous-chefs who participated. Did the judges know? We can't be sure, but their objectivity is now tainted, as well.
Who was really hurt by this little stunt? No doubt most folks will view this as nothing more than that: a TV stunt. But the credibility of the First Lady is now in question, since she was obviously a willing participant in this obfuscation. As I mentioned before, there's always a subtle wink-wink when the "secret ingredient" is announced, but that doesn't really matter: who cares that the chefs know ahead of time and can prepare a menu? There's at least the challenge of working against the clock, and the other chef. There's an honesty to the battle.
Not anymore.
For once, I don't blame the White House: this is squarely on the Food Network's head. How they choose to deal with it may well determine how long they'll be on the air.
And as FoIB Brian D points out that, if they're willing to carry the charade this far, how do we know who really won?
Color me: disappointed.
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Indian Rationalist In Exile For Over 4 Years After Being Accused of Blasphemy
Sanal Edamaruku
Sanal Edamaruku, a 61-year-old Indian man, was forced to flee India after being accused of blasphemy over exposing claimed “miracle” at a local church in Mumbai for being a fraud. Edamaruku has been living in Finland in the past 4 years to evade his arrest.
Edamaruku, president of the Indian Rationalist Association, describes himself as a ‘miracle-buster’ who aims to demystify false superstitious beliefs. In March 2012, Edamaruku investigated into a “miracle” in Our Lady of Velankanni church in Mumbai where a statue of Christ was allegedly dripping water from its toe. With the help of an engineer, Edamaruku traced the source of the drip as an overflowing drain, “which was in turn fed by a pipe that issued from a nearby toilet”.
After publishing his findings, Catholic Secular Forum filed complaints against Edamaruku in several police stations, accusing him of being offensive towards the Catholic church. The complaints were made under Section 295a of India’s penal code (‘blasphemy’ law) for insulting religion, punishable with up to three years in prison.
Edamaruku referred to the charges in an interview for BBC News:
“Under this law a policeman can simply arrest me even though there has been no investigation… they can just arrest me without a warrant and keep me in prison for a long time… That risk I do not want to take”
Edamaruku has suffered from threatening phone calls and online bullying for his speech. In July 2012, he decided to flee to Finland in order to escape his arrest. Edamaruku left behind him a daughter and a grandchild.
Notwithstanding his longing to his homeland, Edamaruku expresses no regrets:
“I miss a lot of people… That I cannot meet them is something that saddens me… [However,] I don’t regret anything I said. I feel that I have full right to express my views… I am open for discussion and correction but I am not willing to accept anybody’s bullying, change my views or submit to their pressure to apologise… I would do it again. Because any miracle which has enormous clout at one moment, is simply gone once explained. It’s like a bubble. You prick it and it is finished”
Tags:Asia Freedom of Expression India Insulting Religion
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Persecuted Malaysian Cartoonist Zunar Arrested Today After Being Attacked by Pro-Gvt Thugs →
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West Virginia: Montani semper liberi.
Welcome to West Virginia.
WV-9 Westbound
Mannings, West Virginia
Virginia-West Virginia Border
This was the second time I was in West Virginia. The first time was in November of 1995 when I was in the marching band and we all headed to Morgantown for the Rutgers-West Virginia football game. All I remember is that it was about 30 degrees out, we lost, and I had an asthma attack after the game. Oh, and that the band's #1 putz was telling everyone that Israeli Prime Minister Yassir Arafat had just been assassinated.
Anyway, I returned in October 1999. Since I was in the area wanting to check out Burkittsville, Maryland, on my way to Washington D.C., I figured I might as well pop into the tip of West Virginia's eastern "panhandle." Since Charleston was too far away, I merely concerned myself with the welcome sign.
I found a good one on I-81 but it was just beyond the Potomac River bridge and either on a gantry or in the median and therefore inaccessible. I pulled off at a rest area where the local Boy Scout troop was having a safety break event/fundraiser. Grabbing a hot dog and a cup of lemonade and donating a few greenbacks, I took a gander at the map. I could have pressed on I-81 south across the panhandle where it crosses into Virginia, about 13 miles to the southwest. But then I figured that it was getting a little too late and too far out of the way and my friend who was expecting me at 5:30 would see me after 9. So I got on some local roads and headed east towards Harpers Ferry. At the three points area where Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland meet, I could not find a sign. Now in Virginia, I figured that it would be a waste to give up on my West Virginia sign. I'm already here, right?
With my trusty Rand McNally by my side, I sped down VA-287 past a bunch of cow farms from the northernmost point in Old Dominion trying to cross the border back into West Virginia at any other point. I was rushing since I was running out of daylight and wanted to get to Burkittsville, the town featured in The Blair Witch Project, before the sun went down. Not sure exactly how far down I had to go, and, running out of daylight, thinking that it would just be easier to get West Virginia when I finally make my first road trip west of Pennsylvania, I pulled off and debated whether to press on as a cow stared at me munching whatever it was he was munching. In the spirit of the quest, I continued, and wound up driving about seven miles south to the town of Mechanicsville, and then northwest on VA-9 about another three or four to the state line.
So once I crossed into West Virginia I parked off to the side of the road in front of a couple of small houses. I took my picture and walked about 30 yards down the road into Virginia. I set up the tripod and stepped into a thicket of tall grass and I don't even want to think what else, and here I am.
Looking back, it would have been easier to stay on I-81. Especially since this sign is on a country road and below the standard I have set for this project; thus I will have to retake it with a more prominent sign.
I wound up getting into Burkittsville with about 10 or 15 minutes of ambient daylight left.
Gallery.....
I was watching some story they did on 20/20 about West Virginia and they did a helicopter fly-by of the capitol, so I knew it was along the river and had a gilded dome.
I was driving south from Fairmont towards Charleston on my Cincinnati Road Trip. I-79 ends just north of Charleston and feeds into I-77. After about two miles, you run into I-64. There are no signs for the capitol, however. When you reach the I-64 interchange from I-77, you see the Charleston skyline off to the right, so you would naturally take I-64 west. And you would be wrong. Not only that, the next exit off of I-64 west of the I-77 merge is more than a mile away. I crossed the Kanawha River, took the first exit, and slowly meandered my way to the other end of town. I eventually got there and found a place to park.
If I were to rank the capitols so far, West Virginia's would probably be number one. The only thing I would have liked better was if the complex was in the heart of downtown. Pretty much everything else that West Virginia could have done right was done right.
The gilded dome is magnificent, as the south front of the capitol faces the Kanawha River. By the steps of the capitol on the south front is a statue of President Lincoln, who proclaimed the new state of West Virginia on June 20, 1863. The Battle-Born State is the only U.S. state to be created from the territory of another state. The north front is where it gets interesting.
Walking around the west side of the capitol, I passed by the Governor's Mansion and the West Virginia Cultural Center and State Museum across the lush green lawns. Many of the state agency buildings are located on the capitol grounds.
I was in Charleston around 12:30 pm on a Friday. When I got around to the north front, there was a radio station doing a live remote. There were people mingling and enjoying their lunches in the hot sun. I don't know how many were state employees, but it just seemed to conjure up the ideal notion of the capitol being the place where the public could get together and meet. The grounds were laid out with great aesthetic care and seemed more like a park than a bunch of old office buildings.
The capitol is a square-U-shaped building, with the area bounded by the three sides of the U on the north side containing a circular walkway with four radius paths meeting in the center. The entire plaza is tree-lined, and there is a stage area facing the open end. This picture was taken from the stage area.
The Capitol was designed by Cass Gilbert, who was also the architect of the U.S. Supreme Court bulding in Washington, D.C. The capital alternated between Wheeling and Charleston for the first 14 years of West Virginia's history. Finally, in 1877, the citizens voted in a referendum to make Charleston the permanent capital, among the choices of Charleston, Martinsburg, and Clarksburg. Wheeling was not a candidate. The first permanent capitol was built in 1885 and burned down in 1921. A replacement was hastily erected, until the replacement capitol itself caught fire in 1927.
But by the time of the 1927 conflagration, construction on the current statehouse, which is actually in East Charleston, was already underway, and it was dedicated on June 20, 1932, the 69th anniversary of West Virginia's statehood. The dome is actually five feet taller than the U.S. Capitol's, and the three-year gilding process was completed in 1991. The exterior of the capitol is limestone, as are the Corinthian columns of the porticos on the north and south fronts.
Capitols
The Mountain State
Earl Ray Tomblin (D)
June 20, 1863 (#35)
24,087 sq mi (#41)
1,808,344 (#37)
West Virginia Links
State of West Virginia
West Virginia State Capitol
Google Maps: West Virginia State Capitol
West Virginia Tourism
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The Power of Pepper: Jack in the Box® Debuts New Black Pepper Cheeseburger
New Burger joins additional menu offerings, including Steak & Egg Breakfast Burrito and Jack’s Fruit Coolers
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 28, 2015-- Paying homage to one of the world’s most traded – and flavorful! – spices, Jack in the Box® is highlighting a unique star ingredient on its newest burger: peppercorns! The NEW Black Pepper Cheeseburger from Jack in the Box features a 100% beef patty, creamy peppercorn mayo, black pepper cheese, fried onion rings and crispy bacon, all layered on a gourmet signature bun.
“Our limited-time offer Black Pepper Cheeseburger is an exciting addition to Jack’s line of quality burgers,” said Keith Guilbault, Jack in the Box SVP and Chief Marketing Officer. “It really delivers a punch of pepper in each bite. We also think our guests will enjoy the ‘origin’ story we share in our new TV commercial.”
To support the launch of the new Black Pepper Cheeseburger, Jack in the Box tapped director Vince Gilligan, creator of the hit TV show Breaking Bad and co-creator of its spin-off series Better Call Saul.
“Directing this commercial challenged me with a new type of short-form storytelling,” said Gilligan. “But working with Jack in the Box made it all worth it. Their innovative menu items provide a great canvas to work from, not to mention, I love the new burger!”
The spot, titled “Spice Trade,” is inspired by the deserts of Mongolia and chronicles the beloved Jack character’s quest to find an irresistible spice to use in his next craveable burger. After endless searching, he comes across a wise spice trader who gives him delicious black peppercorns, and it is in that “aha” moment that the new Black Pepper Cheeseburger is born. “Spice Trade” premieres June 1 in participating Jack in the Box markets and can also be viewed on Jack in the Box’s website at jackinthebox.com.
In addition to the new burger, Jack in the Box also welcomes two new menu items debuting in restaurants today. For breakfast, try Jack’s NEW Steak & Egg Breakfast Burrito, which features flame-grilled steak, hash browns and creamy Sriracha sauce. For guests looking for a refreshing cool-down, Jack’s NEW Fruit Coolers are available in two tasty flavors – Loco Lime and Twisted Strawberry.
Jack in the Box’s Black Pepper Cheeseburger, along with the Steak & Egg Breakfast Burrito and Jack’s Fruit Coolers, are available now at participating Jack in the Box restaurants for a limited time only. For more information on the new products, visit jackinthebox.com, and connect with Jack on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Vine.
Jack in the Box Inc. (NASDAQ: JACK), based in San Diego, is a restaurant company that operates and franchises Jack in the Box® restaurants, one of the nation’s largest hamburger chains, with more than 2,200 restaurants in 21 states and Guam. Additionally, through a wholly owned subsidiary, the company operates and franchises Qdoba®, a leader in fast-casual dining, with more than 600 restaurants in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. For more information on Jack in the Box and Qdoba, including franchising opportunities, visit www.jackinthebox.com or www.qdoba.com.
for Jack in the Box Inc.
Marcus Dockter, 213.234.1746
mdockter@mww.com
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291. Deputy Anne Rabbitte asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if, further to his press release issued on 19 November 2018, it is his plan to increase both parents' parental benefit entitlement to seven weeks; and if he plans to provide seven weeks for parents to share. [48946/18]
292. Deputy James Browne asked the Minister for Justice and Equality his plans to bring forward legislation regarding the repatriation of prisoners from the UK to here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48842/18]
293. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Justice and Equality his plans to amend legislation to facilitate community groups wishing to set up a community-led CCTV scheme in cases in which the local authority does not consent to being the data controller. [48854/18]
294. Deputy Brendan Ryan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if a Garda National Immigration Bureau, GNIB, renewal will be processed for a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48933/18]
295. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of households of one, two, three, four and five or more persons living in direct provision centres at the end of 2017, respectively, in tabular form. [48938/18]
296. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Justice and Equality further to Parliamentary Question No. 280 of 13 November 2018, if an appointment in early date can be made in the case of persons (details supplied); if contact will be made with the persons to facilitate an appointment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48958/18]
297. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of gardaí by rank attached to the Galway (Mill Street) and Salthill Garda stations in each of the years year 2010 to 2017 and to date in 2018; the number of community gardaí for each year during this period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48970/18]
298. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if section 19A regarding the disclosure of third party records in certain trials also applies to child victims under the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017. [49008/18]
299. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Justice and Equality if women eligible to apply to the Magdalen redress scheme (details supplied) are not required to provide proof or evidence of the hours they worked in cases in which this information is provided to the best of their ability. [49011/18]
305. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the reason the recently published addendum to the terms of the Magdalen restorative justice ex gratia scheme includes a provision that the calculation of the lump sum redress payment will be made on the basis that no child under 12 years of age worked in a Magdalen laundry, unless an applicant provides evidence of such work before they reached the age of 12 in view of documentation that children under the age of 12 did work in the laundries. [49278/18]
300. Deputy John McGuinness asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number of cases before the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal involving the Irish Prison Service; the length of time that each has been waiting for a decision; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49014/18]
301. Deputy John McGuinness asked the Minister for Justice and Equality the number and name of those who serve on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Tribunal; the number of cases dealt with each year; the cost per year of the tribunal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49015/18]
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Dati sensibili e fatturazione elettronica: che caos!
Verso il declino. Scende la popolazione residente - Economia
Da oggi entra in vigore lo scontrino elettronico
Von der Leyen e Lagarde, due donne alla guida dell'Europa
Amazon, 1.000 posti di lavoro entro 2019
Economia Gen 05
Stocks Today: Deutsche Bank AG Reiterates "Buy" Rating for Shire PLC (SHP)
Liberum Capital reiterated a "hold" rating on shares of Rolls-Royce Holding PLC in a research note on Thursday, September 22nd. Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. If you are reading this piece on another publication, it was stolen and reposted in violation of USA & worldwide trademark and copyright legislation.
Programmi Tv stasera Martedì 3 Gennaio 2017. La prima serata di oggi in televisione
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The Analysts gives Consensus Recommendation of "Hold" to STMicroelectronics NV (STM)
The stock's current distance from 20-Day Simple Moving Average (SMA20) is 1.7% where SMA50 and SMA200 are 12.22% and 50.82% respectively. The stock of STMicroelectronics NV (ADR) (NYSE:STM) has "Hold" rating given on Friday, July 24 by HSBC.
Sadiq Khan axes new Routemaster buses
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Featured interview: Paul Salveson and Northern devolution
Article published: Tuesday, May 29th 2012
Named after the suffragette, socialist and Independent Labour Party activist, the Hannah Mitchell foundation was launched to campaign for “democratic socialism in the North”, rooted in “ethical socialist traditions of mutuality, co-operation, community and internationalism.” Andrew Bowman caught up with the foundation’s general secretary Paul Salveson to explore their ideas for devolution in the North of England of the UK’s notoriously centralised state.
MULE: What is the Hannah Mitchell Foundation?
We describe ourselves as ‘an ethical socialist campaign to promote debate around elected regional government for the North’. Hannah Mitchell was an amazing working class socialist, feminist and co-operator who embodies what we stand for in terms of an ‘ethical socialism’ which is inclusive, down to earth and radical. Hannah was born in North Derbyshire and moved to Lancashire in her teens and was active in the early socialist movement and as a suffragette. She was elected onto Manchester City Council and represented Newton Heath Ward for many years. In Hannah’s time ‘regionalism’ wasn’t really on the agenda though she was passionate about northern culture – we took a leap of the imagination in naming the foundation after her, with the agreement of her grandson, Geoffrey.
MULE: What kind of devolution are you advocating? Do you mean complete independence of the kind which Scottish and Welsh nationalists are pushing for?
No – we want to see substantial devolution of powers to the North whilst remaining ‘English’ and part of the UK. Within the foundation we have differing views as to how far that could go, including people advocating federalism. As a minimum, we would want substantial powers over key areas including transport, education, health, strategic planning and the economy, with additional tax raising powers. This kind of regionalism fits well with models of regional governance in many parts of Europe.
MULE: How does the UK’s current political system disadvantage the north of England?
In lots of ways – I think above all the immense political power of London creates a mindset where nothing much matters outside the capital – it sucks in people, investment, talents. The UK political system as such is edging towards federalism, with strong devolved powers for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and even London. England – outside London, ironically – remains very centralsied with decisions made about the North being taken by civil servants in Whitehall who no little and care less for the region. I find it absurd that decisions about my local rail service in West Yorkshire are being made by people 200 miles away!
MULE: How would devolution solve these problems?
By bringing a strong strategic focus to the North as whole. There are a wide range of issues which unite Yorkshire, the North West and the North East where a common approach would work – transport is an obvious example, but so too higher education and strategic economic development. I would like to see the economies of the North much more strongly linked, sharing resources and expertise rather than seeing neighbouring areas as competitors.
MULE: Is there a danger that devolution could be a bit retrogressive by undermining cooperation in the common interest and instead creating greater competition amongst regions and the entrenchment of exclusive identities?
What co-operation? It doesn’t really exist at the moment and – as I’ve said above – strong regions can encourage co-operation within the region between towns and cities, as well as co-operate with other regions – as well as Wales and Scotland. The North has a lot in common with Scotland and a strong ‘Northern Assembly’ would want to work positively with the Scottish Parliament.
MULE: As some people in Scotland are now saying, doesn’t devolution entail entail the danger of losing a degree of control over how the concentrated wealth and power in London is distributed?
I’m not sure which people in Scotland are saying this – it isn’t an argument I’ve heard.We don’t have any control over how the wealth and power of London is distributed. We want to develop a strong Northern economy with greater control over its resources, not having to go begging for crumbs to London all the time.
MULE: In your book Socialism with a Northern Accent you talk about the distinctiveness of the socialist tradition in the north of England. How strong do you feel this tradition is today?
It’s there, but not as strong as it was, or as it might be in the future. It’s there in the grassroots of the Labour Party in many areas, amongst many Greens and non-aligned socialists, co-operators, trades unionists and community activists. It is often difficult to define – it’s more of a sensibility than a nailed-down manifesto! It isn’t, and never has been, diametrically opposed or diffrent to socialism in London, South Wales, or Scotland – I would like to see a distinctive Northern Socialist identity emerge which celebrates its past but which is forward-looking and incusive, recognising the reality of ‘The North’ today and seeing other socialist traditions across the UK as friends and allies from whom we can all elarn and collaborate with.
MULE: Who is going to be able to successfully push for this change? It’s a big ask!
We have to make a start. The Hannah Mitchell Foundation is a small organisation which sees itself as a catalyst. Maybe a wider, and more inclsuive body which is less overtly socialist than ourselves – A kind of ‘Council for the North’ is the way to go in the next few years, a kind of shadow Northern Assembly which brings in all sestions of the Northern community.
MULE: While the Conservative party will likely always be thought of as the party of the south and wealthy elites, Labour, particularly under Blair, have distanced themselves considerably from the interests of the northern industrial cities and aligned themselves with metropolitan interests. What position would you envisage them taking on this?
I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how open many senior Labour politicians have been towards Northern devolution. The strongest resistance has come from the London-based ‘policy elite’ – maybe they don’t like the idea of moving to Manchester or Leeds! Within the Foundation we have several patrons who are Labour MPs, as well as John Prescott who is still a very highly respected figure in the party. Our president is Linda Riordan, MP for Halifax – and she is a treasure (as well as our treasurer)! However, we are not purely a Labour Party organisation and want to involve a wider cross-section of people across the centre-left. We’re holding a parliamentary reception on June 26th in London so it will be interesting to see who comes along.
MULE: Finally, how well recieved has the campaign been so far, and where do you see it going from here?
Remarkably well! In fact we’ve been a bit overwhelmed by the response. When we held our launch in Bradford in March we expected about 30 or so – and over 120 came! We are getting a steady flow of new members and we’re in the position of needing more resources to handle the admin involved as well as the more important job of campaigning across the North. We want to involve many more young people, with different ideas and ways of doing things than 50-somethings like me.
More information is available at www.hannahmitchell.org.uk
More: Features, Interviews, Local economy
So in reality this lot are about as ‘socialist’ as their capitalist labour party brethren. Endless rearranging of the constitutional deckchairs and national boundaries will not solve our common problems as workers struggling in a (recession bound) capitalist world.
Comment by Mike on June 3, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Reminder that Paul Salveson is a Labour Party Councillor in Golcar, currently enforcing cuts to the library services, amongst other things. Oh, and he’s also a CBE…
Comment by Dick Dutch on August 15, 2012 at 8:40 pm
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(-) Remove O filter O
OMIM - Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man [Full Text]
OMIM, Online Mendelian Inheritance in Man is a catalog of human genes and genetic disorders.
Dr. Victor A. McKusick and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins and elsewhere
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Thanks to this study, the dimensions, structure, and state of conservation of the European yew can be calculated in the yew woods of Tosande, in the Natural Park of Fuentes Carrionas and Fuente Cobre-Montaña Palentina. It will also enable to study the yew tree of San Cristobal de Valdueza, located in the region of El Bierzo.
Under the framework of LIFE BACCATA (LIFE15 NAT/ES/000790), "Conservation and restoration of Taxus baccata woods (9580*) in the Cantabrian Mountains", an action plan has been carried out. It aims to improve the characterization and monitoring of the conservation plans of the yew woods of Tosande, integrated in the Natural Park of Fuentes Carrionas and Fuente Cobre-Montaña Palentina, and the yew of San Cristóbal de Valdueza, located in the municipality of Ponferrada.
The yew woods of Tosande are located on a slope facing north at an altitude of 1,400 to 1,650 meters, forming a mixed forest mostly of beeches (Fagus sylvatica) and yews (Taxus baccata), along with other leafy members.
The yew of San Cristóbal de Valdueza is a female specimen (Taxus baccata) and is considered one of the most emblematic trees of Castilla y León due to its monumental, cultural and social significance. The tree is located next to a small hermitage at a height of 1,115 meters, surrounded by crops and pastures about 210 meters from the town of San Cristóbal de Valdueza.
The action plan consisted in conducing a high-precision, terrestrial photogrammetric survey in 3D of a specific surface of the yew woods of Tosande. Photogrammetry is a technique based on studying and accurately defining the shape, dimension and position in space of an object or objects using measurements made over the photographs of those objects.
In order to perform this project in the Tosande woods, aerial and terrestrial platforms (the DJI Phantom 3 Professional drone and the Gimbal DJI Osmo camera, respectively) have been combined so as to acquire photographs that will later be processed using Automated Digital Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques.
With the information obtained in the previous phase and the data collected in the area, different parameters will be calculated in relation to the dimensions, structure and conservation status of the trees within the studied location.
During the photogrammetric survey and subsequent processing, the companies Bioma Forestal and 4Datum Investigación y Desarrollo S.L. have participated under the leadership of Cesefor and have been coordinated by the Junta de Castilla y León, partners of the project.
Terrestrial modelling of Tosande
Tejeda de Tosande - Modelo Terrestre by 4Datum on Sketchfab
Aerial modelling of Tosande
Tejeda de Tosande - Modelo aéreo by 4Datum on Sketchfab
Yew of San Cristóbal de Valdueza
Tejo de San Cristóbal de Valdueza by 4Datum on Sketchfab
Life Baccata
The LIFE BACCATA project works for the conservation and restoration of the priority habitat of the yew –currently threatened and in regression– in 15 areas of the Natura 2000 Network of the Cantabrian Mountains ranges and belonging to Galicia, Castilla y León, and the Basque Country.
The project plans to act on a large area of the Cantabrian Mountains, although the study and the results obtained will have an international reach. This is due to the fact that there are similarly threatened territories in Portugal, France, Italy and Greece that have this type of habitat.
The yew has suffered a series of threats that directly influence the biodiversity of the areas it inhabits. These threats have originated over the years and are of various kinds: fires, fellings, construction of infrastructures, fragmentation, and lack of connection between these natural spaces, as well as the repercussions of climate change. Individually or jointly, these threats have endangered the survival of this species, its habitat, and the biodiversity it contains; therefore, it is necessary to take action and guarantee a sustainable future.
LIFE BACCATA will apply the necessary measures of protection and forest management that will promote the improvement of the conservation and restoration state of the yew tree and woodlands. By doing so, it will reinforce their natural regeneration, including species of flora and fauna that inhabit them, and will contribute to halt the biodiversity loss.
The LIFE BACCATA project is co-financed by the European Commission within the framework of the LIFE Proposal, taking place between 2016 and 2020 in 15 areas of the Natura 2000 Network of the Cantabrian Mountains range and belonging to Galicia, Castilla y León, and the Basque Country. The Santiago de Compostela University is participating as project coordinator, having as partners the Junta de Castilla y León, Cesefor, Hazi Foundation and TRAGSA Group.
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July 13, 2013 by kevinstilley
Old Testament Comprehensive Bibliography – Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
The following books and articles are some of those appearing on the Comprehensive Reading List for PhD candidates in Old Testament at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
INTRODUCTORY STUDIES
All the Old Testament articles in The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Edited by David Noel Freedman. 6 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
And the relevant major articles in Dictionary of the Old Testament Historical Books. Edited by Bill T. Arnold and H. G. M. Williamson. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2005.
Albright, William Foxwell. The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra. New York: Harper & Row, 1949.
Barrera, Julio Trebolle. The Jewish Bible and the Christian Bible. Translated by W. G. E. Watson. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
Cross, Frank Moore. From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Eissfeldt, O. The Old Testament: An Introduction. New York: Harper & Row, 1965.
Gaebelein, Frank E., ed. The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. Vol. 1, Introductory Articles. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979.
Harrison, R. K. “The Critical Use of the Old Testament.” BSac 146 (1989): 12-20.
________. Introduction to the Old Testament. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2004.
Hess, Richard S., and Gordon J. Wenham, eds. Make the Old Testament Live: From Curriculum to Classroom. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
Kitchen, Kenneth A. Ancient Orient and Old Testament. Chicago: InterVarsity, 1966.
________. On The Reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003.
McKenzie, Steven L., and M. Patrick Graham, eds. The Hebrew Bible Today: An Introduction to Critical Issues. Louisville: John Knox, 1998.
BIBLICAL EXEGESIS
Beale, G. K., ed. The Right Doctrine from the Wrong Texts? Essays on the Use of the Old Testament in the New. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994.
Bock, Darrell L. “Evangelicals and the Use of the Old Testament in the New.” BSac 142 (1985): 209-23, 306-19.
Broyles, Craig C., ed. Introducing Old Testament Interpretation: A Guide for Exegesis. Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2001.
Carson, D. A. Exegetical Fallacies. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996.
Dockery, David S. Biblical Interpretation Then and Now. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992.
Greidanus, Sidney. The Modern Preacher and the Ancient Text. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1988.
Hirsch, E. D., Jr. The Aims of Interpretation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976.
________. Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967.
Kaiser, Walter, and Moises Silva. An Introduction to Biblical Hermeneutics. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993.
Klein, George L., ed. Reclaiming the Prophetic Mantle. Nashville: Broadman, 1992.
Osborne, Grant. The Hermeneutical Spiral. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1991.
Patterson, Paige. “The Historical-Critical Study of the Bible: Dangerous or Helpful?” Theological Educator 37 (1988): 45-61.
Silva, Moises. Biblical Words & Their Meaning. Rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
________. God, Language & Scripture. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980.
Steck, Odil Hannes. Old Testament Exegesis: A Guide to the Methodology. Translated by J. D. Nogalski. Atlanta: Scholars, 1995.
Stuart, Douglas. Old Testament Exegesis: A Handbook for Students & Pastors. 3rd ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
TEXTUAL CRITICISM
Barr, James. Comparative Philology and the Text of the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.
Deist, F. E. “Text, Textuality, and Textual Criticism.” JNSL 21 (1995): 59-67.
________. Towards the Text of the Old Testament. Translated by W. K. Winckler. 2nd ed. Pretoria: N. G. Kerkboekhandel Transvaal, 1981.
Goshen-Gottstein, M. H. “The Textual Criticism of the Old Testament: Rise, Decline, Rebirth.” JBL 102 (1983): 365-99.
Jellicoe, Sidney. The Septuagint and Modern Study. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.
Talmon, Shemaryahu. “The Old Testament Text.” In From the Beginning to Jerome, 159-99. Vol. 1 of The Cambridge History of the Bible. Edited by P. R. Ackroyd and C. F. Evans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Tov, Emanuel. “The Literary History of the Book of Jeremiah in the Light of Its Textual History.” In Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, ed. J. H. Tigay, 211-37. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.
________. The Text-Critical Use of the Septuagint in Biblical Research. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Simor, 1997.
________. Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001.
________. “Textual Criticism (OT).” In The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. D. N. Freedman. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
________. “The Use of Concordances in the Reconstruction of the Vorlage of the LXX.” CBQ 40 (1978): 29-36.
Waltke, Bruce K. “Goals of Textual Criticism.” WTJ 51 (1989): 93-108.
________. “Old Testament Textual Criticism.” In Foundations for Biblical Interpretation, ed. D. S. Dockery, K. A. Mathews, and R. B. Sloan, 156-86. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994.
Würthwein, Ernst. The Text of the Old Testament. Translated by Errol F. Rhodes. 2nd rev. ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.
Cameron, Nigel M. de S. Biblical Higher Criticism and the Defense of Infallibilism in 19th Century Britain. Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 1987.
Hall, David R. The Seven Pillories of Wisdom. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1990.
Harrison, R. K., B. K. Waltke, D. Guthrie, and G. D. Fee. Biblical Criticism. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.
Knight, D. N., and G. M. Tucker, eds. The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
Linnemann, Eta. Historical Criticism of the Bible: Methodology or Ideology? Translated by R. W. Yarbrough. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990.
McKenzie, S. L., and S. R. Haynes, eds. To Each Its Own Meaning. Rev. ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999.
Rogerson, John. Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century: England and Germany. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.
Tigay, Jeffrey, ed. Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1985.
Canonical Criticism
Barton, John. Holy Writings, Sacred Text: The Canon in Early Christianity. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998.
Beckwith, Roger T. The Old Testament Canon of the New Testament Church. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Prophecy and Canon. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1977.
Childs, B. S. Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986.
Davies, Philip. Scribes and Schools: The Canonization of the Hebrew Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998.
Oswalt, John N. “Canonical Criticism: A Review from a Conservative Viewpoint.” JETS 30 (1987): 317-25.
Sanders, James A. Canon and Community: A Guide to Canonical Criticism. GBS. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.
________. From Sacred Story to Sacred Text: Canon as Paradigm. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.
________. Torah and Canon. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972.
Waltke, Bruce K. “A Canonical Approach to the Psalms.” In Tradition and Testament, ed. J. S. Feinberg and P. D. Feinberg, 3-18. Chicago: Moody, 1981.
Form Criticism
Alt, Albrecht. “The Origins of Israelite Law.” In Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, trans. R. A. Wilson, 101-71. Garden Ci
ty: Doubleday, 1967.
Buss, Martin J. Biblical Form Criticism in its Context. JSOTSS 274. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999.
Hayes, John H., ed. Old Testament Form Criticism. San Antonio: Trinity University Press, 1974.
House, Paul R., ed. Beyond Form Criticism. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992.
Longman, Tremper, III. “Form Criticism, Recent Developments in Genre Theory, and the Evangelical.” WTJ 47 (1985): 46-67.
Muilenburg, James. “Form Criticism and Beyond.” JBL 88 (1969): 1-18.
Waltke, Bruce K. “Oral Tradition.” In Inerrancy and Hermeneutic, ed. H. M. Conn, 117-35. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988.
Source Criticism
Albright, William F. Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan. Reprint ed. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1968.
Alt, Albrecht. Essays on Old Testament History and Religion. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1966.
Cassuto, Umberto. The Documentary Hypothesis. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1961.
Harrison, R. K., B. K. Waltke, D. Guthrie, and G. D. Fee. Biblical Criticism: Historical, Literary, and Textual. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978.
Kikawada, Isaac M., and Arthur Quinn. Before Abraham Was: The Unity of Genesis 1-11. Nashville: Abingdon, 1985.
Noth, Martin. The Deuteronomistic History. JSOTSS 15. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981.
Speiser, E. A. Genesis. AB. Garden City: Doubleday, 1964.
Wellhausen, Julius. Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1885.
Literary and Narrative Criticism
Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic, 1981.
Avishur, Yitzhak. Studies in Biblical Narrative: Style, Structure, and the Ancient Near Eastern Literary Background. Tel Aviv: Archaeological Center, 1999.
Barton, John. “Intertextuality and the ‘Final Form’ of the Text.” In Congress Volume, Oslo, 1998, ed. A. LeMaire and M. Sæbo, 33-44. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Berlin, Adele. Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994.
Fishbane, Michael. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
________. “Revelation and Tradition: Aspects of Inner-Biblical Exegesis.” JBL 99 (1980): 343-61.
________. “Types of Biblical Intertextuality.” In Congress Volume, Oslo, 1998, ed. A. Lemaire and M. Sæbo. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Fokkelman, J. P. Narrative Art in Genesis. Amsterdam: van Gorcum, 1975.
Geller, Stephen A. Sacred Enigmas: Literary Religion in the Hebrew Bible. New York: Routledge, 1996.
________. “Through Windows and Mirrors into the Bible: History, Literature and Language in the Study of the Text.” In A Sense of Text: The Art of Language in the Study of Biblical Literature, ed. Leon Nemoy, 3-40. JQR Supp. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1983.
Longman, T. Literary Approaches to Biblical Interpretation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987.
Mathews, Kenneth A. “Literary Criticism of the Old Testament.” In Foundations for Biblical Interpretation, ed., D. S. Dockery, K. A. Mathews, and R. B. Sloan, 205-31. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1994.
Schultz, Richard L. The Search for Quotation: Verbal Parallels in the Prophets. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999.
Ska, J. L. “Our Fathers Have Told Us”: Introduction to the Analysis of Hebrew Narratives. Rome: Editrice Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1990.
Alonso-Schökel, Luis. A Manual of Hebrew Poetics. Subsidia Biblica. Rome: Pontifico Biblico Instituto, 1988.
Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Poetry. New York: Basic Books, 1985.
Avishur, Yitzhak. Studies in Hebrew and Ugaritic Psalms. New York: Magnes, 1994.
Berlin, Adele. The Dynamics of Biblical Parallelism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992.
Cross, F. M., and D. N. Freedman. Studies in Ancient Yahwistic Poetry. Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1975.
Freedman, David Noel. Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: Studies in Early Hebrew Poetry. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1980.
Geller, Stephen A. Parallelism in Early Hebrew Poetry. Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1979.
________. “A Poetic Analysis of Isaiah 40:1-2.” HTR 77 (1984): 413-20.
________. “Theory and Method in the Study of Biblical Poetry.” JQR 78 (1982): 65-77.
________. “Were the Prophets Poets?” Prooftexts 3 (1983): 211-21.
Gray, George Buchanan. The Forms of Hebrew Poetry. Jerusalem: KTAV, 1972.
Kugel, James L. The Idea of Biblical Poetry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981.
Kuntz, Kenneth. “Biblical Hebrew Poetry in Recent Research, Part 1.” CRBS 6 (1998): 31-64.
________. “Biblical Hebrew Poetry in Recent Research, Part II.” CRBS 7 (1999): 35-79.
________. “Engaging the Psalms: Gains and Trends in Recent Research.” CRBS 2 (1994): 77-122.
van der Meer, Willem, and Johannes C. de Moor, eds. The Structural Analysis of Biblical and Canaanite Poetry. Sheffield: JSOT, 1988.
Watson, Wilfred G. E. Classical Hebrew Poetry: A Guide to Its Techniques. JSOTSS. Sheffield: JSOT, 1986.
Aharoni, Yohanan. The Land of the Bible. Translated and edited by Anson F. Rainey. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1979.
Currid, John D. Ancient Egypt and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997.
DeVaux, Roland. Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.
King, Philip J., and Lawrence E. Stager. Life in Biblical Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
Mathews, Victor. Social World of the Hebrew Prophets. Peabody: Hendrickson, 2001.
McNutt, Paula. Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1999.
Pedersen, Johannes. Israel: Its Life and Culture. Vols. 1-2. Atlanta: Scholars, 1991.
Perdue, Leo, Joseph Blenkinsopp, John J. Collins, and Carol Meyers. Families in Ancient Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997.
Pritchard, James B. Ancient Near Eastern Texts. 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955.
Archaeology and the Old Testament
Ben-Tor, Amnon, ed. The Archaeology of Ancient Israel. Translated by R. Greenberg. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Dever, William G. What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
Finkelstein, Israel. “The Date of the Settlement of the Philistines in Canaan.” Tel Aviv 22 (1995): 213-39.
________. “The Archaeology of the United Monarchy: An Alternative.” Levant 28 (1996): 177-87.
Hoerth, Alfred J. Archaeology and the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998.
Isserlin, B. J. “The Israelite Conquest of Canaan: A Comparative Review of the Arguments Applicable.” PEQ (115): 85-94.
Mazar, Amihai. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
________. “Iron Age Chronology: A Reply to I. Finkelstein.” Levant 29 (1997): 157-67.
Richard, Suzanne, ed. Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2003.
Wood, Bryant G. “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho: A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence.” BAR 16:2 (1990): 44-58.
Finkelstein, J. J. “Mesopotamian Historiography.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 107 (1963): 461-72.
Hallo, W. W. “Assyrian Historiography Revisited.” EI 14 (1978): 1-7.
Herion, Gary A. “The Impact of Modern and Social Science Assumptions on the Reconstruction of Israelite History.”
JSOT 34 (1986): 3-33.
Hoffmeier, James K., ed. Faith, Tradition and History: Old Testament Historiography in Its Near Eastern Context. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1994.
Hoffner, Harry A., Jr. “Histories and Historians of the Ancient Near East: The Hittites.” Or 49 (1980): 283-332.
Kitchen, K. A. “Historical Method and Early Hebrew Tradition.” TynBul 17 (1966): 63-97.
Kofoed, Jens Bruun. Text and History: The Old Testament Texts as a Source for the History of Israel. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2005.
Long, V. Philips. The Art of Biblical History. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.
________, ed. Israel’s Past in Present Research: Essays on Ancient Israelite Historiography. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1999.
Miller, J. Maxwell. The Old Testament and the Historian. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986.
Porter, J. R. “Old Testament Historiography.” In Tradition and Interpretation, ed. G. W. Anderson, 125-62. Oxford: Clarendon, 1979.
Provan, Ian W. “Ideologies, Literary and Critical: Reflections on Recent Writing on the History of Israel.” JBL 114 (1995): 585-606.
Reid, Garnett H. “Minimalism and Biblical History.” BSac 155 (1998): 394-410.
Sasson, Jack M. “On Choosing Models for Recreating Israelite Pre-Monarchic History.” JSOT 21 (1981): 3-24.
Younger, K. Lawson, Jr. Ancient Conquest Accounts: A Study in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing. JSOTSup 98. Sheffield: JSOT, 1990.
OT History
Albertz, Rainer. A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period. 2 vols. Translated by John Bowden. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994.
________. Israel in Exile: The History and Literature of the Sixth Century B.C.E. Atlanta: SBL, 2003.
Bright, John. A History of Israel. 4th ed. Philadelphia: Westminster, 2000.
Davies, Philip R. In Search of Ancient Israel. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992.
Grabbe, Lester L. Can a History of Israel be Written? Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997.
Halpern, Baruch. “The State of Israelite History.” In Reconsidering Israel and Judah: Recent Studies on the Deuteronomistic History, ed. Gary N. Knoppers and J. Gordon McConville, 540-65. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2000.
Hoffmeier, James Karl. Israel in Egypt: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Exodus Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Kitchen, Kenneth A. On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993.
Miller, J. Maxwell, and John H. Hayes. A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986.
Provan, Iain, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman, III. A Biblical History of Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003.
Redford, Donald B. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Ancient Near Eastern History
Briant, Pierre. From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire. Translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002.
Dothan, Trude, and Moshe Dothan. People of the Sea: The Search for the Philistines. New York: Macmillan, 1992.
Kramer, Samuel Noah. The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
Oppenheim, Leo. Ancient Mesopotamia. Rev. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
Tadmor, H. and M. Weinfeld, eds. History, Historiography and Interpretation: Studies in Biblical and Cuneiform Literatures. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1983.
Yamauchi, Edwin M. Persia and the Bible. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990.
Religion and Institutions
Alt, Albrecht. Essays on Old Testament History and Religion. Translated by R. A. Wilson. Garden City: Doubleday, 1968.
Clements, R. E. God and Temple. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1965.
Cross, Frank Moore. Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.
Day, John. God’s Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea. Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Gaster, Theodore H. Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament. 2 vols. Reprint ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
Haran, Menahem. Temples and Temple Service. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978.
Hillers, D. Covenant: The History of a Biblical Idea. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1969.
Kaufmann, Y. The Religion of Israel. Translated by M. Greenberg. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960.
Keel, Othmar and Christoph Uehlinger. Gods, Goddesses, and Images of God: In Ancient Israel. Translated by A. W. Mahnke. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997.
Kraus, Joachim. Worship in Ancient Israel. Richmond: John Knox, 1966.
McCarthy, D. J. Treaty and Covenant. Rev. ed. Rome: Biblical Institute, 1981.
Mendenhall, George E. Law and Covenant in Israel and the Ancient Near East. Pittsburgh: Biblical Colloquium, 1955.
Miller, Patrick. The Religion of Ancient Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 2000.
Mullen, E. T. The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature. HSM 24. Chico, CA: Scholars, 1980.
Weinfeld, Moshe. “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East.” JAOS 90 (1970).
OLD TESTAMENT THEOLOGY
Baker, David. Two Testaments, One Bible: A Study of the Theological Relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Rev. ed. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1991.
Barr, James. The Concept of Biblical Theology: An Old Testament Perspective. Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1999.
Blaising, Craig. “The Future of Israel as a Theological Question.” JETS 44 (2001): 435-50.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. “Old Testament Theology and the Jewish-Christian Connection.” JSOT 28 (1984): 3-15.
Brueggemann, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997.
Childs, Brevard. Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments: Theological Reflection on Christian Bible. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1993. Pages 1-94 only.
Collins, John J. “Is a Critical Biblical Theology Possible?” In The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters, eds. W. H. Propp, et al. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990.
Depmster, Stephen. Dominion and Dynasty: A Biblical Theology of the Hebrew Bible. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003.
Dumbrell, William J. Covenant and Creation: An Old Testament Covenantal Theology. London: Paternoster, 1984.
Eichrodt, W. Theology of the Old Testament. Translated by J. A. Baker. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961-65.
Fretheim, Terence E. The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984.
Goldingay, John. Israel’s Gospel. Vol. 1 of Old Testament Theology. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2003.
Gowan, Donald E. Eschatology in the Old Testament. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Fortress, 2000.
________. Theology in Exodus. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994.
Hasel, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology: Basic Issues in the Current Debate. 4th ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.
________. “Proposals for a Canonical Biblical Theology.” AUSS 34 (1996): 23-33.
________. “Recent Models of Biblical Theology: Three Major Perspectives.” AUSS 33 (1995): 55-75.
Hayes, John H. and Frederick Prussne
r. Old Testament Theology: Its History and Development. Atlanta: John Knox, 1985.
House, Paul R. Old Testament Theology. Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1998.
Longman, Tremper III, and D. Reid. God is a Warrior: Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995.
Ollenburger, B. C., et al, eds. The Flowering of Old Testament Theology. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992.
Preuss, Horst Dietrich. Old Testament Theology. 2 vols. The Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995-96.
Rendtorff, Rolf. The Canonical Hebrew Bible: A Theology of the Old Testament. Leiden: Deo, 2005.
Sailhamer, John H. Introduction to Old Testament Theology: A Canonical Approach. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995.
von Rad, Gerhard. Old Testament Theology. Translated by D. M. G. Stalker. 2 vols. The Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
Waltke, Bruce K. “The Book of Proverbs and Old Testament Theology.” BSac 136 (1979): 302-17.
________. “The Phenomenon of Conditionality within Unconditional Covenants.” In Israel’s Apostasy and Restoration, ed. A. Gileadi, 123-39. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1988.
Wright, G. Ernest. The God Who Acts. London: SCM, 1952.
Alt, Albrecht. “The Origins of Israelite Law.” In Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, 79-132. Oxford: Blackwell, 1966; reprint, Garden City: Doubleday, 1968.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Carmichael, Calum. The Origins of Biblical Law: The Decalogues and the Book of the Covenant. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
Gunkel, Hermann. The Legends of Genesis. New York: Schocken, 1964.
Heidel, Alexander. The Babylonian Genesis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951.
Mathews, Kenneth. Genesis 1-11. Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1996.
Sailhamer, John. The Pentateuch as Narrative. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992.
________. “The Mosaic Law and the Theology of the Pentateuch.” WTJ 53 (1991): 241-61.
Thompson, Thomas L. The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974.
Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.
Weinfeld, Moshe. Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic School. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Albright, William F. “Samuel and the Beginnings of the Prophetic Movement.” In Interpreting the Prophetic Tradition, ed. H. Orlinsky, 151-76. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union, 1969.
Barton, John. Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel after the Exile. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. A History of Prophecy in Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983.
Bright, John. Covenant and Promise: The Prophetic Understanding of the Future in Preexilic Israel. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976.
Clements, R. E. Old Testament Prophecy: From Oracles to Canon. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996.
Gowan, Donald E. Theology of the Prophetic Books: The Death and Resurrection of Israel. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998.
Koch, Klaus. The Prophets. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983-1984.
________. The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic: A Polemical Work on a Neglected Area of Biblical Studies and Its Damaging Effects on Theology and Philosophy. Studies in Biblical Theology. London: SCM, 1972.
Lindblom, Johannes. Prophecy in Ancient Israel. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962.
McKane, William. Prophets and Wise Men. London: SCM, 1965.
Petersen, David. The Roles of Israel’s Prophets. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 17. Sheffield: JSOT, 1981.
Sawyer, John F. Prophecy and the Biblical Prophets. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
VanGemeren, Willem A. Interpreting the Prophetic Word. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990.
Westermann, Claus. Basic Forms of Prophetic Speech. Translated by H. C. White. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991.
Wilson, Robert R. Prophecy and Society in Ancient Israel. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980.
Blenkinsopp, John. Wisdom and Law in the Old Testament. Rev. ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Clements, Ronald E. Wisdom in Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.
Crenshaw, J. L. Education in Ancient Israel: Across the Deadening Silence. Garden City: Doubleday, 1998.
________, ed. Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom. New York: KTAV, 1976.
Day, John, Robert P. Gordon, and Hugh G. M. Williamson, eds. Wisdom in Ancient Israel. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995
Gammie, John G., and Leo G. Perdue, eds. The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990.
Geller, Stephen A. “Wisdom, Nature and Piety in Some Biblical Psalms.” In Riches Hidden in Secret Places: Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Memory of Thorkild Jacobsen, ed. Tzvi Abusch. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2002.
Hurvitz, A. “Wisdom Vocabulary in the Hebrew Bible: A Contribution to the Study of ‘Wisdom Psalms.’“ VT 38 (1988): 41-51.
Murphy, Roland. The Tree of Life: An Exploration of Biblical Wisdom Literature. 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996.
Perdue, Leo G., B. Scott, and W. J. Wiseman, eds. In Search of Wisdom: Essays in Memory of
John G. Gammie. Louisville: Westminster, John Knox, 1993.
________. Wisdom & Creation: The Theology of Wisdom Literature. Nashville: Abingdon, 1994.
Scott, R. B. Y. The Way of Wisdom in the Old Testament. New York: Macmillan, 1971.
Skehan, Patrick W. Studies in Israelite Poetry and Wisdom. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1971.
von Rad, Gerhard. Wisdom in Israel. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1972.
Weeks, Stuart. Early Israelite Wisdom. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Wright, Addison G. “The Riddle of the Sphinx: The Structure of the Book of Qoheleth.” CBQ 30 (1968): 313-4.
Zimmerli, W. “Concerning the Structure of Old Testament Wisdom.” In Studies in Ancient Israelite Wisdom, ed. H. Orlinsky, 175-207. New York: KTAV, 1976.
________. “The Place and Limit of Wisdom in the Framework of the Old Testament Theology.” SJT 17 (1963): 146-58.
Blenkinsopp, Joseph. Prophecy and Canon: A Contribution to the Study of Jewish Origins. South Bend, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1977.
Clifford, R. J. The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament. HSM 4. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972.
Collins, John J. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to the Jewish Matrix of Christianity. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.
________. “The Place of Apocalypticism in the Religion of Israel.” In Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. P. D. Miller, Jr., P. D. Hanson, and S. D. McBride, 539-74. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987.
Hanson, Paul D. The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology. Rev. ed. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979.
Hellholm, David, ed. Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East: Proceedings of the International Colloquium on Apocalypticism, Uppsala, August 12-17, 1979. 2nd enl. ed. Tübingen: Mohr, 1989.
Miller, P. D., Jr. The Divine Warrior in Early Israel. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973.
Stone, M. “Lists of Revealed Things in the Apocalyptic Literature.” In Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God, ed. F. M. Cross,
Jr., et al, 414-52. Garden City: Doubleday, 1976.
Bergsträsser, G. Hebräische Grammatik. Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, 1918.
Joüon, P., and T. Muraoka, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew. 2 vols. Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1991.
Kautsch, E. Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar. Edited by A. E. Cowley. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978.
Lambdin, Thomas O. Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. New York: Scribners, 1971.
Waltke, Bruce, and Michael O’Connor. An Introduction to Biblical Syntax. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990.
History of the Hebrew Language/ Linguistics
Barr, James. The Semantics of Biblical Language. Reprint ed. London: SCM, 1983.
Blau, Joshua. “Hebrew and North West Semitic: Reflections on the Classification of the Semitic Languages.” HAR 2 (1978): 21-41.
________. Topics in Hebrew and Semitic Linguistics. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1998.
Fensham, F. C. “The Use of the Suffix Conjugation and the Prefix Conjugation in a Few Old Hebrew Poems.” JNSL 6 (1978): 9-18.
Garr, W. Randall. Dialect Geography of Syria-Palestine 1000-586 BCE. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985.
Gogel, Sandra. A Grammar of Epigraphic Hebrew. Atlanta: Scholars, 1998.
Harris, Zelig S. Development of the Canaanite Dialects. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1939.
Hurvitz, Avi. “Can Biblical Texts be Dated Linguistically? Chronological Perspectives in the Historical Study of Biblical Hebrew.” In Congress Volume: Oslo, 1998, ed. A. Lemaire and M. Sæbo, 143-60. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Kahle, Paul. The Cairo Genizah. London: Oxford University Press, 1947. Pp. 86-110.
Lyons, John. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Moscati, Sabatino, et al. An Introduction to the Comparative Study of the Semitic Languages. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1964.
Kutscher, E. Y. A History of the Hebrew Language. Edited by R. Kutscher. Leiden: Brill, 1982.
Qimron, E. The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Atlanta: Scholars, 1986.
________. “Observations on the History of Early Hebrew (1000 BCE – 200 CE) in the Light of the Dead Sea Documents.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research, ed. D. Dimant and U. Rappaport, 351-61. Leiden: Brill, 1992.
Rooker, Mark F. “Dating Isaiah 40-66: What Does the Linguistic Evidence Say?” WTJ 58 (1996): 303-12.
________. “Diachronic Analysis and the Features of Late Biblical Hebrew.” Bulletin for Biblical Research 4 (1994): 135-44.
________. “The Diachronic Study of Biblical Hebrew.” JNSL 14 (1988): 199-214.
________. “Ezekiel and the Typology of Biblical Hebrew.” HAR 12 (1990): 133-55.
Sáenz-Badillos, Angel. A History of the Hebrew Language. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Phonology, Orthography, and Writing
Freedman, David Noel, and Frank Moore Cross, Jr. Early Hebrew Orthography. New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1952.
Gelb, I. J. A Study of Writing. Rev. ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963.
Kaufman, Stephen A. “The Pitfalls of Typology: On the Early History of the Alphabet.” HUCA 57 (1986): 1-14.
Lambdin, Thomas O. “Philippi’s Law Reconsidered.” In Biblical and Related Studies Presented to Samuel Iwry, ed. A. Kort and S. Morschauser, 135-45. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1985.
Orlinsky, H. M. “The Origin of the Kethib-Qere System.” In Congress Volume: Oxford 1959, 184-92. VTSup 7. Leiden: Brill, 1960.
Speiser, Ephraim A. “The Shibboleth Incident (Judges 12:6).” In Oriental and Biblical Studies, ed. J. F. Finkelstein and M. Greenberg, 143-50. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1967.
Andersen, Francis I. The Hebrew Verbless Clause in the Pentateuch. Nashville: Abingdon, 1970.
Kaufman, Stephen A. “An Emphatic Plea for Please.” MAARAV 7 (1991): 195-98.
Koehler, Ludwig, and Walter Baumgartner. The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. Student ed. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Miller, Patrick D. “Vocative Lamed in the Psalter: A Reconsideration.” UF 11 (1979): 617-37.
Sagarin, James L. Hebrew Noun Patterns (Mishqalim). Atlanta: Scholars, 1987.
Blake, Frank R. “The Hebrew WAW Conversive.” JBL 63 (1944): 271-95.
Driver, S. R. A Treatise on the Use of the Tenses in Hebrew (with a new introduction by W. Randall Garr). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.
Greenstein, Edward L. “On the Prefixed Preterite in Biblical Hebrew.” HS 29 (1988): 7-33.
Goetze, Albert. “The So-called Intensive of the Semitic Languages.” JAOS 62 (1942): 1-8.
Held, Moshe. “The Action-Result (Factitive-Passive) Sequence of Identical Verbs in Biblical Hebrew and Ugaritic.” JBL 84 (1965): 272-82.
________. “The YQTL-QTL (QTL-YQTL) Sequence of Identical Verbs in Biblical Hebrew and in Ugaritic.” In Studies and Essays in Honor of Abraham A. Neuman, ed. M. Ben-Horin, B. C. Weinryb, and S. Zeitlin, 281-90. Leiden: Brill, 1962.
Huehnergard, John. “The Early Hebrew Prefix-Conjugation.” HS 29 (1988): 19-23.
Klein, George. “The Prophetic Perfect.” JNSL 16 (1990): 45-60.
McFall, Leslie. The Enigma of the Hebrew Verbal System: Solutions from Ewald to the Present. Sheffield: Almond, 1982.
Rainey, Anson F. “Further Remarks on the Hebrew Verbal System.” HS 29 (1988): 35-42.
Smith, Mark S. The Origins and Development of the Waw-Consecutive: Northwest Semitic Evidence from Ugarit to Qumran. HSS 39. Atlanta: Scholars, 1991.
Zevit, Ziony. “Solving a Problem of the YAQTÚL Past Tense.” HS 29 (1988): 25-33.
BIBLICAL ARAMAIC
Aramaic portions of Daniel and Ezra from BHS
Aramaic Papyri No. 30 (Elephantine)
Grammars and Readings
Driver, G. R. Aramaic Documents of the Fifth Century B. C. Oxford: Clarendon, 1968.
Gibson, J. C. L. Textbook of Syrian Semitic Inscriptions, vol. 2, Aramaic Inscriptions, Including Inscriptions in the Dialect of Zenjirli. Oxford: Clarendon, 1975.
Greenspahn, Frederick. An Introduction to Aramaic. Atlanta: Scholars, 1999.
Rosenthal, Franz. A Grammar of Biblical Aramaic. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1974.
Texts from Cyrus Gordon’s Ugaritic Grammar – 68:6-26; 137:16-34; 1184; 1032.
Grammars and Resources
Avishur, Yitzhak. Studies in Hebrew and Ugaritic Psalms. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1994.
Brooke, George J., A. Curtis, and J. F. Healey, eds. Ugarit and the Bible: Proceedings of the International Symposium on Ugarit and the Bible. Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 1994.
Clifford, R. J. The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and Old Testament. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1972.
Craigie, P. C. “Parallel Word Pairs in Ugaritic Poetry.” UF 11 (1979): 135-40.
Dahood, M. J. Proverbs and Northwest Semitic Philology. Rome: Pontifico Biblico Instituto, 1971.
Gordon, Cyrus H. Ugaritic Textbook: Grammar. Analecta Orientalia 38. Rome: Pontificum Institutum Biblicum, 1965.
Korpel, Marjo, and J. C. deMoor. “Fundamentals of Ugaritic and Hebrew Poetry.” UF 18 (1986): 173-212.
Miller, P. D. The Divine Warrior in Early Israel. HSM 5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1973.< /li>
Pardee, Dennis. Ritual and Cult at Ugarit. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
________. “Ugaritic Studies at the End of the 20th Century.” BASOR 320 (2000): 49-86.
Parker, Simon B. Ugaritic Narrative Poetry. Translated by Mark S. Smith, et.al. Writings from the Ancient World. Winona Lake: Scholars Press, 1997.
Egert, S. A Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language: With Selected Texts and Glossary. Berkley: University of California, 1984.
Sivan, D. A Grammar of the Ugaritic Language. Leiden: Brill, 2001.
QUMRAN AND NW SEMITIC INSCRIPTIONS
Translation – Paleo-Hebrew
The Gezer Calendar; The Siloam Tunnel Inscription; Yavneh Yam (Mesad Hashavyahu); The Mesha Stele (Moabite Stone); Lachish Letters (?) 2, 3, 4
Translation – Qumran
1QIsa (Is. 42:1-17); The Rule of the Community – Cols. 1-3; Temple Scroll – Col. 45:7-47
Readings in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions
Ahituv, S. Handbook of Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions. 1992.
Albright, William F. “The Gezer Calendar.” BASOR 92 (1943): 16-26.
Amusin, J. D., and M. L. Heltzer. “The Inscription from Mesad Hashavyahu.” IEJ 14 (1964): 148-59.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr. “The Development of the Jewish Scripts.” In The Bible and the Ancient Near East, ed. G. E. Wright, 133-202. New York: Doubleday, 1961.
________. “The Origin and Early Evolution of the Alphabet.” ErIsr 8 (1967): 8-24.
Davies, G. I. Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions: Corpus and Concordance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Dearman, Andrew, ed. Studies in the Mesha Inscription and Moab. Atlanta: Scholars, 1989.
Faust, Avraham. “A Note on Hezekiah’s Tunnel and the Siloam Inscription.” JSOT 90 (2000): 3-9.
Moran, William L., trans. and ed. The Amarna Letters. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
Parker, Simon B. Stories in Scripture and Inscriptions: Comparative Studies on Narratives in Northwest Semitic Inscriptions and the Hebrew Bible. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Qumran Readings and Resources
Abegg, Martin G. “The Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. P. W. Flint and J. C. Vanderkam, 325-58. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr. The Ancient Library of Qumran. Rev. ed. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr., and Shemaryahu Talmon. Qumran and the History of the Biblical Text. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Dimant, Devorah. “The Library of Qumran: Its Content and Character.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. P. W. Flint and J. C. Vanderkam, 379-402. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Flint, Peter. “The Book of Psalms in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls.” VT 48 (1998): 453-72.
Herbert, E. D., and E. Tov, eds. The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and Judaean Desert Discoveries. New Castle: Oak Knoll, 2002.
Klein, Ralph W. Textual Criticism of the Old Testament: The Septuagint after Qumran. GBS. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974.
Mathews, K. A. “The Background of the Paleo-Hebrew Texts at Qumran.” In The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman, ed. C. L. Meyers and M. O’Connor, 549-68. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1983.
Tov, Emanuel. “Scribal Practices Reflected in the Texts from the Judaean Desert.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, ed. P. W. Flint and J. C. Vanderkam, 403-29. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Ulrich, Eugene. “The Bible in the Making: The Scriptures Found at Qumran.” In The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation, ed. P. W. Flint, 51-66. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001.
Vanderkam, James and Peter Flint. The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.
Filed Under: Blog, Books, Old Testament Tagged With: bibliography, Old Testament, reading list, SWBTS
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BASIS Independent McLean Introduces Students to the Art of Voting with Mascot Selection
BASIS Independent McLean of McLean, Va., starting its inaugural year, is using the opportunity to vote on its first mascot as a chance to teach the students about the election process, in wake of the upcoming, much talked about presidential election. The process, led by head of school, Sean Aiken, will introduce ideas such delegate system and popular vote to discuss what mascot would best represent the school’s values. For more information about the school, go to http://mclean.basisindependent.com/.
Paul VI Catholic Crowns Homecoming King and Queen
Monday, October 24th, 2016, 8:00pm
Paul VI Catholic high school of Fairfax, Va. has a history of a strong culture of inclusion, reflective of the current reigning homecoming queen and king, Shaylyn Smith, 18, of Bristow, Va. and Zach Fowler, 18, of Vienna, Va., who both happen to have an intellectual disability.
Smith and Fowler were selected through the standard process of selecting a homecoming king and queen with no special circumstances or special efforts to ensure that they were the ones selected. For the first time, Paul VI has voted both homecoming king and queen from Paul VI’s Options Program. For more information on the school, go to www.paulvi.net.
BASIS Independent McLean Hosts First Open House, Nov. 6
Friday, October 21st, 2016, 8:42pm
Sunday, November 6
(Preschool- Grade 4) at 10 a.m.
(Grades 5-12) at 1 p.m.
WHAT: The Open House is a great opportunity to meet a representation of our teaching staff and learn more about the disciplines taught from preschool through grade 12, and our extracurricular offering.
http://mclean.basisindependent.com/signup/info-session-sign-up.php
BASIS Independent McLean
BASIS Independent McLean Hosts Seminar-Demystifying Global Education Rankings, Mon., Oct. 24
Wednesday, October 12th, 2016, 12:52pm
BASIS Independent McLean is hosting a seminar called, Demystifying Global Education Rankings, led by distinguished international educators, Peng Yu of Shanghai and Tue Halgreen of Paris, France on Mon., Oct. 24 at 7 p.m. at 8000 Jones Branch Road in McLean, Va. Entrance is free and open to the public, but registration is required at www.basisindependent.com/speaker-series.
The seminar will feature a conversation on the role of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in global benchmarking and their influence on educational excellence across the world.
Richard Rusczyk, Co-Author of The Art Of Problem Solving Speaks at BASIS Independent McLean Oct 4-5
Thursday, September 29th, 2016, 3:58pm
Richard Rusczyk, founder and CEO of Art of Problem Solving, will be speaking at BASIS Independent McLean’s theatre on Tues., Oct. 4 and Wed., Oct. 5 at 6:30 p.m. at 8000 Jones Branch Road in McLean, Va. Entrance is free and open to the public. Register at http://info.basisindependent.com/aops_special_event.
Rusczyk is also a co-author of The Art of Problem Solving textbooks, author of Art of Problem Solving's Introduction to Algebra, Introduction to Geometry, and Precalculus textbooks, co-author of Art of Problem Solving's Intermediate Algebra and Prealgebra, one of the co-creators of the Mandelbrot Competition, and a past director of the USA Mathematical Talent Search.
Metropolitan School of the Arts Expands Academy; Moves to Kingstowne Campus
Tuesday, September 20th, 2016, 2:27pm
Students of the Metropolitan School of the Arts (MSA) Performing Arts Academy of Alexandria, Va. will see a lot of new changes at the newly, expanded MSA Academy headquarters in Kingstowne (Alexandria, Va.). With more than 40 students, the Academy now offers more space with 14,500 square feet, including seven dance studios, four music studios and a new black box theater that will be complete in January, 2017. They’re also building a new Early Childhood dance studio and waiting area for their youngest students and families with small children. For information, go to www.metropolitanarts.org.
“We’re so excited about this new school year in Kingstowne, for new students and returning students, our new Academy space is twice the size of our original space, with additional space for up and coming Black Box theatre,” said Melissa Dobbs, founder and executive director of Metropolitan School of the Arts Alexandria, Va.
BASIS Independent opens first Tysons Corner, Va. school
More than 40 teachers and nearly 300 DC-area students were welcomed by Sean Aiken, head of school of BASIS Independent McLean, Va., who opened the doors to Tysons Corner, Va.’s first prek-12 school. Located at 8000 Jones Branch Drive in McLean, Va., the 120,000 square-foot private school designed by Gilbane Perkins Eastman Design has more than 23 classrooms, as well as a gymnasium, chemistry, biology and physics laboratories, demonstration and reading rooms, full-service cafeteria and indoor and outdoor play areas. For more information, go to http://mclean.basisindependent.com or call 703.854.1253.
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Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony: An historical sketch of the attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to establish a colony in Virginia, with the traditions of an Indian tribe in North Carolina. Indicating the fate of the colony of Englishmen left on Roanoke Isl
McMillan, Hamilton. Sir Walter Raleigh’s Lost Colony: An historical sketch of the attempts of Sir Walter Raleigh to establish a colony in Virginia, with the traditions of an Indian tribe in North Carolina. Indicating the fate of the colony of Englishmen left on Roanoke Island in 1587. Wilson, NC: Advance Presses, 1888. 29 p. Rev. ed. Raleigh: Edwards and Broughton, 1907. 46 p. Rpt. in McPherson (entry 49), Exhibit C. Microfilmed by the Library of Congress.
An often-cited work. Quotes early travel writers on Indians who may have been descendants of the Lost Colonists and Manteo’s tribe. Relates several origin traditions. Mentions their “Anglo-Saxon” language, Lost Colonists’ surnames still found among them, road-building, walking “Indian-file,” and raising tobacco for their own use.
These libraries have this material. Check the library catalog of the library of your choice to see if the material you need is available.
http://digital.lib.ecu.edu/historyfiction/item.aspx?id=mcs
View the full text of the 1888 edition at the Eastern North Carolina Digital Library
https://archive.org/details/sirwalterraleigh00mcmi
View the full text at the Internet Archive
Language (Lumbee)
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Home > Films > N > Never Let Me Go
Never Let Me Go | 2010
Never Let Me Go location: ‘the day out: Clevedon Pier, Clevedon, Somerset | Photograph: iStockphoto © Judi Dicks
London;
Somerset;
Norfolk;
Scotland;
Mark Romanek
Carey Mulligan,
Andrew Garfield,
Keira Knightley,
Charlotte Rampling,
Nathalie Richard,
Sally Hawkins,
Andrea Riseborough,
Domhnall Gleeson,
Lydia Wilson
Mark Romanek’s film of the Kazuo Ishiguro novel upends all the conventions of its ostensibly sci-fi premise – there’s no gradual revelation of the sinister plot, no desperate attempt to escape. We’re told early on the fate of the pupils at this strangely Dickensian school. Even odder, we’re expected to go along with their passive acquiescence.
This isn’t the well-worn cliché of humans exploited by callous technology, but a heart-wrenching meditation on the fact that life is just too damn short for everyone, and there’s no time for missed opportunities.
Never Let Me Go location: ‘Hailsham House’ school: Ham House, Richmond
The film is set, like 1984 and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, in a creepily retro alternative Britain. ‘Hailsham House’, the very special school presided over by Miss Emily (Charlotte Rampling) is Ham House, Ham Street, Richmond-upon-Thames, southwest London (which previously stood in for ‘Kensington Palace’ in The Young Victoria).
The house has also been seen in Joe Wright’s 2012 film of Anna Karenina, with Keira Knightley and Jude Law, and in sci-fi adventure John Carter. It’s a National Trust property and open to the public.
Gloomy school interiors were filmed in Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfield Terrace, London W4 – previously used for the meeting of Industrial Workers of the World in Warren Beatty’s 1982 epic Reds.
On the drive out to see Ruth’s (Keira Knightley) ‘original’, the older kids awkwardly order sausage egg and chips at the Regent Restaurant, 13 Regent Street at Salisbury Terrace, near the entrance to the Grand Pier at Weston-super-Mare in Somerset.
Weston-super-Mare and its pier, of course, were the locations for the final scenes of another Ishiguro adaptation, The Remains of the Day. The pier at Weston-super-Mare, though, is not the one seen in the film.
The ‘travel agent’, where Ruth is disappointed to find that it’s not her ‘original’, is a few miles up the coast from Weston at Clevedon. It’s a technology consultant company on the junction of Hill Road and Copse Road.
And it’s here, at Clevedon Pier, where the three face up to the unlikelihood that their ‘originals’ were taken from the professional classes at all.
The elegant, but comparatively severe, Grade I-listed Victorian pier partly collapsed in 1970 but was restored and fully reopened in1998. Restoration was helped by sponsorship, hence the 10,000 or so brass plaques attached to its wooden planks, which you can see in the film. For a minimum donation of £20, you can add your name.
Up to Scotland, to find the glumly Brutalist ‘Dover Recovery Centre’, where Kathy (Carey Mulligan) helps donors on their way to ‘completion’, which is the Andrew Melville Hall, a student hall of residence of the University of St Andrews on the North Haugh, St Andrews, in Fife. An assembly of prefabricated concrete modules, it was designed in the Sixties by architect James Stirling.
Returning south to England, the beach, with the desolate boat, is Holkham Beach, part of the Holkham Hall estate, three miles west of Wells-next-the-Sea on the A149 on the north coast of Norfolk. The same expansive beach was used for the ending of Shakespeare in Love.
And finally, it’s down to the South Coast of East Sussex to find the seafront home of Madame (Nathalie Richard) and Miss Emily, on De La Warr Parade between Brassey Road and Middlesex Road in Bexhill-on-Sea.
Visit: Ham House, Ham Street, , Richmond-upon-Thames TW10 7RS (tel: 020.8940.1950)
UK | Somerset
Visit: Somerset
Visit: Weston-super-Mare (rail: Weston-Super-Mare, from London Paddington)
Visit: Clevedon
Visit: Clevedon Pier, Clevedon BS21 (tel: 01275.878846)
UK | Norfolk
Visit: Norfolk
Visit: Holkham Beach
UK | Scotland
Visit: Scotland
Visit: St Andrews, Fife (rail: Leuchars, from London Euston)
UK | East Sussex
Visit: East Sussex
Visit: Bexhill-on-Sea (rail: Bexhill, from London Victoria)
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Classic Plus 14 & Classic Plus 26 Operational Manual
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Local Reports
Yeovil: Information on immigration needs to be clear, accessible and trusted
The National Conversation’s last visit in the South West was to Yeovil, a town of 45,000 in South Somerset. Our conversation in Yeovil valued the contribution of EU migrant workers, who they saw propping up the local health service as well as agricultural industries, but also held some concerns about a perceived unfairness of migrants having preferential access to welfare benefits and public services.
“The hospitals wouldn’t run if we didn’t have doctors from abroad, but I do see a strain on the schools, with kids coming in who can’t speak English”
Yeovil is an area with no substantial history of immigration and rates of migration are below the national average, with just 6% of the population born overseas. The town has a large military presence and the Ministry of Defence is a major local employer, so the town hosts a number of soldiers from Commonwealth countries. More recently, the town has seen new arrivals form the EU to work in the area’s food and farming industries, mostly from Poland and Portugal.
Somerset has had to adapt to migration more quickly than many other parts of the UK. As one stakeholder put it:
“Nobody comes here. There’s no university, we don’t have touring theatre companies… Somerset’s still in the early stages of welcoming people from other countries”
While immigration rates are low, all of our citizens’ panel members told us that they had friends, colleagues and neighbours who were migrants, and that there was a good sense of community. However, they felt that there was a lot about immigration that they did not understand, or know enough about:
“I don’t know enough, there’s not enough information readily available, unless you can read white papers and that… There’s nothing given to you in basic English, we’re not given facts easily enough”
We have previously written about the importance of contact, and how in places with low rates of migration, such as Trowbridge, Durham, or Gloucester, limited contact with migrants resulted in limited awareness of immigration and the creation of ‘local narratives’ which sometimes manifest through prejudice. People’s own experience with deprivation, unemployment and local decline can be blamed on migrants when they are considered an invisible mass, as opposed to people they know. People absorb information on immigration based on what resonates with their own worldview.
Our panel in Yeovil predominantly got their information on immigration from the television, naming documentaries they had seen images of undocumented young men arriving in the backs of lorries, or of the camps at Calais. At the same time, they did not trust what they saw on television, or read in the news and often felt that information on immigration was politicised and could be biased.
They wanted to see more accessible information about immigration, as while many had taken to internet research in order to build a better understanding of migration they did not feel that clear facts were generally available to the public in comprehensive formats.
As with many other panels, the group in Yeovil also wanted to see more cross-party working, to ensure issues such as immigration were not used for political gain. But they also did not have much faith in politicians, and felt sceptical that they were not always told the truth by those in power.
These are concerns and demands we have heard in many places across the UK, for more information about immigration processes and the regulations currently in place, as well as more accurate data on how many people are arriving to the UK. But there is a challenge to ensure this information is accessible and is trusted by the public.
The immigration debate has been polarised, and much information on immigration has been conflicting and at times, contradictory. But migration is a human process and it can be difficult to always have accurate information.
Yet our conversations across the country have shown the strength of public engagement in rebuilding trust on immigration, and the conversations themselves have often given participants greater clarity and understanding of migration and immigration policy.
This entry was tagged immigration, information, news, somerset, south somerset, trust, Yeovil. Bookmark the permalink.
← Bexley: Talking about Calais
Berwick-upon-Tweed: In order to win back public trust on immigration, business in the UK needs to consider its role and responsibilities →
Edinburgh: Devolved immigration policy? All parts of the UK need to feel that the Government acts in the interests of its local population
Immigration and Integration: Getting it Right Locally
Bedford: Illegal immigration, Windrush, and public compassion
Berwick-upon-Tweed: In order to win back public trust on immigration, business in the UK needs to consider its role and responsibilities
info@nationalconversation.uk
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Natural Healing News Your news source for health, healing and happiness since 1981
Juicing vegetables the correct way
April/May 2013 Issue, Cancer, Cholesterol, Detox, Food, Nutrition and Diet, Fruits and Vegetables, Healing, Health, Natural medicine and Natural Therapies, Organic
If you are looking to do a multi-day juice fast, find a doctor well versed in environmental medicine, because green juice can have a powerful detoxing effect.
by Mary Budinger —
After the award-winning documentary “Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead” became available from Netflix in mid-2011, juicers started showing up in people’s kitchens, big time. In the film, Australian entrepreneur Joe Cross decided to take charge of his health by juicing vegetables and fruits for 60 days. He dropped about 80 pounds and was able to quit taking a handful of pills to control his autoimmune disease.
Lots of people want the same results. Recent figures show sales of juicing machines are up 71 percent from the year before.
There is something for everyone on the market. Centrifugal juicers are inexpensive and fast — they spin the vegetables to separate the juice, much like your washing machine spins clothes to get out the water. Masticating juicers tend to mimic the action in our mouths when we eat — they slowly crush and press the juice. Other people just use a powerful blender.
Which juicer to buy?
We might find a valuable lesson in the cancer clinics where juicing is used for serious healing. Dr. Max Gerson, the famous German physician who developed the Gerson Therapy still in use at the Gerson Institute in San Diego, relied on fresh fruit and vegetable juices to treat cancer and chronic degenerative diseases.
Dr. Gerson said, “At first I thought that liquefiers [blenders] would be the most wonderful thing. But it did not work. The rotating blade causes electricity to be generated, killing enzymes. The same is true for centrifugal juicers. Juices must be made by grinding the vegetables first, then mixing and pressing them. We have recently run across cancer patients who tried to heal themselves on the Gerson Therapy using a centrifugal juicer. They experienced no improvement.”
The Gerson Institute uses the heavy-duty Norwalk juicer to prepare a daily regimen of 13 juices for patients. But at 70 pounds and a price tag of approximately $2,500, it may not be the first choice for people with nonmalignant conditions and healthy people who juice to enhance their health. Some of the more popular and less expensive masticating juicers for the home are the Champion, Green Star, Green Power, Angel and Omega. During the process of grinding and pressing, the fresh produce is not subjected to heat or electricity, so the healing enzymes and nutrients in the raw vegetables are better preserved in the juice.
Fiber or not?
Google “juicing” and “juicers” and you will find yourself in a debate about whether a machine is good or bad because it keeps or does not keep the fiber.
Dr. Weston A. Price (1870-1948), whose studies of isolated non-industrialized peoples determined the optimal characteristics of human diets, urged that vegetables be cooked in butter. His research found that the bulkiness — the fiber — of raw vegetables interfered with the human body’s ability to extract minerals from them via the digestive process.
He counseled that vegetables should be eaten with a fat, like butter, so the body can better absorb the important fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. Thus, some people add some cream in their green juice, eat a slice of avocado or raw cheese, or munch on walnuts.
Which veggies to juice?
Rule one of juicing: Use organic vegetables to avoid drinking a mixture of concentrated pesticides.
Celery and cucumber produce the most liquid. For a variety of nutrients, people typically like to add kale, collard greens, beets and carrots.
Kale, red and green cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, turnip, collard greens, arugula, bok choy, Brussels sprouts, radish, rutabaga and watercress are members of the cruciferous, or cabbage, family of vegetables. Conventional wisdom says cruciferous vegetables should be cooked before eating, as they contain chemicals that block the production of thyroid hormone in the body. When gently steamed or sautéed, however, these chemicals are neutralized and these vegetables are wonderful additions to the diet.
Cruciferous vegetables are important cancer fighters. A review of research published in the October 1996 issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association showed that 70 percent or more of the studies found a link between cruciferous vegetables and protection against cancer. The benefits are retained when these veggies are lightly cooked.
Some studies contradict the conventional wisdom, however. Dr. Garnett Chaney’s work in the 1950s and 1960s using cabbage juice to cure people’s stomach ulcers found that more than 80 percent were healed within 60 to 90 days after consuming fresh cabbage juice on a daily basis. When they tested cooked cabbage as a cure for the ulcers, there was no response. None of the old juicing masters — Dr. Norman Walker, Dr. Max Gerson, John Lust — ever spoke of the dangers of consuming juices made from kale or broccoli or cauliflower.
So do we want to toss raw cruciferous vegetables into a juicer? The answer seems to be occasionally, not all the time. And that fits in well with the time-honored concept of rotating foods.
By the way, also go easy on the carrots and beets. Although beets add a wonderful deep-red color to the juice, beets and carrots contain more sugar — have a higher glycemic index — than green vegetables. If you were in a holistic cancer clinic, you likely would be told that sugar is sugar, whether it comes from a carrot or a cupcake, and sugar feeds cancer. So juice just one or two carrots rather than the whole bunch.
Fresh vegetable juice is high in nutrition and low in calories — the opposite of the standard American diet. Many people like to substitute a 16-ounce glass of freshly made juice for a full meal to help them lose weight.
Mary Budinger is an Emmy award-winning journalist who writes about integrative medicine. 602-494-1999.
Reprinted from AzNetNews, Volume 32, Number 2, April/May 2013.
Angel juicer, arugula, autoimmune disease, avocado, award-winning documentary, beets, blender, bok choy, broccoli, brussels sprouts, butter, cabbage, cabbage juice, cancer, cancer clinics, cancer fighters, cancer patients, carrots, cauliflower, celery, centrifugal juicers, Champion, chronic degenerative diseases, collard greens, cook vegetables in butter, cream, cruciferous, cruciferous vegetables, cucumber, detox, detoxification, detoxing effect, digestive process, Dr. Garnett Chaney, Dr. Max Gerson, Dr. Norman Walker, Dr. Weston A. Price, enhance health, environmental medicine, enzymes, fat, Fat Sick and Nearly Dead, fat-soluble vitamins, fiber, fresh fruit, fresh produce, fruits, German physician, Gerson Institute in San Diego, Gerson Therapy, glycemic index, green juice, Green Power, Green Star, green vegetables, healing enzymes, health, holistic cancer clinic, human diets, Joe Cross, John Lust, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, juicers, juicing, juicing machines, kale, liquefiers, lose weight, masticating juicers, minerals, multi-day juice fast, Netflix, Norwalk juicer, nutrients, obese, Omega juicer, organic vegetables, overweight, pesticides, powerful blender, radish, raw cheese, raw vegetables, red and green cabbage, rotating food, rutabaga, serious healing, sick, Standard American Diet, stomach ulcers, sugar, sugar feeds cancer, thyroid hormone, turnip, vegetable juices, vegetables, veggies, vitamin A, vitamin D, Vitamin E, vitamin K, walnuts, watercress, which juicer to buy
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← Say one thing — Do the same thing
Fluoride alert EPA scientists ask for fluoride moratorium based on new cancer study →
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An Unfortunate Assignment Part 2
Mr. Brooks had finishing up his work when I arrived and I could see that a considerable portion of the documents had been moved from the disorganized quagmire of boxes and folders to the neat and accounted for collection on the other side of the room. I asked him if there was anything to note from the days delving and I was surprised to hear that he had found some odd expenditures which were of no concern but left some questions in his mind. He began with the fact that the company took a sharp downward trend once Colton McGinley inherited it after his father died. He was a student at Harvard and couldn't be expected to maintain a company of that size so it was understandable, however Mr. Brooks noted that it was more from disinterest and flamboyant spending of his own than any sort of mismanagement. The house which I had just left being the first major purchase that the young McGinley had made and that was not the end of it. Apparently, there were several trips abroad for himself and Mr. Penkin in which extravagant accommodations and the procurement of guides for excursions into uncharted regions had been frequent. There was even a large sum paid out for excavating equipment in some remote region of Denmark. It was unclear what this excavation was for or what the result had been. He also noted that Colton's son had not done much better though he for a time kept the company afloat but then as his father before him descended into exorbitant spending on travel and soliciting the services of certain experts in history, anthropology, mythology, folklore and even physics. None of which had ever produced any gains for the company or the family. It seems as though these were just personal interests that the men were feeding money into. Before leaving for the night Mr. Brooks inquired about the journal which he had examined, he seemed excited to find its partner, I told him about the new journals we had discovered and assured him that if one of these was a presumed match, he would have the first crack at deciphering their contents.
After seeing Mr. Brooks to the door, I eagerly returned to my office and began to dig into the journals we had found. I tackled the oldest first in an attempt to begin whatever narrative I would find there from the beginning.
As I suspected, the first journal was that of Colton McGinley. The entries began in 1849 in his fourth year at Harvard. Initially the entries were fairly mundane and typical for a student describing day to day live at university. In September that year Mr. McGinley met Abram Penkin and it seemed that the two became fast friends. Both men had an interest in the idea held in some occult circles that one could travel alternate dimensions than our own or look into the future or past by use of magical principals and techniques. In the beginning, it seemed to be a flight of fancy for both men, some strange and exciting phenomenon, which they discussed and theorized about but at that point, did not believe to be achievable. They began researching the occult in earnest, as well as other broader topics in physics and mathematics. It seemed innocent at first, just wild speculation. It was not until they returned to school after summer holiday in 1850 that things took a dramatic turn. Colton's father had died and left the entirety of the family fortune and business to him. He had never had a strong relationship with his father and so was not grieving for long before getting back into the swing of day-to-day life at Harvard. It was during the first semester that Mr. Penkin came to McGinley with some rather exciting news. Penkin had spent the summer researching various occult volumes, focusing on dimensional travel and had found the specific mention of a book entitled Cabala of Saboth written in 1686 by an unknown author. He had spent a significant amount of time trying to locate a copy of the text and had finally found one, which was in the restricted section of the Oren Library at the Miskatonic University. Penkin had managed to convince the head librarian to allow him to view the accursed book, and had taken down some information, which he believed was the break they had been looking for in uncovering the mysteries of the universe. The book hinted at some malevolent entity worshiped by witches and sorcerers that could grant its supplicants, through certain rituals, passage through dimensional rifts referred to as gates by the author. One such sorcerer was Maxim Utkin, who as the story told, had perfected rituals or spells which could in fact allow him to travel through dimensions and even time itself. It was said that his powerful grimoire was buried with him in an infamous graveyard in Denmark, De Beulen Huis, roughly translated from its native Danish as "The Executioners House".
The two men launched into extensive research of this man and his fabled book of shadows, as well as the horrible doom shadowed cemetery, which held what both believed to be the key to extra- dimensional travel. Utkin was a bit of a legendary figure in Russian mythology according to Penkin who was himself Russian. The stories say that he was over two hundred years old and was the object of many tales told to children who did not behave. Penkin remembered his grandmother telling him stories of the evil sorcerer Utkin who would come for children who did not obey their elders. According to some of the research the men had done Utkin was a real man who was buried with, as the stories called it, his evil book, in De Beulen Huis cemetery. It was during winter break that year that the two young men traveled to Denmark in search of their prize. Indeed, they found De Beulen Huis and indeed they found the grave of the foul Mr. Utkin. They managed to extract the book from its vile resting place and returned home as winter session began again.
The book they extracted from that god-forsaken graveyard which McGinley referred to as "akin to hell on earth", was written in Old East Slavic. Penkin immediately began the arduous process of translating the text. He, being a Russian speaker, had an advantage, however the old dialect was extremely difficult to decipher into modern Russian and then further into English. It was at this time that Penkin began a transformation and not for the better. He became more withdrawn and paranoid. He would lock himself away with the book for days on end working into the night with reckless disregard for his own health. Rarely eating or sleeping he had lost weight and began to display dark circles under the eyes and a sickly pale tone to his skin.
Mr. McGinley at this time had stepped back from the feverish and obsessive research the two had been engaged in and began to focus on his studies. It was at this time that he met Stewart Billings and his close friend Bernard Lafayette. The two men were a welcome change of pace from the oppressive darkness of Abram Penkin, Colton's social life began to renew with vigor. It did not take long however for McGinley to fall back into his old ways, asking the two law students if they had any interest in the occult or the unexplained. Much to his surprise both men had an interest for the bizarre and fantastic. He then began a slow process of introducing the men to some of the things that he and Penkin had discovered. The two were apprehensive and dismissive at first but once McGinley had shown them some of the less exotic things they had uncovered they were eager for more.
It was near the end of the school year when Mr. McGinley purchased the house outside of Boston. With a base in which to operate McGinley introduced Penkin to the other men and they all began meeting at the house on weekends. The group began to engage in what McGinley called experiments, trying out various rituals they had found in old dusty tomes from the Miskatonic and Harvard libraries alike. Deeper they went into the shadowed realms in an effort to understand and hone their craft. At this point they began referring to their group as Tenebris Circuli, latin for the dark circle. When school renewed they were in full swing, reveling in the idea that they were going to discover mysteries of the unknown that their peers could not fathom. Mr. Wesley Lawton, a student of medicine and a dyed in the wool skeptic, then approached them. He challenged all of their claims and demanded proof. This endeared Mr. Lawton to the group, they agreed that a skeptic would keep them balanced, and keep them from seeing success where there was none. It didn't take much time for Lawton to become a full member of Tenebris Circuli and an integral piece for the group.
It was just before graduation when Mr. Penkin came to McGinley with the finished translation of the book. To keep it safe, he said, he had written the translation in a code, which required a key to decode. He was concerned that others may try to steal their work and take credit for the discoveries they were so close to obtaining. He gave the key portion to Mr. McGinley and kept the encoded portion for himself. McGinley notes at this time, a marked change in Penkin. Something behind the eyes, a colder tone and humorless presence. It was as if the old Penkin was gone, replaced by a cold and calculating doppelganger whose only drive was to unlock the mysteries of that book.
Penkin had been studying the text and had finally come upon the rituals he had been looking for. The ritual was to be performed by multiple participates and would, if done properly, deliver one of the group across the veil to other dimensions for a short time then bring them back into our dimension when the ritual was completed. Penkin was ecstatic about the discovery and wanted to attempt the ritual straight away. It was a few weeks after graduation and the group was to congregate at the house outside of Boston to attempt to send Mr. Penkin through a gate and into another dimension. Penkin, now with the key complete gave it to McGinley for safekeeping, and the men told their close relations that they were taking a camping trip that weekend in northern Massachusetts.
The next section, which ends the first journal, is too incredible to be believed. I was taken totally off guard by the statements put forth and I was remiss to believe any of it. This must be some sort of elaborate hoax, but how could it be, the journal was verified authentic by Ms. Waterford.
The final entries in the journal catalog what happened the night of the ritual that was to send Mr. Penkin to the other side. The group met at the house on a Friday evening and had what seemed to be a nice night discussing the specifics of the coming ritual. All seemed in order and the next day they set about getting things ready for the nights festivities. From all accounts, the ritual was a complete success, a gate was drawn on the floor in the great room of the house, the proper incantations and rituals were preformed, and finally Mr. Penkin stepped into the circular symbol they had created as the gate. If the journal is to be believed he then vanished. They were astonished and could not believe what they had seen. The remaining men stood before the gate gazing in wonder when the abomination crossed back over the threshold. The thing that came back through the gate was not Abram Penkin though it bore his face. It was a figure standing on two legs, which were bent in awkward places and from its torso extended several writhing pseudo-pods that undulated with some sort of unheard rhythm. The skin of the thing was dark and wet with some sort of mucus which constantly ran down the thing. Atop that blasphemous torso was the visage of their friend Penkin but bloated with puss filled tumors bulging from random locations around the head. It turned to the three men who could only stare frozen in fear and exhibited what McGinley described as a victorious smile.
At that Billings crumpled to the floor in terror and began to shriek, Lawton, apparently mesmerized by the creature stepped forward and was engulfed in the undulating grasp of the multiple appendages then pulled closer into the thing where the face that bore Penkin's visage bit deeply into the neck of Lawton and began to devour the lifeless body. McGinley had prepared for trouble and had created a single silver disc baring the symbol of a five-pointed star emblazoned with a flaming eye in its center. He rushed to the thing pressing the disk to its skin; it dropped the limp form of Lawton to the ground and shrank back staring wildly at McGinley. He called for Lafayette to bring something to bind the foul beast with and Lafayette rushed off, returning with a length of rope that they hastily tied around the abomination. With the symbol subduing the thing they quickly located a chain that was used to secure the outside basement doors and bound the thing with it affixing the disk to the chain. Then they dragged the thing and Mr. Lawton's body down into the basement. On through the night, until morning they worked at bricking the thing and Lawton's corpse into the north-eastern wall of the basement. All the while they worked the thing stared at them and made no sound. Once finished they carved the same symbol on the freshly made brick wall and set about carving the it into each of the entry ways and windows of the home. With their grisly work completed both men sat on the couch in the great room before the large bay window and succumbed to exhaustion.
McGinley convinced the other two remaining men that it would be best to keep the incident quiet and create a story that could explain the absence of Lawton and Penkin without producing any bodies. They came up with the spelunking accident since the initial cover story was a camping trip and Lawton knew of a cave system to the north that would easily be fit the description. They told their tale to authorities and the families. An investigation was never pursued. The guilt at what they had done was almost too much to bare. Mr. McGinley, fearing the others would eventually crack and reveal the truth of that ill-fated weekend, approached Billings and Lafayette with the idea of them handling his estate. He gave them a large sum of money upfront that he told them could be seed money for a practice of their own. The two lawyers could not pass up such an opportunity. They could open a firm before either had even passed the Barr, begining with such a large estate in hand that they would not be struggling for clients within the early years. Billings and Lafayette was created with blood money given to them by Colton McGinley for the express purpose of keeping the horrible secrete they had walled into the basement of the house on Waverley Oaks road. I could not believe what I was reading, this firm which I took so much pride in, which I was striving to become partner of, was the front of a terrible, abhorrent and diabolical event that left one man dead and another in god knows what state.
At this point the entries in the journal stopped and don't begin again for several years. It is evident that Mr. McGinley wished to put the horrible incident behind him as he moved back into his family home and left the house outside of Boston to sit uninhabited for years. After some poorly managed business decisions McGinley, decided to sell of the large mansion which was his family home and move into the smaller house on Waverley Oaks. He believed that the Penkin thing in the basement must now have died of starvation trapped within its tomb in the basement. It was not long after the McGinley met and married his wife and subsequently had their first and second children. Life seemed to have turned to normal and the dark past seemed to be behind him. The entries in the journal at this time are happy and joyful, without mention of the terrible deeds of that night or the obsessed desire to travel dimensions and time. However, everything changed with the death of Mrs. McGinley.
Entries leading up to this time begin to have McGinley again thinking about the thing in the basement. He was having strange dreams of other nightmarish worlds where abominations walk freely. He writes of finding himself in the basement staring at that brick wall only to realize that he did not remember coming down. He spoke of a voice in his head, which was calling, to him to open the wall and set the thing free. It was obvious that McGinley was going through a mental break brought on by keeping his horrible secret for so many years. In fact, it was this portion of the journal that led me to question the validity of the rest of the entries. Could it be that McGinley was mad all along, it certainly would be easier to believe that than the wild narrative he put forth thus far. Then an entry in the journal took the wind from me and left me completely stunned. Mr. McGinley describes coming to his senses standing at the top of the stairs down to the basement not realizing how he had come to be there. He came around only to notice the body of his wife at the foot of the stairs with her neck broken. In that instant the memories came rushing back, in a fit of rage due to an argument they were having about his preoccupation with the basement, he pushed her down the stairs, where she died. He told the authorities that she had fallen down the stairs in the morning before he had come down for breakfast.
This incident set McGinley off on a quest to rid the home of the evil thing he now believed was controlling his mind. He took Penkins portion of the horrid book and cast it into the unused well behind the house hoping to keep anyone from discovering its vile secrets. He began to travel around the globe searching for a way to cast the demon thing out back to the hell it came from. He went back to the graveyard in Denmark in an attempt to trace back the lineage of Maxim Utkin in the hope that it would lead to a solution. He traced the man back to Russia and the town of Arkhangelisk but the trail went cold there. He returned home and attempted to resist the evil thing that was forever calling him to release it from the precarious prison the men had created for it. Then McGinley's youngest son went missing.
Horrified by the possible reasons, McGinley immediately put together a search party and set a reward for information on the whereabouts of his son. Five days later they found him in the well behind the house where he had deposited Penkin's portion of the horrid translation. He surmised that the eldritch entity trapped in the house must have compelled his son to search for the missing piece of the translation and in doing so the boy slipped and met his end in that cursed well. McGinley was inconsolable and resumed his search with hysterical vigor. Leaving his older son in the care of hired caretakers he began more aggressively searching for a way to lift the curse he had brought upon his kin.
Years passed and the elder McGinley rarely came back to the house. Spending his time instead traveling the world looking for the means to put an end to the misery and tragedy that he brought onto his family. He returned home when his son left for college and remained. Once his son and all of the hired help had left that house, Colton was alone with the thing and the incessant taunting began with much more intensity. He wrote in his journal several times about the dreams and voices in his head. He had clearly gone mad at this point and the loneliness and isolation pushed him to the brink. His last entry states that he built a secret compartment in the bedroom to conceal his part of the translation and his journal. He put the key to this secret compartment in a safe deposit box at the bank and gave the key and number to the law firm to add to the estate holdings. The day after, he took his own life.
I was visibly shaking at this point as I closed the journal and looked over to the second almost identical book on my desk. I was resolved to read all three but I shuddered at what I might find in the journal that could only be Christopher McGinley's. I poured a large glass of brandy and drank deeply. So far, the tale seemed so unreal that it could only be an elaborate hoax. There were pieces of physical evidence, however that spoke to the contrary.
Christopher's journal began much the way his fathers had, detailing daily live at the Miskatonic University. His father had suggested the school and though he could never understand why, he respected his father's recommendation. It was a good fit for Christopher however, and he enjoyed the mysterious, shadow shrouded town of Arkham in which the university was located. When he got word of his father's death he was mortified. Even though his father had been absent for almost his entire childhood, he did remember the times when he was present and the love that he had for his mother. Somehow, he knew that his father's absence was not by choice but brought on by some unfulfilled duty to the family. He inherited the estate at that point but stayed in school and did not return to his childhood home. There were too many bad feelings in that place. He remembered the horrible dreams he had there and the tragic death of his mother and younger brother. After graduation he took time to travel abroad, and returned to the states with a renewed energy and a desire to put the family back on course. He began to take a hand in the company, which was slowly falling, to ruin from neglect. In short order he managed to pull it up from its downward spiral. After a time, Christopher took a wife and eventually had a daughter, Agatha, and a son, Peter. Things seemed to be going well for the family and it looked like the shadow of tragedy and despair had been lifted from the family.
It was not Christopher but his wife, Claudette who looked into the estate holdings and upon finding the safe deposit box, extracted the single key that it contained. So confounded was she by this single item that she began a complete search of the house in hopes of finding a mate for this strange key. It had to have some importance or it would not have been locked away at the bank. It became an obsession to which she was becoming increasingly irrational about. Christopher tried to dissuade her from the preoccupation that was becoming a detriment to the children but she would not relent. She began to speak of strange dreams that she was having and that she would find herself in the basement without realizing why she had come down there. He was worried for her health and safety and tried to preoccupy her with other hobbies but nothing seemed to break her focus on the basement and her search for the keyhole to match that key.
And so it went for months until late one night Christopher was woke by a sound coming from the basement of the house. He noticed that his wife was not with him in bed and was concerned that she may be down in the basement. When he came down the basement stares he was confronted with a chilling scene. He wife was kneeling before a section of brick wall on the east side. The wall had a strange symbol carved into it that had previously been obscured by dust, cobwebs and old furniture. Mrs. McGinley had moved away the furniture and had cleared an area before the wall in which she now knelt muttering quietly to herself. When Christopher called to his wife, she turned her head in his direction and he was shocked at the visage before him. Her face was contorted and strained and her eyes were rolled back into the sockets revealing only the whites of her eyes. Then in a grotesque baritone, guttural and accented voice she uttered three words then fell unconscious on the ground. The words ran over in his mind as he attempted to wake her to no avail. The three words, which sent him on a quest beginning where his father before him had left off, attempting to rid the world of the evil that was contained in the McGinley home were, "set me free".
After this Claudette slipped into what the doctor's diagnosed as a self-induced coma of some sort. She lay in bed and could not be roused in any way. Some nights she would stir in her bed but that was the most interaction she would have. Christopher was beside himself with grief and was determined to find out what was causing this malady. He was convinced it had something to do with the obsession and that symbol on the wall in the basement.
While attempting to fix a floorboard that was coming loose in the master bedroom Christopher found the curious lever that hung just out of sight inside the heating vent in the wall. He pulled the lever and as Ms. Waterford and myself had done. A shiver went down my spine as he explained that he heard the click as the secret compartment concealed in the wood paneling came open, just as we had earlier that day. Inside he found his father's journal and the detestable cypher key which unknown to him was the seed from which his family's misfortune had grown. After reading his father's journal he began to again pick up the trail where his father had left off.
He was able to locate a tome in the library of his alma matter which contained the ritual required to create the sign carved onto each window and door in the house, chiseled into the wall in the basement and according to his father's journal chained fast to the creature contained within. His journal entries also make mention of the white stone which Ms. Waterford now had in her possession.
Christopher was abroad in Russia when he received news of his wife's death. He had uncovered a key piece to the puzzle but unfortunately, he was too late to save his wife. He returned home to arrange the funeral and the subsequent commitment of his daughter to the Roxbury sanitarium. Broken severely by these events, this only bolstered his determination to send the thing back to the hell it came from. The information that he found in Russia was integral to this end. It was the sorcerer Maxim Utkin who carried the dark knowledge required to open a gate to the realm of his dark god. Christopher had identified this entity as one mentioned in many tomes of great evil. One of which he was able to locate, the German Unaussprechliche Kulte which spoke of cults worshiping an entity associated with dimensional travel and time itself. The malevolent entity bore the name Yog-Sothoth and was by all accounts a being beyond human comprehension. Utkin's lineage propagated the worship of this dark deity through the years and it was in old ship manifests that Christopher found that several generations after the sorcerer had been put in the ground at The Executioners House, his decedents had made the long journey to the new world and upon arrival, changed their name from the original Utkin to the present day Penkin. It was Abram Penkin, direct descendant of Maxim Utkin who had used them all to cross the threshold and become a true servitor of his dark god. He had become the horrible half-man, half-eldritch being that touched the minds of all who came into this house from its tomb in the basement walls.
He struggled against the will of the creature as it pecked at his mind daily. He, like his wife found himself in the basement without recollection of how he had come to be there. He tried to stay away from the house as much as he could taking his son away for months at a time and finally when Peter was of age the boy left for college just as he had done. Leaving Christopher alone in the house to confront the thing that Penkin had become. Day by day it called to him over and over as he tried desperately to find the correct incantations, which would build a gate strong enough to send the thing, back to the blackness. In the end his resolve broke, he was not strong enough to resist. One night he found himself swinging a pick-axe against the wall breaking large chunks of it away. Knowing then that he would eventually bend to the will of the thing and release it upon the world. The servitor would then usher in the true power allowing the opener of ways to enter into our plane of existence and set about the ruination of mankind. Christopher added the journal to his fathers inside the secret compartment in the master bedroom, he then took the key, the stone bearing the symbol and the cypher key to the bank and locked it away in the safe deposit box. He returned the key for the box to the firm to add to the estates holdings, and then went home. The entries end there; it was two days after the last entry that Mr. Christopher McGinley was found dead in his home hanging in full view from the large bay window at the front of the house.
The night was getting late and I was struggling to stay awake, the brandy, which had at first been calming my nerves, was now beckoning me to sleep. I looked at the last journal on the desk and picked it up. Upon opening it an envelope fell from the pages onto my desk. There was writing on one side that read, "Peter". The envelope was open and the contents still inside. I slid the letter out and opened it. It was a letter from Christopher McGinley to his son Peter. It spoke in condensed form of all the things contained in the two journals I had just been through. It explained that Peter should not go to the house unless he had plans to send the thing back. It begged him to stay away from the home. Finally, it put forth that the translation done by Penkin was incomplete, he had never intended to translate the full book but only the portions that he needed to make his transformation. He then alluded that the book itself was needed to send the thing back to its nightmarish world. Unfortunately, the only soul who knows where the original text ended up was entombed in the basement of the house on Waverley Oaks. He apologized to his son for not being able to rid the family of this burden and tells him that he fears he cannot hold out against the constant beckoning of the thing in the basement. He would eventually succumb and set it free and so he was resolved to take his own life.
The journal of Peter McGinley was sparse and uninformative for the most part. Much of it was from his childhood and spoke of terrible dreams and his mother's obsession with finding the lock to which the key would fit. He spoke of Agatha and how much he wished he could have helped her and the guilt he felt at visiting her less and less. He too saw the skulking specter of the beast in the home but unlike Agatha he realized it was only a shadow not a physical manifestation. It was a projection of some horrible evil thing that Peter believed lived in the basement and that this is why his mother was so obsessed with that part of the house. He knew that it was also the subject of his father's many trips and long nights of study with old and dusty books. It was also the reason he choose Anthropology as his major in school. He hoped that he could study various peoples around the world looking for signs in their legends and traditions that would somehow relate to the thing he had seen in the house. After school his travels aimed at the same goal and as his father and grandfather before him he searched for a way to send the thing back.
Returning home for the first time in many years, he accessed the estate records and found the letter his father had left for him. This confirmed all of his childhood speculation and set his determination even stronger to rid the world of this terrible thing, which lie in wait in the cold dark basement of the house on Waverley Oaks.
The final entries of his journal were focused on a plan which Peter was determined to execute which, for better or worse, would end the family curse. He had found in a certain unspeakable tome that was under the strictest guard at the Oren Library, of which he spent years endearing himself to the head librarian in order to be allowed access to, a specific ritual which would create a dimensional passage or gate. He planned to use this gate to send the abomination in the McGinley home to some other plane and seal it there. God help the denizens of that alternate world, but he could no longer afford to be scrupulous, he must act before the thing found a way to escape its tenuous prison and open the way for its dark master.
He attempted the gate ritual several times but was unable create one large enough to send the thing through. The toll this was taking on his mind and body had been immense and he believed he could not withstand the constant assault his mind was under from the thing below. There was no recourse, he could not withstand the thing, and he feared that, the longer he stayed in the house, the eventuality of him releasing it grew exponentially. Four days after the last entry in the journal, Peter McGinley was found dead in the house hanging in front of the same bay window as his father and thus ending the McGinley line forever.
I realized then that the bay window, the location of so much dread through the years was unremarkable but for one fact. This window that bore witness to four suicides, that was a constant reminder of the homes dark past was in a position directly above the north east wall of the basement. Directly above the cramped dark prison of the monstrosity that Penkin had become.
I set the book down on my desk unable to believe what I had read in the McGinley family journals. It seemed impossible, but there was an increasing amount of physical evidence to corroborate the story. If it was a hoax it was a deeply intricate and well planned one. It would have been a hoax perpetrated from years in the past to this date. If there was even an inkling of truth to this terrible narrative then I must get to the house tomorrow and warn the others to stay away. I could not in good faith allow them to continue in such and unsafe environment.
I woke up with my head on the desk as I heard Mrs. Lampton unlocking the doors of the main office. Quickly hiding the bottle of brandy and the glass I attempted to put myself together. Mr. Brooks would soon be here and I had overslept. With my hair a mess and three days of stubble on my face I tried to greet Mrs. Lampton as if noting was amiss. She inquired about my well-being and remarked that I shouldn't spend every night working late. Mr. Brooks arrived promptly as always and gave me an odd look as he entered the office and set about the day's work. He let me know that he should be finished with everything today and that he would check in with me tomorrow if I did not come back to the office before he was gone. I bid him a quick farewell and stumbled out of the office.
I drove as quickly as I could to the house to try and intercept the others. I thought it best to tell them that something was amiss with the inheritance and call off the inspection of the house until a later time. When I arrived however the work truck of Mr. Elliot was already in the driveway. Ms. Waterford was there as well in her car parked on the street. Mr. Stark's car was also on the street, he was not in his car and must be helping Mr. Elliot with something inside. As I got out of the car, Ms. Waterford intercepted me immediately and began a quick and nervous dialog about the stone, which she had attempted to research the night prior. She told me that she had consulted a colleague who was a professor of history at the Miskatonic University, a Mr Bernard Pembrook. The professor examined the stone and determined that the symbol was familiar to him; he said it was an old symbol and most referred to it as the elder sign. It was said to be repellent to entities that had association with certain ancient deities and was used for the purpose of warding or sealing. Ms. Waterford seemed nervous as she mentioned that this symbol was depicted throughout the house. I attempted to assure her that there was nothing to worry about but she could see on my face that I did not believe that.
We entered the house and found no one in the great room and so we began to call out for the others. Our calls were returned from the basement where Mr. Elliot was presumably working. We went down to see what the man was doing down there and I was half expecting to see him enthralled by the thing I had been reading about the night before. So apprehensive was I as I descended the stairs, that Ms. Waterford gave me an odd look and asked if I was all right. Shaking my head as we reached the bottom of the stairs, I inquired what Mr. Elliot was doing. He let me know that he was working on setting up jacks to bare the load of the house so that he could work on repairing the section of the basement wall that was damaged by the falling tree the day before. I as we spoke my eyes could not help but dart over to the wall on the east side of the basement, the one which the journals told concealed the horrible, vile abomination which was once Abram Penkin. After discussing the work Mr. Elliot was doing I asked if he had seen Mr. Stark. He related that he had not since the day before. I left Elliot to continue his work and set about moving some of the boxes and furniture that was obstructing a clear view of the north eastern wall. Once I did I was horrified at what I had uncovered. The claims I had read in the journals of the McGinley's were substantiated as on the wall was a chiseled representation of the elder sign Ms. Waterford had spoken of. She audibly gasped as she saw the making, her own horrible assumptions at what it could mean. Once more to my horror I also spied the marks in the brick where the pick-axe of Christopher McGinley had struck. It was almost too much to take in and my knees began to weaken.
At that instant the tree outside shifted again causing a breakage in the north wall where Mr. Elliot was working. This in turn caused some cracking of the bricks on the east wall and much to the horror of everyone in the room a portion of the eastern wall fell away to reveal what none of us could believe. In the dark recess of the exposed section, barely visible through the hole reveled by the crumbling brick, we saw what looked to be the face of a man. A horrible stench came from inside and Mr. Elliot being the closest gaged as the noxious odor engulfed him. Ms. Waterford was exclaiming that we should not go near it as Elliot stepped closer to the thing in the wall. We could see it was a human face though it had strange deformities on either side, which looked like large tumors or growths. Before I could move to turn Mr. Elliot away from the thing we were all struck by a feeling of heinous dread and fear as the thing in the wall opened its eyes. Elliot bellowed out a curse as Ms. Waterford covered her eyes in shock and terror. I sprang into action with fear coursing through my veins, moving toward Elliot to pull him away from the thing but I was a moment too late. Several sickly slender and writhing appendages squirmed out from the broken section of wall and wrapped themselves around the unsuspecting contractor. It pulled him quickly into the open section of wall, which obscured the grotesque face that lurked within. I could hear a sickly sucking sound as Mr. Elliot's legs began to shake and kick wildly. Waterford screamed but even so moved past me with a revolver in her hand. In a moment the thing released Mr. Elliot and his lifeless body crumpled to the floor. Ms. Waterford fired all five of her rounds into the thing but it seemed to have no effect, it only stared at us with an evil malignant calm that spoke of unearthly patience. It was then that Mr. Stark scrambled down the stairs holding a mud-smeared book in one hand and a large hunting knife in the other.
I backed away from the deranged looking man and asked what he thought he was doing. The wild look in his eyes told me what he was about before his words confirmed it.
"Give me the key" he said in a throaty voice.
"It isn't here Mr. Stark, please calm down and we can talk about this" I attempted to persuade the man.
"Stand aside, we must release it, it must be free" he bellowed as he lunged forward towards me.
I leaped to the side and fell as I did, but I narrowly escaped the thrusting blade. Ms. Waterford stepped forward with the gun now pointed at Stark and demanded he relent. This was a bold bluff since the gun was empty. Stark was not intimidated and lunged at Waterford plunging the knife deeply into her chest, both falling to the floor with the blow. Stark rolled off of her and I could see the large knife protruding from Ms. Waterford's chest, she was not moving and I could see her lifeless eyes as she stared vacantly in my direction. Stark then stood and moved toward the opening of the wall and began pulling bricks from it widening the breach. I moved quickly to my feet pulling the knife from the lifeless body of Ms. Waterford and drove it into the back of Mr. Stark. He gave a gasp as a sudden rush of air released from his lungs then slowly slumped to the floor leaving me face to face with the Penkin thing trapped in the wall.
I staggered back as the rope-like appendages reached toward me, falling over the body of Ms. Waterford. As I did, I saw the smooth white stone we had found in the safe deposit box half exposed in the pocket of her sweater. I grabbed it hoping that it would afford some protection form the beast now beginning to excrete more of itself from the ever-widening opening. I raised the stone up in my fist as I struggled to get to my feet. As if sourced by fire it shrunk back into the safety of its walled tomb and I could see that the stone was indeed a talisman with the power to repel the ghastly monstrosity. It called to me then, a voice in my head that I felt compelled to comply with, telling me to release it. I fought back the desire to do so and searched the basement for the materials I needed to repair the broken section of wall. I fought with every ounce of my being to resist the voice in my head.
"Release me" it beckoned.
With the stone in my hand I went about replacing the broken bricks in the wall with the cold calculating eyes of the thing staring at my every movement. I was able to resist long enough that I walled the thing back into its prison. Those eyes staring back at me all the while until the last brick was in place. Still in my mind the voice was tormenting me.
"Release me".
I managed to get upstairs though it was difficult to resist the temptation to return to the basement and take down that wall. I returned the journals to the secret compartment in the master bedroom and left the house. The further from the cursed place I got the weaker the compulsion became. It was dark now as I drove back to my small office on Washington Street and set about writing this testament. It will be difficult to believe the words put down in this confession. It may be tempting to look into the matter yourself to see if what I say is true. Please do not. Leave that house to decay and be forgotten, do not attempt to find the journals, and for the love of god do not speak with poor Agatha.
Boston Police Department A-1 Downtown February 17th 1922:
The above document was submitted as evidence in the case of a Mr. Jonathon Crown's suicide. Mr. Crown jumped from the window of his office and fell seven stories to his death. The document above was on his desk freshly written. The only other object on the desk was an old key that was part of the McGinley estate. The man was obviously unstable which the document clearly shows. The house on Waverley Oaks was searched and the bodies of Nathanial Elliot, Agnes Waterford and Carl Stark were found in the condition described in the document, however, the fingerprints on the knife were Mr. Crowns. It is the opinion of this department that Mr. Crown had suffered a mental break under pressure of his job and his desire to become partner in the firm of Billings and Lafayette and in a delusional state murdered the three aforementioned individuals then committed suicide.
Upon investigation of the home, the secret compartment in the master bedroom was discovered but it was empty. The books referred to in Mr. Crown's confession, as the cypher key and the translated text, were also not present in the house or in Mr. Crown's office. Mr. Stewart Brooks the accountant mentioned in the confession reported the suicide after returning to Mr. Crown's office on Friday the 17th 1922 to find the window open and Crown's body below in the alley. Mr. Brooks confirmed his part in the processing of the McGinley estate but denied the claims that Mr. Crown had shown him a journal identified as a cypher key. The other mentions of his involvement were confirmed as correct.
This was a horrible and unfortunate incident however the firm of Billings and Lafayette denied all claims of any involvement in the wildly fanciful testimony of Mr. Crown. The McGinley estate has been properly transferred to the Lawton family and is no longer part of the firms open clients. Though the circumstances were horrible, the Lawton family has moved into the house on Waverley Oaks road and is free from any suspicion. It is clear that Crown was the sole perpetrator of this crime and has ended his own life as a result. This case is considered closed.
Boston Daily Globe March 10th 1922 Police were called to the apartment of a Mr. Stewart Brooks Thursday evening when neighbors complained that Mr. Brooks was wailing incessantly for several hours. Arriving on the scene police found the man huddled in the corner of his small one bedroom apartment scratching at his face and arms viciously. Weak from blood loss and apparent lack of food, water and sleep Mr. Brooks was taken to Boston Memorial Hospital for evaluation.
The police found no drugs or alcohol in the apartment and nothing seemed to be out of order. One curious note, the police reported finding two books at Mr. Brooks' desk, both of which were written in no language they could determine. Officers said it looked to be gibberish.
Mr. Brooks was committed to the Roxbury Sanitarium after full evaluation from the medical staff at Boston Memorial. Brooks had no immediate family and is considered a ward of the state.
By: David Pitzel Nov. 20, 2016, midnight
The Sentinel of Green Leaf and Wyatt
Let Old Things Lie
The Road Less Traveled Part 4
Yaquina Head Light Part 1
The Seed Man
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US unemployment lowest since in nine years (4.6pc)
Pushing on a string
It's become popular to argue that in Australia interest rates aren't heading lower in this cycle because low rates don't work (just 'cos...).
Yet the evidence from overseas, to me at least, seems to suggest that low rates have been working, albeit gradually.
In the UK, for example, we've seen the unemployment rate fall from 8.5 per cent to 4.8 per cent.
That said, while I'm no expert in inequality, it's been clear to see that investment, jobs growth, house price growth - in fact growth in almost everything - has been skewed towards London and the south east at the expense of the regions.
In turn, this is leading to swathes of disaffected voters, and all the political implications thereof.
I'm not very familiar with the US, but I imagine a similar story could be told, with stock markets soaring to record highs and the gains in wealth being share iniquitously.
Anyway, a 60-second look at the latest US jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...
Employment increased for a record 75th consecutive month, with nonfarm payroll employment up by +175,000, broadly in line with expectations.
The results for September (+208,000) and October (+142,000) were revised up and down respectively, the twin revisions netting out to 'not a lot'.
Over the past three months employment has increased by +176,000 per month on average.
The recovery may not have been spectacular, but it sure has been consistent: over the past 81 months since early 2010, total employment has increased by +15.6 million.
As you can see in the chart below the pace of employment growth has eased back this year, from the rollicking pace of 2014, but the average gains per month have been strong enough to keep downward pressure on the unemployment rate.
Over the first 11 months of 2016 employment growth has averaged ~180,000 per month, which remains well ahead of the estimated rate required to keep unemployment low and stable.
Unemployment rate lowest since 2007
The unemployment rate dropped from 4.9 per cent to just 4.6 per cent, the lowest level in the nine long years since August 2007.
The number of unemployed persons per job opening is also now close to its lowest level since the recession, suggesting that slack in the labour force is declining.
Interesting to consider that with the unemployment rate this low, it's being debated whether the appropriate policy response is a splurge of spending on infrastructure (investment in infrastructure, of course, is a sound idea, but a debt-fuelled splurge may not be the way to go).
Earnings blip
All payroll reports have their weak aspects and this one was no exception.
The composition of employment growth hasn't been great lately (part time employment), while average hourly earnings declined by 3 cents in November to $25.89.
This takes the annual growth in average hourly earnings back down to under 2.5 per cent from 2.8 per cent in October.
Broadly in line with expectations, and so it's expected that rates will be hiked in December.
The Aussie dollar is now being 74.5 US cents.
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Carnival Cruise Line Celebrates Dr. Seuss's 115th Birthday With Day of Fun for Kids Aboard Carnival Splendor in Long Beach Featuring Celebrity Book Reading by Joey Fatone
Carnival Hosts More than 100 Kids from Boys & Girls Clubs, Donates $10,000 to the Organization in Honor of Legendary Author's Birthday
MIAMI, March 4, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- To celebrate Dr. Seuss' 115th birthday, Carnival Cruise Line hosted a fun family-friendly event onboard Carnival Splendor in Long Beach for 100 kids from the local Boys & Girls Clubs as part of the fleetwide festivities that commemorated the life of the world-renowned children's book author. The event featured a special reading of "Horton Hears a Who!" by singer, dancer and television personality Joey Fatone.
Carnival Cruise Line and Dr. Seuss share an appreciation for fun and creativity, so to honor the famed children's author and the world he created, the event included a breakfast with popular Dr. Seuss characters delighting attendees as they indulged in Green Eggs and Ham, red and white pancake stacks resembling The Cat in the Hat's signature striped hat and other colorful creations, as well as, face painting and other activities.
Dr. Seuss' birthday festivities extended across the Carnival fleet and included a balloon drop and moment for birthday cake and sweets on each ship. Carnival also encouraged young guests to write their own birthday wishes and granted 115 wishes across its 26 ships.
In conjunction with the event and in the spirit of supporting today's youth, Carnival also made a $10,000 donation to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Long Beach, an organization that helps children of all ages reach their full potential through fun and educational programming year-round.
These festivities are just one of the company's many ongoing efforts to celebrate the remarkable words and world of Dr. Seuss. Through its fleetwide Seuss at Sea program, an exclusive partnership with leading children's entertainment company, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, Carnival's ships feature activities such as a Green Eggs and Ham Breakfast with The Cat in The Hat and Friends, and Seuss-a-palooza Parade and Story Time, a special onboard character parade and interactive storytelling experience. Dr. Seuss Bookville, a family-friendly, Seuss-themed reading venue, is available on select ships as well with a Dr. Seuss-themed WaterWorks aqua park featured on the line's newest ship, Carnival Horizon.
"At Carnival Cruise Line we are all about providing new and exciting ways for our guests to Choose Fun and what a better way to celebrate Dr. Seuss' 115th birthday than with a creative and memorable event honoring the world's most famous children's author and the world he created while making a difference in one of our homeports," said Chris Nelson, vice president of entertainment for Carnival Cruise Line.
"Each year, Ted's birthday is a special celebration of his vision to fuel the power of imagination and encourage a lifelong love of learning and literacy in our children and children at heart," says Susan Brandt, president of Dr. Seuss Enterprises. "We were so excited to partner with Carnival Cruise Line once again for Ted's 115th birthday and together honor his legacy by inviting kids to experience the amazing world of Dr. Seuss through fun, celebratory reading events."
Carnival is the leader in West Coast cruising industry with three year-round ships that carry upwards of 600,000 guests annually – the most in cruising. Carnival Panorama, currently under construction in Italy, is set to debut from Long Beach in December of this year, marking the first new Carnival ship homeported on the West Coast in 20 years, underscoring the importance of the rapidly growing market.
To learn more about Carnival Cruise Line, visit Carnival.com. For reservations, contact any travel agent or call 1-800-CARNIVAL. Carnival can also be found on: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
Journalists also can visit Carnival's media site, carnival-news.com or follow the line's PR department on Twitter at twitter.com/CarnivalPR.
About Carnival Cruise Line
Carnival Cruise Line, part of Carnival Corporation & plc (NYSE/LSE: CCL; NYSE: CUK), is "The World's Most Popular Cruise Line®" with 26 ships operating three- to 24-day voyages to The Bahamas, Caribbean, Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, New England, Bermuda, Cuba, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia. The line currently has three new ships scheduled for delivery – Carnival Panorama set to debut in 2019, Mardi Gras in 2020 and an as-yet-unnamed ship in 2022.
About Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel is quite simply the most beloved children's book author of all time. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1984, three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, three Grammy Awards, and three Caldecott Honors, Geisel wrote and illustrated 45 books for children. Hundreds of millions of copies have found their way into homes and hearts around the world. While Theodor Geisel died on September 24, 1991, Dr. Seuss lives on, inspiring generations of children of all ages to explore the joys of reading. For more information about Dr. Seuss and his works, visit seussville.com.
About Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises is a leading children's entertainment company committed to caretaking Theodor Seuss Geisel's (Dr. Seuss's) legacy, ensuring that each generation can experience the amazing world of Dr. Seuss. Established in 1993 and based in San Diego, CA, the company's global portfolio complements the roster of iconic Dr. Seuss books, and includes films, TV shows, stage productions, exhibitions, digital media, licensed merchandise, and other strategic partnerships. Ted Geisel once said he never wanted to license his characters to anyone who would "round out the edges" – a guiding principle at Dr. Seuss Enterprises. For more information about Dr. Seuss and his works, visit seussville.com.
View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/carnival-cruise-line-celebrates-dr-seusss-115th-birthday-with-day-of-fun-for-kids-aboard-carnival-splendor-in-long-beach-featuring-celebrity-book-reading-by-joey-fatone-300806130.html
SOURCE Carnival Cruise Line
Joyce Oliva, 305-406-5464, media@carnival.com
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The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.
About Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician, army officer, and writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as a Member of Parliament (MP). Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, for most of his career he was a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but from 1904 to 1924 was a member of the Liberal Party.
You may find more from Winston Churchill on Wikiquote
More quotations from Winston Churchill
We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English.
From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.
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PCTI PRESS
PAKISTANI CARGO TRUCK INITIATIVE
Lighton program makes ambassadors of artists by ALICE THORSON, The Kansas City Star, July 1, 2011.
Kansas City artist Asheer Akram traveled to Pakistan last year with a grant from the Kansas City-based Lighton International Artists Exchange Program. Inspired by the artfully decorated cargo trucks he encountered throughout the country, Akram plans to transform a 1952 Chevy into a “Midwest meets Pakistan” version of a cargo truck. (photo Rich Sugg)
The last thing Kansas City artist Asheer Akram expected when he arrived in Lahore, Pakistan, was to find the city’s National College of Arts ringed with barbed wire and protected by armed guards.
It was May 2010, and he was scheduled to be an artist-in-residence at the college, but … .
“It took me two days to get in to talk to the administration,” Akram said. “There had been a bunch of bombings, and they said that they had put the residency on hold, fearing Americans and foreigners could be targets and put other students in jeopardy.”
Akram’s trip to his late father’s homeland was financed by a grant from the Lighton International Artists Exchange Program, established by Kansas City artist Linda Lighton in 2002 and administered by the Kansas City Artists Coalition.
Janet Simpson, the coalition’s executive director, said she was concerned for Akram’s safety when she read his application for the trip but felt better about it when she learned he would stay with relatives there.
That was another eye-opener for Akram. “Staying with family was a little like being in jail,” he said. “You have to ask to leave the house, and the oldest adult decides what you do and don’t do.” He conceded that one of the reasons they were so protective was his being American.
Akram made his escape from his aunt’s house when his brother arrived and the two connected with cousins who lived in another city.
Although the residency fell through, and his Lahore sojourn felt like “lockdown,” Pakistan turned out to be a goldmine of artistic inspiration for Akram. He was stunned by the beauty and craftsmanship of the Pakistani cargo trucks that he encountered at every turn.
“They were the most amazing thing I saw,” he said. “Like galleries without walls. In the system they use there, the more decorative the truck, the better jobs you get. Drivers put their life savings into making their trucks beautiful.”
Akram is repurposing a 1952 Chevy into a “Midwest meets Pakistan” version of a cargo truck.
“The dream is to take it from coast to coast,” he said.
The 2007 Kansas City Art Institute alum is one of 86 artists, roughly half of them from Kansas City, to receive funds from the Lighton International Artists Exchange Program, which to date has spent almost $350,000 to send artists to 37 countries.
A big slap in the head
An eye-opening trip to Latvia inspired Lighton, a well-known ceramics artist, to establish the program. It was 1993, and the country had recently gained its independence from the Soviet Union.
Life there was complicated, she said.
“Things started crumbling slowly apart as there was no protocol for how to operate. There were no banks, no credit cards or checking accounts.”
Despite the upheavals in everyday life, an International Artists Symposium in Jurmala, Latvia, went off as planned. Sixty artists from around the world gathered to exchange ideas. Lighton attended as a United States representative, with sponsorship from the Chicago-based Lakeside Art and Culture International. For two months she lived and worked at the Latvian Artists’ Union. She didn’t know the language but quickly picked up on the status and respect enjoyed by members of the artists union.
“I made great friends,” she said, “(but) it was tough.”
Lighton described her Latvian experience as “a big slap in the head, a wakeup call.” That, and subsequent trips to Japan, Lithuania and a return visit to Latvia, got her thinking about how to give other artists the opportunity to travel internationally.
Following the death of her father, former Woolf Bros. chief Alfred H. Lighton, in 1999, she created the Lighton Fund of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation to give travel grants to artists.
Its aim, posted on the foundation’s website, is simple: “The Lighton International Artists Exchange Program works to make the world a smaller place by giving artists of different cultures the opportunity to work together in the hope that lasting friendship and understanding will develop.”
The grants, which range as high as $5,000, do not require artists to make anything during their foreign sojourns. “I do require that you spend time in another culture and make friends,” Lighton said.
Lighton is idealistic about the program’s broader impact.
“We are making peace with these friends, one person at a time,” she said. “We are putting a face on America that is not what is seen in the news. Artists are great ambassadors, speaking this language without words.”
She is also pleased with the way the grants have “really pumped up people’s careers,” especially those of her Kansas City colleagues.
A grant enabled puppet master Paul Mesner to attend a workshop at El Institut International de la Marionnette in France in 2008, sparking a series of invitations to perform in Europe, including the world puppet festival in France and engagements in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
“It absolutely led to greater exposure,” said Diane Barker, executive director of Paul Mesner Puppets.
Grantee Susan White is headed back to Japan for a show, following her 2010 Youkobo Artist Residency in Toyko. The trip had a profound impact on White. “The experience seeps into your bones,” White said, “and affects the way that you move without your realizing it.”
Akram, who spent the second leg of his trip in Armenia, placed a large sculpture at the Modern Art Museum of Armenia in Yerevan. He created the piece during a four-month artist residency at the Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory in Armenia, where the process was recorded in an award-winning documentary by Armenian filmmaker Gor Baghdasaryan.
Taking its title, “Moving a Mountain,” from Akram’s sculpture, the film also registers Akram’s thoughts about Armenian democracy and the country’s difficulties. It recently won the best documentary film award in the FiLUMS International Film Festival in Pakistan and has been nominated for several other awards. Akram is thrilled with the exposure.
Kansas City Art Institute faculty member Steve Mayse also left a sculpture in the wake of his Lighton-funded trip.
In 2007, Mayse traveled to the Czech Republic to work at the Bubec Sculpture Studio in Prague. After realizing that the studio had no working power tools, Mayse decided to keep it simple. He bought lattice strips from a lumber place and “accepted the challenge of having no tools,” working with his hands, string and glue to create an 18 by 10 foot boat form that he suspended from the ceiling and lit from within.
Mayse said he’d planned to burn the piece before he left, but “an architect came through and said he had a place for it in town square.”
It now hangs in the community center of the small village of Lustenice. Mayse said he didn’t speak Czech but managed to communicate — from ordering french fries to getting the lighting elements for his sculpture — by drawing. “I communicated through pictures,” he said. “The language of drawing is very important.”
There is a certain risk
Foreign countries pose unforeseen challenges.
“It’s not always walk up the beach,” said the Artist Coalition’s Simpson. “There is a certain risk involved. We’ve sent people to Vietnam, Tanzania — places that can be a little sketchy.”
New York artist Steve Mumford, well-known for his vivid pen-and-ink drawings and watercolors of the war in Iraq, made his fifth trip to the country thanks to a Lighton grant. During a monthlong stay in 2007, Mumford recorded death and suffering at the Baghdad ER military hospital and life along the city’s violent Haifa Street.
One of the most popular destinations to crop up in proposals is the Arctic Circle, Simpson said.
“We get 10 a year now, and we’ve funded two people.”
One of them is Brooklyn-based Jessica Segall, who received a 2011 grant for an Arctic Circle Residency that will include sailing in a historical tall ship along the coast of the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Circle Other 2011 grant recipients are going a more conventional route. Kansas City artist Anne Lindberg will go to Norway, where her work will be featured in a drawing exhibit at the Tegnerforbundet in Oslo; artist-musicians Mark Southerland and Beau Bledsoe will research and perform flamenco in Andalucia in Spain.
Kansas City Art Institute faculty member Miguel Rivera is currently in Buenos Aires, where he is working in the International Contemporary Center for the Graphic Arts program.
Perhaps the most fascinating project financed by this year’s grants comes from New York-based Liliya Lifanova, whose plans include collaborating with a Russian performance team in Moscow and St. Petersburg. She will also visit the Russian province of Kaluga to research folkloric Cossack culture, which has been vigorously revived by Putin as a symbol of Russian strength.
Lighton said she’d like to be able to raise the current $5,000 grant limit to $10,000.
“I’ve started a new fund at the Community Foundation where anyone who wants to can donate. All donations will be used for granting to artists.” From her own experience and what she hears from grantees, Lighton is sold on the importance of giving regional artists the opportunity to gain “perspective and understanding of how to relate to other cultures.”
“I think travel opens your eyes,” she said. “These people need to get out.”
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Home > Focusing and ... > Psychotherapy > Articles > Focusing in Changing Abusive Fighting to Constructive Conflict Interactions
Focusing in Changing Abusive Fighting to Constructive Conflict Interactions
RWV Therapy Groups with Domestically Violent Men
Presented by Dr. Ralph Bierman, 1999 ©
at the 11th International Focusing Conference,
Dr. Ralph Bierman, Psychologist
Click here to see slide presentation of program effectiveness research results in PDF format (PDF 607KB)
(Slide show presented by Dr. Bierman at the Society for Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration, May 2006, Los Angeles)
My job as a psychotherapist
My job as a psychotherapist is to enable my clients to make desired changes in their emotional and relationship processes. My clients in RWV groups join with me to process what's fuelling their anger and to change their abusive ways of treating their partners.
Processing the sources of their anger is the focus of RWV Module 1, the first six group sessions. The role of Focusing in that emotional change work has been described in a Folio article (Bierman, 1996-1997).
This presentation looks at RWV Module 2, the role of Focusing in enabling relationship change -- from abusive to constructive conflict interactions.
Emotionally abusive conflict interactions
Observational Studies of Abusive Arguments
Belligerence, Contempt, Domineering
Jacobson & Gottman (1998) reported laboratory observations of couple arguments. Batterers were characteristically different than nonviolent husbands in their use of responses classified as: "Belligerence", "Contempt" and "Domineering". Belligerence referred to taunting, challenging words to provoke the other. Contempt meant insulting, demeaning behavior. They found that "batterers were much more likely to be contemptuous and demeaning in the laboratory than nonviolent husbands were" (p. 65). " ‘Domineering' distinguished between batterers and other men and women much more reliably than any other response. To dominate during an argument is to squelch, to control, to suppress the behavior of another. ... to squelch the other's attempts to be a partner in the conversation" (p. 66).
Resisting partner's influence
For "nonviolent couples, a direct request, expressed in a neutral tone, will lead either to run-of-the-mill disagreement, criticism, defensiveness, or compliance" (Jacobson & Gottman, 1998, p. 61). For abusive men, their partners' requests and attempts to influence them are perceived as challenges, as threats to the men's control. The abusive men's rapid aggressive response serves their purpose of control, intimidation and subjugation. They want to quickly quiet their partners. Jacobson & Gottman found abusive men characteristically "unwilling to accept influence. ... Accepting influence is something most men (and most women) do all the time in marriages. But for the batterers in our study this process seemed to represent a loss of face, an assault to their sense of honor" (pp. 64-65; italics ours).
The implication of the researchers' impressions regarding "loss of face" and "assault to their sense of honor" is that wives' normal requests for change and attempts to influence them trigger shame in abusive men. In our analysis of the abusive man's shame-rage cycle, their wives requests, especially their major attempts for a healthier family life, are seen by our men as signs of disdain and negative intent, signs to which they are hyper-vigilant. The abusive man then finds a quick fix by degrading his wife, making himself feel some worth by making her lower than himself. Jacobson and Gottman observed the abusive man's pattern of manifesting indifference to his partner's issue plus invalidating her attempts to influence him by contemptuously ridiculing her intelligence and appearance, calling her "stupid", "fat", "ugly".
Our Men's Self Descriptions
When I (Therapist = T) asked the men what kinds of things they say when they become verbally abusive during a beef with a woman in their lives, participants (P) responded with:
P1: Putting her down. Calling her a fat cow, calling her an ugly bitch.
T: Making fun of her appearance.
P1: Actually I wasn't because actually they weren't ugly. I put her down because I was pissed off.
P2: Hit her where it hurts -- in her looks.
P3: It's your fault for pissing me off.
P4: When I ended with all the other hundred, I ended with calling her "You're just a piece of shit You're no good for nothin."
P5: I call her a dummy, a stupid idiot. I tell her to shut up.
P6: I just close her off. I just say "Enough. That's it." She tries to talk to me and I won't hear it. I walk away. "Beat it! Get out of my face." In the heat of argument, I'll watch what I say to a point because I don't want her walkin out. Until I can't come back with nothin, then I'll say "Fuck off!". I gotta get there first. Or I'll break something that she likes. I've seen myself do that. I once threw the cat through a window. (T: Before the physical violence and before you walk away, what kinds of things would you say?) "What's wrong with you?" "Why are you being such a bitch?" Sometimes she'll shut me out, shut the door, bang the door -- I hate that! So I'll say something like "Talk about it! What the hell's wrong with you! Smarten up -- idiot!" Then it starts. It's always a power play -- like who's gonna hurt who most. Like, she knows my secrets, I know her secrets. There's always that fear of her leaving me. Walking out. So I've got to see how I can control the situation.
P7: Sophie hates that word, "Idiot"!
P8: I hate it when they don't fight back. As in defending themselves in any way. Then I end up getting worse. Because, it's like "Are you emotionally dead?" You're not thinkin at the time that it's fear. But at the time it's "You don't give a shit, or what?" Then things really get steamed.
Here is a written self description of an argument with a fellow incarcerate from a participant's "Anger Journal", depicting a prototypical reaction to another's influence:
And from another participant's "Anger Journal", again in reaction to a request for change:
What's Gone Wrong?
The Shame-Rage Cycle
Desired conflict interactions
Greenberg and Johnson (1988, p. 66) outline nine steps in their "Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples" (EFT). These are not linear steps but often happen in a back and forth flow. The steps can provide us with some markers for recognizing the men's changes to desired conflict interactions that happen during RWV sessions. The 9 EFT steps are:
Delineate the issues presented by the couple and assess how these issues express core conflicts in the areas of separateness-connectedness and dependence-independence.
Identify the negative interaction cycle.
Access unacknowledged feelings underlying interactional positions.
Redefine the problem(s) in terms of the underlying feelings.
Promote identification with disowned needs and aspects of self.
Promote acceptance by each partner of the others partner's experience.
Facilitate the expression of needs and wants to restructure the interaction.
Establish the emergence of new solutions.
Consolidate new positions.
In RWV, we utilize the Focusing skills which the men have learned in the Emotional Change module to access what underlies the surface conflict. In the Table below, we integrate the Greenberg and Johnson (1988, p. 66) 9 steps with Focusing Microprocesses as presented by Mia Leijssen (1998, pp. 121-154). The expanded listing provides us with a full set of markers for recognizing the men's changes to desired conflict interactions that happen during RWV sessions.
The Focusing Microprocesses are listed within Step 3, "Access unacknowledged feelings underlying interactional positions" and in color copies are further delineated by a blue font.
Table of Desired Conflict Interactions
Couples Dialogue Guidelines
COUPLES DIALOGUE
Presented by Dr. Ralph Bierman©[1]
PRESSING A RELATIONSHIP ISSUE
Guidelines for Saying Your Beef
A. OPEN A TALK TIME
1. *"I want to talk. Are you available?" If your partner isn't ready right away, set a specific time.
2. Appreciate something your partner did recently that made you feel cared for.
B. EXPRESS YOUR BEEF
"I feel...when you do..."
1. Describe your partner's behavior that triggered your issue. Say what your partner said or did. Keep it simple.
2. Express how you feel about it. Pay attention to what you sense in the center of your body (chest, belly, head) and let your words come from there. Describe your bodily felt sense.
C. EXPRESS YOUR UNDERLYING CHILDHOOD WOUND
... and as a child ...
... it reminds me of ...
D. SWITCH TO HEAR PARTNER'S SIDE
1. Thank your partner for listening to you.
2. Say you are now ready to listen to your partner's side of the issue.
E. When both your & your partner's sides of your issue have been understood--
SAY WHAT YOU DO WANT INSTEAD
1. Express the positive desire that's underneath your frustration -- say what you want, not what you don't want.
2. Ask your partner for 3 positive behavior changes, things your partner could do to meet your need. Ask if your partner would give you 1 or more of those 3 requests, out of caring for you.
GUIDELINES FOR WHAT NOT TO SAY
· Don't globalize. Don't say "always" or "never". If there's a pattern, say "often", "usually", "rarely", "hardly ever" or "a pattern".
· Don't attribute motives, feelings or thoughts to your partner.
· Don't insist you're right about what happened. If what happened is at issue, say it's how you remember it.
· Don't criticize the person's worth. Separate the person from the behavior. Be hard on the issues, soft on the person
RECEIVING YOUR PARTNER'S BEEF
Guidelines for Empathizing
1. *"I'm ready to listen." (Assume the active listening position)
2. Paraphrase (I hear you saying that...)
check it out (Am I getting it?)
ask for more (Is there more about that?)
3. Summarize(Let me pull it all together...)
4. Validate: *"I understand you and you make sense to me."
5. Empathize (If I were you, I might feel..)
check it out (Is that how you feel?)
ask for more (Is there more about how
you feel that you'd like to share with me?)
GUIDELINES: WHAT TO AVOID
· Don't interrupt
Put your reactions on the back burner. It may take your partner as much as 45 minutes to go through the full expressive process.
· Don't agree or disagree, just understand
Keep yourself out of it for the time being.
· Don't defend yourself
Understand your partner's version of reality. You'll get your turn to say your version of reality.
· Don't advise
Don't tell your partner how to solve their problem.
· Don't reassure
Don't talk the person out of hurt feelings.
· Don't criticize or blame
Don't judge what you're hearing as good or bad.
· Don't interpret
Understand it the way your partner means it. Don't put your own spin on it.
· Don't talk about a 3rd person or the situation
Focus on your partner's response.
[1] Adapted from: Hendrix, H. (1990). Getting the love you want. NY: Harper. Integrated with Gendlin, E. (1981). Focusing. NY: Bantam
* Say these words exactly
We use the "Couples Dialogue Guidelines", adapted from Hendrix (1988), and combine Hendrix's Dialogue with Focusing, to develop desired conflict resolution processes.
We will now illustrate these desirable steps by an edited transcript of a conflict facing dialogue in an RWV group session. This clinical vignette shows how the men combine the Hendrix Couples Dialogue with the Experiential Focusing they developed during the first half of RWV. These men who had known only abusive or avoidant processes in dealing with conflict now process a relationship conflict in a constructive way perhaps for the first time in their lives.
IN-SESSION CHANGE TO DESIRABLE CONFLICT INTERACTIONS DURING RWV
Here is an edited, condensed excerpt from two RWV participants dialoguing about a relationship issue.
This is from the session in which the "Couples Dialogue Guidelines" were first explained to the group. This happens to be the eighth group session, though we usually switch to Relationship Therapy in the seventh session.
These two men are the first set of volunteers doing a "Friendship Dialogue" in the center of the group circle, with Ralph coaching the pair. The two men live in the same residential unit of the institution and their issue stems from their relationship on the unit. We tape recorded their dialogue as we normally taped all group proceedings and they gave me written permission to use it for learning purposes.
Names have been changed. E: = Expresser, R: = Receiver, T: = Therapist.
Headings indicate the steps of the Couples Dialogue Guidelines which the men are following.
Footnotes, numbered in bold, describe desired interactions and emotional reprocessing.
Annotations within the footnotes with brackets and numbers, e.g. [Step 3], refer to steps in the Table of Desired Conflict Interactions.
The annotations and footnotes provide us with markers for recognizing the men's changes to desired conflict interactions that happen during RWV sessions.
OPEN A TALK TIME
E: I'd like to talk to you Tom about a few issues I have if you're ready to talk. Are you ready to talk?
R: I'm willing to talk. I'll listen.
T: Very good.
APPRECIATE SOMETHING YOUR PARTNER DID RECENTLY THAT MADE YOU FEEL CARED FOR
E: When you first came on the unit, we had a bit of a problem about a particular issue. And then we had another problem a while after that. And each time that I had a beef, and I'd fly off the handle, you were very receptive. You seemed to keep your cool and accept what I had to say to you without losing your cool. And even after I had said what I'd said, you still left the doorway open and it made me feel like you cared for me. Like you cared what I had to say. You kept the door open and you didn't close the door of communication and it meant a lot to me.
Receiver paraphrases
Receiver checks it out
R: I hear you saying that when I first came on the unit, we had an issue that we dealt with. And then it came up again, the same issue. And that I had kept my cool and left the door open for you. Did I get it?
E: Ya.
Receiver asks for more
R: Is there any more?
T: First say back how he feels.
R: And you feel ¾ how do you feel?
E: Cared for.
R: Cared for. Is there anything else?
E: I like the way you joke around on the unit. It makes things a lot easier on the unit. It makes me feel at ease.
R: What I hear you say is that when I joke around on the unit it relieves a lot of tension in you and that you feel more confident about yourself.
E: Right.
R: Anything else?
E: No.
EXPRESS YOUR BEEF: "I feel...when you do..."
E: Ok, the one beef that I have in particular is if I ask you how you're doing today, Tom, you generalize, like you say "Wall to wall", like it's a generalization. And sometimes it makes me feel like you don't really care to share. You don't trust me enough to share about yourself. And it makes me feel not worthy.
R: So what I hear you saying is you think I generalize my problems and I don't want to share with you because maybe you won't understand or you don't feel worthy of my problems and that you wouldn't understand them.
E: Exactly. And I feel, sometimes, like I don't add up to your expectations as a friend and it makes me feel lesser than. Like I have to try extra hard to get your friendship. I remember one time we had a conversation and you said "I won't be friends with anybody outside of this place. I don't mind being somebody's friend in here, but outside this place I can't be anybody's friend." And it really hurt to think that I couldn't be your friend outside this place. It made me feel that it is just a superficial friendship and that's all I ever could be and it hurt me. It hurt my feelings. I don't know why, other than the fact that I like you, as a person.
R: So I hear you say is you're real upset that I can't confide in you, and that you're upset that I said that I wouldn't have any sort of friendship or relationship outside this institution and that bothers you because you feel you have to work extra hard to get my undivided attention or friendship. Is that correct?
DESCRIBE YOUR BODILY FELT SENSE
{Start playing tape recorded excerpt from here}
E: Ya. And when I talk about that, I feel, right in here (tapping his chest), it's like a hollowness, and it feels like ... I just don't ... um, like somehow I don't belong or I don't ... I don't deserve friendship. Like it's an empty sort of feeling. And I feel uh hurt. And just, just alone.
R: So I hear you saying that you feel empty inside and you're hurt and you're alone because I won't acknowledge our friendship outside this institution. Is that what you're saying?
E: Well, not just outside the institution, but, but inside too. Like sometimes I don't feel like you, you um, you're, you're genuine or that you care, I guess.
R: (sigh) So, what you're saying is I, I'm globalizing or generalizing our friendship and you think that I'm just putting on, is it, like I'm putting on an act for our friendship, and that I'm not acknowledging you as a true friend. Is that what you're saying? Somebody that I could, or that you could share with and vice versa.
E: Um hmm.
T: (whispering to R) Go back to the hollowness.
R: And uh, and in turn you feel hollow and empty inside and you feel hurt because you're reaching out and I'm not being receptive. Is that what you're saying?
EXPRESS YOUR UNDERLYING CHILDHOOD WOUND
E: Mm hmm.
R: I see.
E: And it reminds me of when, when I was a kid in the, the school yard. I was always the new kid on the block. I was always the new guy in school and I always had a hard time making friends. One particular friendship I had when I was in grade 8, I'd made friends with a kid during the summer holidays and then when it came time to go to school, he acted like he didn't know me and there was a big hurt there. It was just like it was ok to know me when there was nobody around and then when there was other people around it was like ‘go away'. And it really, really hurt. I often associate that with people. That does hurt right here (pointing to his chest).
R: So what I hear you saying is, is that when you were younger in, in, in public school that you had a, had a friend who you became quite close with but when school started he didn't want to accept or acknowledge you, and this in turn left you that hollow and empty feeling inside and it really hurt you as a child, and it seems to be reoccurring a lot.
E: Ya. It just, it makes me feel like I'm not good enough for other people.
ACCEPT THE FELT SENSE, BE CARING, INTERESTED, COMPASSIONATE
IMMERSE YOURSELF IN THE BODILY FELT SENSE, BECOME ONE WITH THE FELT EXPERIENCE
T: Why don't you put a caring hand on the place where you feel that.
E: I feel it right in here.
T: Close your eyes and be right inside of that. Lose yourself in there, Frank.
RECEIVE WORDS AND IMAGES FROM THE FELT SENSE OF WHEN THIS BODILY FELT SENSE FIRST HAPPENED
E: There's a lot of fear there. ... (long pause) ... I remember I got off the bus that day to go to school and I was really looking forward to meeting all his friends that he talked about that year. I was really excited about going to a new school. I got off the bus and saw Sammy right away, so I ran up to him and he said "I want you to meet my cousin Barney". Barney was a big guy and he stuck his hand out to shake mine. I shook his hand and with his other hand he came up and he punched me right in the nuts. And I fell down on the ground and was trying to catch my breath. There was a whole bunch of people around and they were laughing. Even my own brother didn't really want to be seen with me. And I laid there and I was crying and crying. And uh, I was really embarrassed (voice cracking with tears). ... I just wanted to hide my face. That's what I did the whole year, was I just hid my face. (Weeping)
R: So what I, what I hear you saying is that you're....(missing words from cassette tape being turned over to other side) your breath, and you were lying down, and you fell down and crying and everybody was laughing at you and you felt empty and you felt ashamed and worthless. You just wanted to hide your face and run. Is that what I hear you saying?
E: I just felt like it was all a, it was all a trick. The guy didn't really want to be my friend. He wanted somebody to make a laughing stock out of.
R: So what I hear you saying, your friend wanted to make fun of you and he used you for his expense to make you feel worthless and empty inside. You really liked this friend and you wanted to become his friend and meet all his friends so you could feel a part of his crowd. But when his cousin turned and hit you in the groin, it made you look like the laughing stock and all you wanted to do was run and hide. And people were laughing at you. So that's how come you feel that way when I say I won't be friends with you outside of this institute and that brings back those memories. Is that correct?
{Stop playing from tape recording here}
SAY WHAT YOU DO WANT TO FEEL INSTEAD, WHAT YOU NEED TO HEAL FROM ALL THIS
E: Ya. I guess what I would really like is just for you to be proud to be my friend. To say that you like me, that you want to be my friend. And to mean that genuinely, if that's what you want.
R: Ya. So you want me to acknowledge that I'm your friend and you want it to be said with some meaning instead of just off the cuff type thing. You want it to be genuine, with some meaning behind it. Is that right?
E: I want to feel like I'm good enough to sit with you anywhere or be with you at any time and not be an embarrassment to you. I'm good enough to listen to your problems. Be there for you. Good enough to be your friend.
R: So I see that this is very, very important to you and you want me to be able to share my feelings and thoughts with you and you want to be able to sit with me and discuss anything, and just feel a part of a friendship. Is that what you're saying?
R: And you want me to make you feel worthwhile. Is that what you're saying?
SWITCH TO HEAR PARTNER'S SIDE
Thank your partner for listening to you
Say you are now ready to listen to your partner's side of the issue
E: Thanks for listening Tom, to what I had to say. I really appreciate it. I'm ready to listen if you have anything to share with me.
R: Well, I can understand how you might feel. If that was to happen to me, I'm sure I would feel lonely and empty and I might want to isolate myself. If I had a friend who I'd met over the summer and he didn't want to acknowledge me when he got back to his school, I could understand how you may feel and wanting to run away from the problem and isolate, you know. I am sorry that I didn't realize you were feeling this way. I'm not a very open person as you well know. I generalize a lot of things. I don't share too often because I myself have shared before, and it's come back to haunt me. So I'm very particular on who I disclose to.
E: Ok, so I hear you saying that you understand how I felt and that you might isolate too. And it's been your experience that when you've shared with people, it's come back to haunt you so you're very particular who you share with.
R: That's right and I again, I apologize. I didn't realize you were feeling this way. (Receiver describes his distancing pattern and how, in the therapeutic milieu of the institution, he is "teetering on the edge" of changing. He is "teetering on the edge" of risking greater emotional intimacy. Expresser understands. When R indicates that he has completed saying his side, they shift back to E completing his process.)
ASK YOUR PARTNER FOR 3 POSITIVE BEHAVIOR CHANGES, THINGS YOUR PARTNER COULD DO TO MEET YOUR NEED
E: Ok, instead of generalizing to people that you care about, share a little bit of yourself. How you really feel. How you honestly feel, instead of saying "Wall to wall". Saying "I feel this way..." or "I feel that way..." So when I ask you how you feel today, Tom, you will answer me with an honest approach.
R: Ok, so what I hear you saying is instead of me generalizing or globalizing my thoughts and feelings, you want me to tell you exactly how I feel today.
T: Ya. So that's 1 request.
E: When we are playing bridge if you wouldn't raise your voice really loud if I made a mistake, you know, get really excited. If you could just accept that I'm a human being and I make mistakes. If you could do that.
T: So let's put a positive side to it.
E: How can I do this positively?
T: That's the trick. Instead of being loud, do you want to ask him to speak softly?
E: Yes, speak softly and realize that I just made a mistake and that it's ok to make mistakes.
R: Ok, so what I hear you saying is when we play cards and if you make a mistake you don't want me to be loud and angry, you'd like me to be more soft spoken and more compassionate to your mistake. Is that what you're saying?
E: Yes.
R: And treat you like a human being.
R: Is that what you're saying?
E: Yes, that's exactly it.
T: What else would make you feel like a worth while valued friend?
E: If you would spend time with me. If you would come and sit with me and talk with me once in a while. Just out of the blue. Just like I'm one of the guys that you like to be close with.
R: So what I hear you saying is that you want me to treat you like one of the guys. Chew the fat with you, just come sit down and say "Hi, how ya doing?" and just be more friendly, so to speak, and just inquire how you're doing and just chew the fat type thing. Is that what you're saying?
E: Yes, exactly.
ASK IF YOUR PARTNER WOULD GIVE YOU 1 OR MORE OF THOSE 3 REQUESTS, OUT OF CARING FOR YOU
E: Would you, out of your caring for me, be willing to give me 1 or more of the 3 positive behavior changes that I'm asking for?
R: So what you're saying is you're asking me to give you some of those requests to you. Is that correct?
R: So that would help both of us grow as friends. I think what you've asked me is not unreasonable and I think they're acceptable to me and I think that they can be done in a positive way in the future. I think I can manage to do all 3, ya. I think I can manage to do all 3. Hopefully that can make us closer, better friends maybe. Maybe it can make you feel a little bit fuller inside about Frank and maybe make you not as empty and not as lonely inside and I'd be willing to do that for you.
T: It might help you with the "teetering on the edge" for you.
R: Ya, and it might help me with the teetering on the edge that I'm doing.
T: You guys were terrific. We're gonna debrief for a bit, I'd like you to share with each other what that was like.
E: At times I felt like I was very selfish. Like "What the fuck are you whining about?".
T: You were criticizing yourself.
E: Ya, I was criticizing myself. I felt like I was whining. I think when I actually saw what it was all about, like, there was a lot of pain there and it was good to get rid of that. Express some of that. And it felt really good that Tom could accept that. Tom listened, just to listen to it. It felt good to say what was actually on my mind and get it the fuck out of my mind so it's not in there. Get rid of it. ... It felt really good to get it out and say "I just want a friend". Somebody that likes me for who I am. That somebody could accept that. It was good.
T: It was a bit of a struggle, because first you were critical of yourself for asking for your needs. But once you got to the big wound underneath, and Tom was truly able to hang in there ¾ to listen and to be compassionate towards you, which he really was ¾ it helped a great deal.
E: Ya it did.
T: Ok (turning to R), how was it for you, the whole process?
R: It was very new to me to have such a structured conversation. I'm not accustomed to mirroring. It's something that I've been trying to do a lot more lately, but I think with practice it'll come. It was very difficult to understand where you're supposed to paraphrase it and when you're supposed to summarize it all up. But I think through practice it will come. And I know what it's like to have somebody hear you. I do it with my son a lot and I try to mirror exactly his reaction. When he's really happy, I try to get that happy state in my voice, and you can see if he's listening to you he's so much more receptive. He'd run across the room and, like "You're really listening to me". I get really excited. And I'm doing it with Ruth a lot. It's not that we're gonna be getting back together. But our conversations are so much more positive. Just by using some of the techniques we've learned in communicating. It's so much easier to have a conversation when two people are actually listening, as opposed to, like two givers or, you know what I mean. There's no give - receive. There's no flow to the communication. So it helps in communicating.
E: I was kind of apprehensive too, I was waiting for Tom to, I thought maybe he had a beef with me. I was waiting for it and it didn't come out ...
R: Well it does take practice. I practiced it for a long time since I've been here and it's really hard to do. You can literally feel your gushing rising up and you know like "It's ok. Why are you getting pissed off?" And you put it back down. And with this group here and the life skills book that we have on the unit, it really helps in communication. And resolving conflict. That's what I get out of it. And it takes time. I mean I haven't mastered it by any means. I'm changing, but I'm not changed. I don't know, I think that changing is like a revolution that keeps going and going, it just keeps revolving, you know.
T: Ok, guys. Would you be willing to turn to the group now, and invite the guys to give their response to you.
A Group Member: Did you feel foolish?
R: At first, but not after it got going. After it got going it was genuine. It was real. Like I mean there was a lot of things that you told me that I didn't realize about you even. I felt really good about the process. I really truly did.
A Group Member: When Frank was explaining his issues with you, was it hard for you not to say "Hey, it's not like that."
R: Well, I kept on looking at this paper and it said "Don't advise. Don't criticize. Don't interrupt." Actually I just looked at one ¾ "Don't interrupt". I think by just not interrupting that means you're not criticizing, you're not blaming, you're not doing anything, you're just listening and being receptive. And you're not agreeing. I wasn't trying to agree or disagree, I was just trying to sort of suck it up and put myself in his shoes, you know. There was one or two that I was just about to say "Well, wait a minute..." but I had to respect that Frank has the floor at the time.
E: It works both ways. I tried to put myself in your shoes. Like I didn't realize that you were that person.
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Nathanson, D. N. (1992). Shame and pride. New York: Norton.
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Straus, M. A. (1979). Measuring family conflict and violence: The conflict tactics scale. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41, 75-88.
Wolfus, B. & Bierman, R. (1996). An evaluation of a group treatment program for incarcerated male batterers. International Journal Of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 40, 318-333.
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DRAKAR OCH DEMONER TRUDVANG EBOOK
Drakar och Demoner is a Swedish fantasy role-playing game first published in by the On May 16, Riotminds announced that Drakar och Demoner Trudvang would be released in an English version, under the name Trudvang. This is a group to fans of Drakar och Demoner, and the campaign world Trudvang, So we can share pictures, ideas, blogs, adventures and other inspirational. This wiki is a group effort for the translation of the swedish rpg Drakar och Demoner Trudvang. So far we need scans from the last printed edition and text from.
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The Fabulous Art of Trudvang by RiotMinds — Kickstarter
Riotminds published a new version of the game in Estimated delivery Feb Trudvang Chronicles, via Kickstarter kickstarter. First came the foreboding and dull sound of hundreds of hooves stomping over a hard surface.
Above all, Trudvang is a saga…. Soon they were to go to battle clashing swords and splitting skulls.
Vastermark | Drakar och Demoner Trudvang Wiki | FANDOM powered by Wikia
Elves hide in the shadows far in the south and fight against time, which drakar och demoner trudvang their most hated ocn. Sign In Don’t have an account? What makes the project even more unique are the bonus tracks that were ordered by backers dfmoner the project, written specifically for the memories and experiences from roleplay sessions.
Then suddenly they were there. Here is the link: So my 2nd Article is off and running and I didn’t even know. Jorfi said that Stormi was on their side but that Voldar had a frost giant drakar och demoner trudvang for him. The book describes the dwarves’ ceremonies, views of the mountain and drakar och demoner trudvang world outside, and lots of other information that gives life to this race of Drakar och Demoner Trudvang. I’m sharing the hell demner this project.
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This book is called Fire and Soot. Streaming and Download help. Changes to the rules were minor, mostly reflecting the new campaign setting.
Not sure if this was intentional, but it was still surprising yet wonderfully executed. He was followed by a horde of heavily armed knights on their huge steeds whose hooves dragged up wet and mud that splashed all the way to where I stood. War ocy the Eternal Realm was a table top miniature game published by Excelsior Entertainment. A line of products including several new campaigns is planned trudvag the release drakar och demoner trudvang is set for August It’s a way to bring creative projects to life.
Retrieved from ” https: Post has shared content. I have seen the high level summary on Reddit.
The rights to Drakar och Demoner were transferred to Paradox Entertainment[2] who in turn licensed them to Riotminds. I’ve been looking for actual drakar och demoner trudvang videos or detailed posts on the mechanics. The number of combat points a character has is equal to the skill value of the Fighting skill, but can also be raised with the help drkaar certain disciplines and specialties.
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You also get the stretch goals drakar och demoner trudvang manage to accomplish. Hear Me – The Fate of the Remnants Vastermark deals with the countries furthest to the west. It will not be sold or distributed to 3rd party. Funding period Aug 14, – Sep 13, 30 days.
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Trudvang Chronicles is an drakar och demoner trudvang fantasy roleplaying game based on the drakar och demoner trudvang and dark Nordic and Celtic sagas and myths. Oliver Schiller Great company for roleplaying games and fantasy books. Drakkar books have been sold in Swedish and later this year Trudvang Chronicles will be released in English for the first time.
See our stretch goals below. If we fund more than we asked for, we will of course spend the money to make the Art Book even bigger and more exclusive. We will produce a slip case for the book.
Beowulf, the epic poetry Kalevala and the fantastic art of the Scandinavian artist John Bauer are our inspirations for building this game.
drakae General skills are broad and general, Disciplines are more focused and Specialities are a very specific expertise. In his shield drakar och demoner trudvang he carried Viranne’s proud banner that fluttered in the hard wind. Something you can use as a well of inspiration whether you are a fantasy gamer, dreamer, artist or just love the art itself. Articles with Swedish-language external links CS1 maint:
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Analysis of the Shutdown Announcements of the Google Translate API
There has been some buzz about what this means to the translation industry and so I thought it would be good to have a detailed and in-depth analysis of this announcement. This is an insightful post by guest writer Dion Wiggins, CEO of Asia Online (dion.wiggins@asiaonline.net) and a former senior Gartner analyst. The opinions and analysis are that of the author alone.
Reviewing the Facts of the Announcement
A simple read of the announcement would lead one to believe that Google has merely shut the door for developers who wish to integrate automated Google translations into their code and products, while still allowing users to translate web content on-the-fly with either the Google Translate web page or the Google Translate Widget/Web Element. However there is more to this announcement than one might realize at first.
Google has recently made a number of formal announcements, in addition to a few quiet actions, affecting users of their various language translation tools. On Thursday, May 26, 2011 Adam Feldman , Google’s APIs Product Manager, announced in a blog post (http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2011/05/spring-cleaning-for-some-of-our-apis.html) that Google was adding 7 new Application Programmer Interfaces (APIs) for use, but 18 Google APIs covering a variety of areas will first be deprecated and many then shut down. One of those APIs destined to be terminated is the Translate API.
Google updated the Google Translate API, Transliteration API and Translator Toolkit API webpages with the following messages:
http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/overview.html
Important: The Google Translate API has been officially deprecated as of May 26, 2011. Due to the substantial economic burden caused by extensive abuse, the number of requests you may make per day will be limited and the API will be shut off completely on December 1, 2011. For website translations, we encourage you to use the Google Translate Element.
http://code.google.com/apis/language/transliterate/overview.html
Important: The Google Transliteration API has been officially deprecated as of May 26, 2011. It will continue to work as per our deprecation policy.
Google frequently offers alternatives to deprecated API’s. An alternative to the Google Translate API would have been the Google Translator Toolkit API. However, without making any announcement, Google also has quietly modified access to the Translator Toolkit API, removing all documentation and restricting access.
http://code.google.com/apis/gtt/
Important: The Google Translator Toolkit API is now a restricted API. However, we have no current plans to remove the functionality for current users. If you are a current user of the API or are interested in access to the documentation, please let us know.
These changes do not mean that Google is going to do any less with its own machine translation efforts. It simply means that all forms of translation API are now being progressively deprecated or restricted for use by developers.
This impact to Google’s translation services as a whole can be summarized as follows:
Google Translate web page (http://translate.google.com/) will still translate text that is typed into the text box and will also translate a HTML web page when a URL is submitted.
Google Translate Widget/Web Element (http://www.google.com/webelements/#!/translate) will continue to function and will still translate content on-demand when a viewer of a web page requests a translation.
Google Transliteration API (http://code.google.com/apis/language/transliterate) will continue to function up until May 26, 2014 as per the deprecation policy.
Google Translator Toolkit (http://translate.google.com/toolkit) will still function as before and users can submit TMX and other documents formats for translation.
Google Translator Toolkit API (http://code.google.com/apis/gtt/) will continue to function as before and documents can be submitted and retrieved as previously. However new development using this API has been restricted.
Abuse, Economic Burden and Google’s Right to Shut down the Translate API
Google has been offering the Translate API free of charge. The Terms of Use (http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/terms.html) discuss deprecation of the service. In the terms Google states:
For a period of 3 years after an announcement (the "Deprecation Period"), Google will use commercially reasonable efforts to continue to operate the Deprecated Version of the Service
Google has however noted that it will continue providing the service only until December 1, 2011, as they consider that there is indeed a substantial economic burden. There is confusion between the blog entry, which says that “Following the standard deprecation period – often, as long as three years – some of the deprecated APIs will be shut down.” and the December 2011 date. The two statements are contradictory and bring into question the extent to which users can rely on Google Terms of Use.
Google has worded the announcement carefully so as to allow the use of the following clause:
Google reserves the right in its discretion to cease providing all or any part of a Deprecated Version of the Service immediately without any notice if:
d. providing the Deprecated Version of the Service could create a substantial economic burden on Google as determined by Google in its reasonable good faith judgment;
While Google may be within its rights to shut down the service if there is indeed a substantial economic burden, lack of clarity means that Google risks further upsetting, confusing and frustrating its users and developer community by not being fully transparent on the reasons for the decision.
The vagueness of the announcement and the lack of information on the rationale behind it are already giving rise to speculation as to what the actual reasons could be:
Substantial Economic Burden: The amount of text translated via Google’s Translate API is believed to be only a fraction of the volume compared to other means of translation provided by Google such as via the web interface or the Google Translate Widget/Web Element. Costs incurred by Google would include bandwidth and processing capacity, but the Translation API expenses overall would be miniscule when compared to those of Search, YouTube, Gmail and Google Apps. Therefore we can deduce that the substantial economic burden is not related to the operational costs of the API itself.
Extensive Abuse: This could be interpreted as users of the API not following the Terms of Use (http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/terms.html ) of the Google Translate API. Abuses would include activities such as using the Translate API for commercial purposes in a manner that Google deems in violation of its Terms of Use or incorporating output from the Translate API in website content.
Deeper Analysis
Google’s stated mission is to “organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Language translation is one method for the creation of content for this purpose that helps achieve this mission. However, with this announcement, Google is making it very clear that it reserves the right to exclusively use this method within its own applications such as the Translate Widget/Web Element. Google wants to control how and when content is translated into another language and by whom.
In order to better understand the announcement and analyze possible reasons for Google shutting down the API, it is important to understand Google’s products and customers. Google’s primary revenue source is advertising driven by content and the contextual analysis of said content.
In this model, Google’s customers are advertisers who purchase ads, not users of Google services. Google’s products are not really search, translation or Gmail – these are tools that Google offers to users. In fact, Google’s product that it is selling to its advertising customers is the large number of users of various Google tools.
When Google was a young company, users adopted the new search tool rapidly because it provided superior quality search results over alternatives. Increasingly Google is now being challenged by other search tools, especially in non-English markets. In addition Google is frequently criticized for delivering lower quality content in its results than alternative offerings in the Search arena.
On February 24, 2011, Google’s official blog discussed many of the issues that it faced deliver high-quality results in a blog entry entitled “Finding more high-quality sites in search” (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html). The post states:
Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible. This requires constant tuning of our algorithms, as new content—both good and bad—comes online all the time.
But in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries
This was followed by a major algorithmic update announcement on April 11, 2011 on a blog post entitled “High-quality sites algorithm goes global, incorporates user feedback” which was more commonly known as the “Farmer Update”. The aim of this update of the Google search algorithm was to downplay the influence of mass produced low quality content specifically created for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes and also reduce the rankings of search results associated with content farms such as Demand Media. The update impacted a further 12% of Google US search queries and was initially only applicable to English language content, but was followed shortly afterwards by the “Panda Update” for non-English content.
It is clear by these actions that Google has realized that while it has significant market dominance in search, emerging competitors are starting to gain ground by delivering higher quality results, just as Google did when it first launched its search tool many years ago.
Google remains the undisputed leader in most major markets. However there are some notable exceptions which include Russia, China, Japan and South Korea. In these markets, local search operators such as Yandex, Baidu, Yahoo! Japan and NHN respectively have dominant market share. It is easy to blame local factors (such as governmental policy or influence) or other restrictions for lower market share. But, Google is in reality playing catch-up in many of these non-English markets. Local search operators have both deep market insights and an even deeper understanding of their own language and culture. These advantages have allowed these companies to deliver higher quality search results in their local language targeted at specific local audiences.
In order for Google to deliver high quality search results, Google relies on high quality web content. But the forces of globalization may actually be leading to lower quality web content through automated translation without the human post-editing process that would ensure quality. With the rapid expansion of the Internet and globalization for many companies, enterprises and website owners have been increasingly translating their content from English and other languages into the languages of new markets across the world.
Translating content professionally is both slow and expensive. Depending on the domain of translation and the language pairs being translated, professional translation can cost as much as US$0.50 per word for a language such as Japanese. For European languages, costs typically range between US$0.08 to US$0.20 per word. For many publishers, this translation expense is too high and cannot be justified. Human translators typically translate at around 2,000-3,000 words per day. Rapid translation of time sensitive content using machine translation is an alternative. Being first to market with new information can be a significant competitive advantage and bring significantly greater advertising revenue to online publishers.
It would therefore be no surprise that some online publishers are abusing the free Google Translate API to translate content and then publish local language content to complement existing content that has been created by human translators or authored in local language. This is a common technique that SEO companies have applied to bring more users to a website and then in turn link through to premium content.
Google’s Terms of Use state clearly that this use of the Translate API is not permitted and there are very good reasons for doing so beyond the financial cost of bandwidth and processing power.
Internet World Stats (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) estimates that 44% of Internet users come from Asia, with continued rapid growth expected. Other non-English speaking markets in Europe, Africa and the Middle East are also growing quickly. Like the websites that are abusing the Google Translate API to deliver local language content and gain users in global markets, Google also aspires to compete more effectively in many non-English markets and grow its worldwide user base.
Google’s ultimate product for its advertising customers is the expansion of its ability to secure large volumes of users in non-English language markets to complement its English centric origins where it has already established a dominant market share.
In order to achieve this aim Google must control the means of access and the quality of the content. Google’s Translate Widget/Web Element offers a real time translation alternative to the Translate API which has many additional benefits to Google that gives it not only this control, but also control of who accesses translation functionality. It is therefore no surprise that Google is deprecating the Google Translate API, in favor of translation methods that it controls directly.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Google’s Strategy
Content that is translated and published via the Google Translate API and then stored by publishers reflects the quality of Google’s translation technologies at the time the translation was performed. In many cases, this is sometime in the past (most users of the API create static content that is not updated often), and does not reflect the improvements in translation quality as Google updates its translation technologies on a continuous basis. When this old content then ranks highly on a Google search result, users may be frustrated at the lower quality result.
User frustration at lower quality local language content is only a part of the issue. Advertisers want to target their advertisements onto high-quality local language content that will in turn driver users to click on their advertisements. Lower quality sites have a negative impact on the click-through rate that disappoints Google’s customers – the advertisers.
By shutting down the Translate API, Google forces web publishers to find an alternative translation tool or use the Google Translate Widget/Web Element. Using the Google Translate Widget/Web Element has the advantage that the user can still see the content translated into their local language, but Google’s crawlers do not see this content as it is only translated for users on demand on a one-time basis. On demand translation also means the user is seeing the most updated output from Google’s latest translation technology that will usually be better than an older translation.
The last benefit above is huge, and it is the most likely, but not the only, reason for shutting down the Google Translate API.
Polluting Its Own Drinking Water
Google crawls and gathers data from many sources. In turn this data is used for a variety of purposes. In order to deliver high-quality search and local language content results, Google needs high-quality data. In recent times, it can be assumed that an increasing amount of the website data that Google has been gathering has been translated from one language to another using Google’s own Translate API. Often, this data has been published online with no human editing or quality checking, and is then represented as high-quality local language content. Google represents that data in its search results and also integrates this mix of local language content into tools such as Google Translate.
It is not easy to determine if local language content has been translated by machine or by human or perhaps whether it is in its original authored language. By crawling and processing local language web content that has been published without any human proof reading after being translated using the Google Translate API, Google is in reality “polluting its own drinking water.” By indexing local-language content translated in this manner, Google delivers a mix of very different quality local language search results, which are often frustrating for users in many parts of the world.
This problem only gets worse when you consider that the same data that Google crawls for indexing websites is also used to improve its language translation technologies. Using the technique of statistical machine translation (SMT), Google relies on huge quantities of local language content sourced from its crawlers of the web to continually improve and enhance its language translation software.
The higher the quality of input to this training process, the higher quality the resulting engine can translate. So the increasing amount of “polluted drinking water” is becoming more statistically relevant. Over time, instead of improving each time more machine learning data is added, the opposite can occur. Errors in the original translation of web content can result in good statistical patterns becoming less relevant, and bad patterns becoming more statistically relevant. Poor translations are feeding back into the learning system, creating software that repeats previous mistakes and can even exaggerate them. This results in potentially lower quality translations over time, rather than improvements.
One of Google’s key differentiators has been its ability to efficiently and effectively process extremely large volumes of data. While Google has not publicized how much data it has gathered to train its SMT engines, various articles indicate that Google has scanned about 11% of all printed content ever published. Google has access to widely varying volumes of data depending on language pair involved. While there are massive amounts of online language content for some languages (such as Tier 1 languages which include English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Japanese, etc.), this is not true for the vast majority of languages in the world. In general, the glass ceiling of data limitations is relatively low for many languages. While more data is becoming available online every day, but the challenge for Google is getting sufficient data volumes for Tier 2 and Tier 3 languages in order to reach a quality level that is acceptable for users.
But even for Tier 1 languages, Google is facing a significant data glass ceiling. In a Guardian Newspaper article entitled “Can Google break the computer language barrier?”, Google’s Andreas Zollmann discussed the data glass ceiling issue and states that "Each doubling of the amount of translated data input led to about a 0.5% improvement in the quality of the output.” He makes a very important point about the limits of Google’s approach “We are now at this limit where there isn't that much more data in the world that we can use, so now it is much more important again to add on different approaches and rules-based models."
Putting this in context, each time Google doubles the data, it gets diminishing returns. If Google doubles the data 3 times (11%x 2 = 22%, 22% x 2 = 44%, 44% x 2 = 88%) it quickly reaches the limit of data that it can collect. But despite this vast volume of data, the quality improvement is just 1.5%. Kirti Vashee, Asia Online’s Vice President of Enterprise Translation Sales blogged on this topic back in January this year when Google first publicly discussed the data glass ceiling issue.
So Why is Google Shutting Down the Translate API?
What Google did not anticipate was extent of abuse of the Google Translate API in a manner prohibited by its Terms of Use. This has resulted in such a significant mass of poorly translated content that the impact on Google’s core search business is notable and poses a significant threat to the quality of Google’s search results and the quality of its future translation initiatives. Given how important search and translation are to Google’s current and future business, this is most likely the “Substantial Economic Burden” and “abuse” that Google refers to in its shutdown announcement. With this realization, it makes sense that Google is taking action to rectify the problem.
Possible Additional Reasons for Shutting Down the Translate API
Google’s market-beating revenue growth in 2010 can be attributed to three key business pillars:
Search – Google’s core revenue stream
Video – Short-term revenue
Mobile and Google Apps – Long-term revenue
Each pillar in turn has already integrated machine translation and Google is expected to add further functionality in future as demand expands further beyond English only content.
The one thing that Google has most notably not yet been successful in, despite several attempts, is social networking. Facebook’s rapid rise and entrance into the online advertising space means that there is now a real competitor for online advertising dollars beyond Google’s AdSense.
Many of Google’s users are already Facebook users. Facebook has already mastered the use of crowdsourcing. With the Google Translate API arguably offering the best translation quality any of the free translation tools, developers had already created products that integrate Google’s Translate API with the Facebook API to deliver a bridge between languages for Facebook users.
With Microsoft as an investor in Facebook and Facebook being a significant threat to Google’s market share for both users (product) and advertising (customers), helping Facebook become even more popular via the free use of Google Translate API is certainly something that Google would not find desirable.
What About Google’s Software Developer Community?
Google has come to understand the strategic benefits of limiting the reach of machine translation, but cannot limit it to some (i.e. Facebook) and keep it open for others. By shutting down the Translate API to developers, Google is now the only software developer that can develop applications using Google Translate.
By allowing use of the Google Translate API, Google has successfully seeded the market with applications that leverage machine translation as a core function within a product. There will be a literal smorgasbord of great applications that no longer function as a result of the Translate API shutdown that Google can take the best elements from and launch its own products without competition.
This is going to be particularly important in the browser and mobile application space.
· Web Browsers: Google Chrome already has embedded foreign language auto-detection and translation of content. Similar third-party plugins for Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox built using the Translate API will cease to function at the beginning of December.
· Mobile: Developers that have built products for Android using the Translate API will have the same problem, but expect Google to deliver increasing functionality that incorporates translation in the Android OS. Developers who built applications for Android competitors such as Apple iPhone and iPad will be harder hit when mobile translation applications cease functioning on their platforms at the beginning of December. It is unlikely that Google will build similar applications and functionality when it can maintain significant advantage for Android by withholding such functionality.
By deprecating and then shutting down the API, Google reduces the capability of abusers to freely use automated translation to produce content and slows the rate of low quality content appearing on the Internet. However in doing so, Google is taking a risk.
Developers have invested money and time into their software products, many of which will cease to function (or need to be updated) with the shutdown of the Google Translate API. Just as Google underestimated the abuse of the Translate API, Google may also have underestimated the backlash from the developer community for what is seen by many as one of the most valuable Google APIs. Hundreds of postings have been made already discussing the shutdown of the APIs. Most of the posters are upset about the Translate API, with very few comments on the shutdown of the other 17 APIs. Emotions range from surprise, anger and distrust of Google to bewilderment.
Google shutting down key tools such as the Translate API without offering an alternative to developers decreases confidence in the use of any Google API. Due to the dominance of Google and its tools, development and innovation in new innovation in Internet applications may slow or be stifled as a result of trust issues now brought to the forefront by the Google Translate API shutdown.
The impact will likely reach beyond just the Google APIs and have knock-on effects on the use of all free APIs irrespective of who is providing them. There is a risk of a perception being created with developers that if a company as large as Google can pull the rug out from under developers, then any company could do so, with hundreds of hours of software development and marketing costs being wiped out with a simple shutdown notice.
When the Google Translate API was released in March 2008, Google released a train from the station that went hurtling down the tracks at a pace that Google had not anticipated. Developers quickly integrated the technology into their applications. With little management and oversight on the Google Translate API, Google quickly lost control of how, when and by whom it was used.
The developer outcry in response to the shutdown of the Google Translate API is a clear indicator that Google’s attempt to recall the train back to the station is not going to be taken lightly. Many developers will not allow their hard work to be wasted. Developers will simply switch to other competing technologies.
Smart developers have already built support for multiple free translation technologies into their products. The loss of functionality provided by Google Translate may mean fewer language pairs or lower quality translation in some cases, but once the train has left the station, there is no turning back. Microsoft Bing will be the most likely beneficiary and it would be no surprise to see Microsoft investing even more into its translation technologies as a result.
Google’s attempt to control access to machine translation may be too late. In opening up the Google Translate API, controls should have been in place from the outset. It would not be surprising to see either a commercial or an open source API for translation appear in near future that encapsulates all remaining free translation technologies in addition to many commercial translation technologies in a single consolidated API. The demand is clearly there and such an API would make it even easier for developers to integrate translation into their products. Indeed, the result may be the exact opposite of what Google intended, with the further proliferation of machine translation products and content at an even more rapid pace.
· Google is shutting down the Translate API, but Google Translate will continue to exist and improve in a manner that allows Google to leverage Google Translate in its own applications, but will not allow third-party developers to leverage the technology. Although late in applying controls to translation and with some risk, this is probably the best strategy for Google as a business.
Eliminating language as a barrier to knowledge and communication is one of the last great challenges of the Internet. Google most certainly understands the benefit and potential of its automated translation technology and is now trying to regain a level of control over it.
By shutting down the Translate API, Google is able to control when users access their translate functionality and when they can deliver advertisements to these users. Google also benefits by reducing the quantity of machine translated content that is misrepresented by websites as quality local language content.
The “substantial financial burden” that Google refers to is not related to the operational costs of the API itself, but the burden and risk to Google’s business as a whole that uncontrolled access to Google Translate functionality represents.
It is clear that Google understands the potential for translation. But it is also clear that Google understands the potential for abuse of translation and the knock-on impact that it is facing or may face. Not having control of what is translated and how the translations are used creates a threat to Google’s core revenue streams and potentially helps competitors such as Facebook to increase their value at Google’s expense. This is most likely the substantial economic burden that Google refers to in its announcement.
The shutdown of the Translate API is truly a shame for the many software developers that did not violate the Terms of Use and used the Translate API in a manner permitted. Developers should be aware of the limitations of free APIs where they have no control or say in the future of the service. Business models built around a free API with little other value-add are doomed to failure from the outset. If a free API must be used, then developers should try to look for multiple providers of similar functionality and build in support for as many APIs as possible in order to reduce risk. Developers should anticipate the possibility of competition from Google in applications that leverage automated translation and move to protect themselves via patents and by offering features that go beyond those of interest to Google.
The analysis in this post has been focused on gaining a clearer understanding of Google’s announcement as well as the probable reasons for Google shutting down the Google Translate API. A follow-up post that analyses the impact on the language services and translation industry will be posted shortly.
Posted by Kirti Vashee at 8:24 AM
Labels: Google, information quality, SMT, statistical MT, translation technology
Charles Fischer June 1, 2011 at 7:00 PM
What an amazingly thorough analysis of the Google Translate API situation, and of Google's strategy in general. Thank you, Dion for your thoughtful essay!
Dion Wiggins June 1, 2011 at 9:25 PM
@Charles - thank you for your kind words. It was fun to put my old Gartner analyst hat back on for a while :)
My next post in a few days time provide analysis of what it means for the professional translation industry.
Translater Harshe June 2, 2011 at 1:29 AM
Nice and logical analysis, Dion. I like it!
No Peanuts! June 2, 2011 at 4:02 AM
Sorry, but human translation is "slow and expensive" for a reason -- because it's a PROFESSION that requires intellectual engagement. It is precisely the opposite -- in moral as well as literal terms -- of "machine" translation (which is not translation at all and should not be called translation; it is, in essence, nothing more than word substitution, a very complex macro). The fact that open heart surgery, plumbing, or teaching a course in American History can be "slow and expensive" isn't a good argument for replacing professionals with robots. One of the "economic impacts" that Google has perhaps not considered is the damage its translation tools has done to the translation profession: unscrupulous "translators" google-translate documents and then charge for them, while clients with no knowledge of English (or whatever target language is required) accept google-translations and put them on their websites or in their publications without thought, having been convinced entirely by the "cost" argument. The fact that "free" translation is widely and falsely believed to be available (because, again, what Google translate provides is NOT translation) has played a major role in lowering the fees that translators can ask and, thus, contributes to reducing our ability to earn a living as skilled workers. Google, by asking people to contribute for free to its product has only continued this form of unfair competition. Nor has Google ever made any attempt to collaborate with professional translators in providing appropriate education to the public regarding how to use Google Translate in a way that does not abuse translators, clients, or language itself. Google should have closed this app long ago; it has always done more harm than good.
Michael Smolens June 2, 2011 at 6:40 AM
Dion - timely, thorough, and comprehensive writing - we at dotSUB have had discussions about this over the past few days, and your words add insight to our thinking.
Dion Wiggins June 2, 2011 at 9:38 AM
@No Peanuts! – I think you are reading this very wrong. Google has never tried to compete with professional translators or act as a substitution. Some may have tried to use Google that way, but that is not the purpose of Google Translate. You are correct in stating that there is a reason for human translation to be slow and expensive and that it is the level of professional skills required in order to be able to deliver a high quality translation.
However, there are many scenarios where “fast and somewhat understandable” can be better than “slow but high quality”. Example: Asia Online has a client translating billions of words (10’s of millions of patents) into English from other languages so that they can be searched and found using English search tools. Once the document is identified to be of value, it can then be human translated. In this scenario, the patent document would not have previously been accessible as it was written in a language that was not understood by the person searching. But once it was identified, the professional translator got work that would not have otherwise existed without the use of machine translation first.
There is a very big difference in “translation so that you can understand something” – aka “gist translation” and “translation so that you can publish something” – aka “professional translation”. What Google translate is aimed at is giving someone the ability to understand content in another language, not to publish content in another language. Google’s Terms of Use state clearly that publishing content is not permitted. But this is unfortunately what has happened. By your own description in your comment, it is clear that many of the “unscrupulous translators” you refer to are actually professional translators that are taking short cuts – and I must admit that I have met several of these people myself.
Google is no more to blame for the actions of these individuals than a broadband provider or the manufacturer of the PC that submitted the content. In its Terms of Use Google set out how the Translate API is permitted to be used and users publishing content that has been translated using Google Translate are in violation of those terms. To blame Google for the actions of “unscrupulous translators" is unfair. However, what Google can be blamed for is not putting the necessary controls on their tools to ensure this kind of activity did not occur. Controls they are now attempting to put in place.
I have many thoughts on how Google has impacted the professional translation industry and I will be posting them in part 2 of my analysis of the Google announcement in the next few days. Thank you for your thoughts on Part 1. I look forward to your comments and thoughts once you have had a chance to read Part 2 also.
Jean-Marie Le Ray June 2, 2011 at 11:22 AM
Hi Dion,
Thanks very much for your thoughts on this matter, very insightful indeed. But I'm not really sure with this statement: "Google has never tried to compete with professional translators or act as a substitution".
Because if we want intend "substitution" (not for freelancers but for translation companies) as a marketplace, like Proz for instance, remember rumours, 3 years ago, about the Google Translation Center (see @ http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-08-04-n48.html ), which was a concept so far much more ambitious than the current Google Translation Toolkit.
So what if Google decided to run the GTC allowing translators to use his API only on Google servers, and so they decide to shut down first all Google Translate integrations...
It would be a phenomenal disruption in our field!
Nicholas Ferreira June 2, 2011 at 12:07 PM
Excellent analysis, Kirti, very interesting and thought-provoking. As a professional translator, I feel this is a good thing.
Posted by Nicholas Ferreira
Somebody mentioned to me that Google has only deprecated Google Translate API V1 and that Google will charge for access to Google Translate API V2.
I did a little double checking. As can be seen from the link below Google Translate API V2 has also been deprecated and will shutdown on December 1, 2011.
http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/v2/getting_started.html
@Jean-Marie - Thanks for your feedback. There has been much speculation since the launch of Google Translate about competing with professional translators or the professional translation industry.
The reality is that first of all the quality is not that of a human and second that Google is not in the business of translation. Google is in the business of organizing the worlds information so that it can attract advertising revenue (customers) to the content that it has helped organized so that users (product) can view it. Translation is a tool for Google that helps to achieve this goal.
In the upcoming Part 2 of my analysis I will cover many of the issues that relate to the professional translation industry.
Jean-Marie Le Ray June 3, 2011 at 3:39 AM
Dion, thank you for your answer, but I don't think it's a matter about competition between Google and professional translators or professional translation industry. As Google initially stated in his "Google Translation Center's Role":
Google Translation Center provides a venue for you to enter into and complete translation transactions. Except when you use Google Translation Center as provided in Section 4 (...), Google is not involved in any transactions in Google Translation Center.
Moreover, if the problem of the burden was depending only on the bad quality of MT translated and published text, there is no difference with all abuses committed with other MT systems (MSFT first of all), and I think it's quite easy for Google to detect with a 100% rate all MT translated text and don't include them in any statistical computing.
The opening of GTC would desintermediate current business models of translation companies and act as a "universal Proz", with an advantage for Google to keep all memories on his servers and to increase hugely his Universal Translation Memory.
I made a post on my blog about that, but it's in French, sorry :-)
Kirti Vashee June 3, 2011 at 8:59 AM
For some reason many people seem to be interpreting this announcement as "no more free MT from Google".
Google intends to keep the interactive and dynamic real-time capabilities very much in place. Also the basic GTT appears to be untouched - it is only the programmatic access (APIs = Application Programming Interface i.e. software controls that allow two software programs to talk to each other and hand each other tasks) that are affected. And even products like Trados will not be able to access this anymore though the same chunks of text could easily be translated through the Google Translate interface.
Jeff Allen June 3, 2011 at 8:59 AM
The members of this list are a very small subset of users, and we know what APIs are about, and that MT is even embedded into other apps via APIs.
On the poll on ProZ, comments are the poll show users who clearly state that they don't know what API stands for.
Earlier this week I had breakfast with a friend/colleague who has been attending a big international linguistics conference all week and when this Google API topic was brought up, one person interpreted it as Alphabet Phonetique International (API) which led the entire discussion about the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and yet not related to the initial API question at all.
Not sure that the majority of MT users out there even understand what this means with regard to the other apps they regularly use which consume the MT technologies via APIs.
In any case, this is an amusing week on the MT front.
Bob Donaldson June 3, 2011 at 9:01 AM
Good points, Jeff ... There is probably a need for a clear, plain-English discussion piece that puts all of this in context without the jargon.
At the same time, I find it a bit sad that "API" is so poorly understood by people who want to use MT. In my opinion, it is this ability to embed an automated step in another workflow (with or without traditional human translator involvement depending on the case in point) that is the key to productivity gains. And I suspect that some of the crowdsource portal plays out there were among the "abusers" of the Google API along those lines.
As for the "abuse" ... It seems to me that the essence of the abuse was that it separated the Google MT technology from the Google revenue model ... they do not charge for the MT, but MT does fit into the way they build revenue. As long as everyone acts per their expectations, they benefit, but when the capability can be abstracted and repurposed beyond their control, that begins to look (to them) like "abuse". It will be interesting to see whether Kirti's suggestion becomes reality.
Brian Garr June 3, 2011 at 9:02 AM
Google has only one main revenue model, and that is the advertising that succeeds by getting millions of eyeballs to Google and the ads it displays. The MT API added no new eyeballs to those ads, so it was superfluous. From my discussions with Google, I can surmise that they spend a great deal of money all over the world on their quest to produce high quality MT (note that I said "quest", not "achieved"), both in hardware and in human labor. Without the ability to show Google ads through the API, there is no incentive for them to support the API. I would suggest that those costs had a significant uplift by these non-lookers using the API interface. Not a terribly complex problem or solution.
ClaudioPorcellana June 3, 2011 at 9:22 AM
does it mean that GT embedded in Wordfast, for example, will be dead ASAP?
BTW, I was never able to use GT to translate&deliver, but I found it very useful to pretranslate/postedit&deliver, so sparing a lot of keystrokes/time, but I'll survive easily if it will be stopped
Luigi Muzii June 3, 2011 at 9:24 AM
Many comments seem to indicate that the most determined opponents of machine translation do not really know much about it, and that they are even less interested in knowing. They mostly seem distressed by the harm that a software application that they do not hesitate to define poor can cause them, as if their work were shoddy, and then they have to compete with this demon that they are eager to kill or at least see dropped dead. It is clear that they do not even know what an API is, what to do with it, how to use it, and how it can be used, and they are not able to grasp the meaning of Dion’s acute analysis. Pulli ad margaritas. The biggest nonsense I've read here is that Google Translate (and why not Bing, or Babelfish, or Systran as well?) would be a major causes in price drop, the same drop that others who are also fighting against the same enemy obstinately reject. Sometimes I think the best way to explain why translators receive (and deserve) so little consideration is to let them speak up.
By the way, to write this comment I used Google Translate.
Ray Lloyd June 3, 2011 at 9:51 AM
Excellent analysis in the article on Kirti's blog. So Google's own translated data is polluting their database.
I was wondering about this in a post I made earlier about the Translate widget/Element and I now assume that pollution is only an issue if people put Google Translate results on a static web page and not when translating on the fly.
Posted by Ray Lloyd
And now a new announcement:
Google not killing translate API, will develop paid version
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20068839-93/google-not-killing-translate-api-will-develop-paid-version/
Posted by Jeff Allen
Alon Lavie June 4, 2011 at 9:11 AM
I think converting the API into a paid service does change the picture here quite substantially, and I am curious to hear thoughts from others about this. The most important aspect that I see here is that this simultaneously (1) will make it financially impossible for a large number of applications - including popular professionally used CAT tools - to offer a free connection to Google MT; while (2) create a legally-sound basis for commercial use of Google translations by developers of commercial MT products and services.
Nobody (consumer or enterprise business) likes to pay for something they can get for free elsewhere. That means that, in the future, anyone embedding Google translations within their application will have to demonstrate clear added value. Just retrieving a translation from Google won't be enough. The added value could be in how the application incorporates the translations it retrieves from Google into what it provides the user, or something else, but it clearly has to be there, or users will just flock away and not pay.
Posted by Alon Lavie
Dominique MARET June 9, 2011 at 12:40 AM
Very interesting subject and comments !
If we interpret the facts in their simpliest possible way (ie, from free to paid version), don't you think it could also indicates a slight change in the future business model of Google: less free services, more paid services?
Related to that matter, it is impressive how many sales-related positions Google offers today as compared to a few years ago.
What do you think of that?
My Kind regards to Dion, Bob and Kirti.
Dominique MARET
Kirti Vashee June 13, 2011 at 4:00 PM
@Dominique it is quite possible that given the growing influence of Facebook, and the possibility that FB becomes an increasingly preferred avenue for advertising over search, that Google is thinking about starting up new revenue streams. Thus you may be right.
This could very well be the beginning of many "free" Google services turning into the paid services.
I have always thought that Google's real motto was: Don't be evil unless financially inconvenient, and we will see if this is true as more advertisers shift to Facebook as a more effective means to reach target customers.
James Fallows of The Atlantic magazine just did an article on the "economic burden" that Google has been claiming with many references to the eMpTy Pages blog posting by Dion.
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/06/an-economic-burden-google-can-no-longer-bear/240283/
Steven Marzuola June 14, 2011 at 10:35 AM
I think the Atlantic article is off-base, in two ways.
First, I don't think Google is seriously concerned about "polluting the water", by allowing the translations from Google Translate (GT) to be added to their language corpora as if they were high-quality human translations They have never claimed to add translated material taken off the Internet without review, instead, they usually rely on officially translated materials from known organizations (United Nations, EU).
Also, the cost to Google to operate the Google Translate API is tiny, compared to Google Translate itself (the web version) and especially as part of the Google empire (Gmail, YouTube, ...)
Instead, there's another side to Google's business that is being affected, involving non-English speaking markets. See this article:
http://kv-emptypages.blogspot.com/2011/06/analysis-of-shutdown-announcements-of.\
Andrew: There will always be a place for human translators, but it is certainly true that computers will assume an ever-increasing amount of the load. I have used a TM program for almost 10 years. The latest versions can look up passages at Google, so I'm no longer limited to my own TM, biological memory (brain), and reference materials. I still have final say but GT has more than once given me exactly the phrase or term I meant to say.
The automobile (or truck or train or airplane) did not make human drivers or walking obsolete, it enables humans to travel farther and faster and to carry heavier loads farther and faster. Computers are already doing the same for translations.
Posted by Steven Marzuola
asma July 27, 2011 at 11:56 PM
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TopherBricks October 20, 2011 at 12:35 PM
Wow, great job. Thanks for "translating" Google's announcement for me (sorry for the pun). I didn't have the patience to sift through all of it, but your analysis was definitely helpful. I wonder how this will affect the Best PPC Company and firms that had their ads on those pages.
Multilizer / Niko Papula November 24, 2011 at 3:10 AM
While I think that the authors comment about "Polluting Its Own Drinking Water" is true, I also think that Google can't turn the clock backwards. With the current tools (e.g. Moses) there will always be free machine translations available. Deprecating the Translate API will temporarily reduce using machine translation in generating translated web sites but the effect will not be permanent. Google has now created room for new MT services.
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Analysis of the Shutdown Announcements of the Goog...
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Dodgy science at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Rugby League scores on 3AW!
Joel Fitzgibbon does the right thing
June 4th, 2009 at 03:07pm
And stands down as Defence minister.
The announcement has been confirmed with a released letter from Mr Fitzgibbon to the Prime Minister, which acknowledges that he is “not absolutely satisfied that I [ensured full] compliance with your Ministerial Code of Conduct.”
“I have decided to resign as a member of the Executive, effective, immediately.”
Yesterday Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was not happy about Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon’s failure to declare another gift.
Mr. Fitzgibbon’s failure to declare gifts in a timely manner, and his controversial relationship with Chinese businesswoman Helen Liu forced this outcome, and after what I said the other night following Mr. Fitzgibbon’s latest late declaration of a gift, I’m pleased with the outcome.
[..]quite frankly if you aren’t capable of disclosing gifts, I fail to see how you can be considered competent enough to be the minister for defence[..]
I don’t want to take pleasure from the downfall of Mr. Fitzgibbon, rather from the fact that the right thing has been done, and the important role of Minister for Defence can now be handed to someone who won’t bring as much controversy, and will hopefully be more suitable for the job.
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Home » Government Affairs » Staff
Director Public Policy and Outreach
Lisa Volpe McCabe
Lisa Volpe McCabe has over 17 years of experience in telecommunications policy and government relations. Ms. McCabe’s work has focused on Federal Communications Commission regulatory issues at several Washington law firms, covering federal and state regulatory affairs at AT&T Wireless, managing state legislative and regulatory affairs at Nextel Communications and most recently, supervising state legislative affairs for the Northeast region as Director of Government Affairs at Sprint Nextel Communications.
Ms. McCabe has a graduate degree in telecommunications from George Washington University and an undergraduate degree from Kenyon College. She resides in Bethesda, Maryland with her husband and daughter.
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Couple shot by masked men in botched robbery
About two weeks after a couple erected a wall around their home in Brighton, two gunmen invaded the property and attempted to murder them during a botched robbery.
“You would think they would have come when we had a hedge as our main fencing, not when we built a wall,” Carolyn Lee told SEARCHLIGHT on Monday from hospital.
Carolyn, 52, and her husband Stephen, 58, were shot about their bodies at around 2 am last Thursday, May 13 while at their home in Brighton.
The police say two armed and masked intruders entered the Lees’ residence and shot the couple, and they are soliciting the assistance of the public to supply any information that can lead to the prosecution of the offenders.
Carolyn told SEARCHLIGHT that she and her husband were at home when two masked men, dressed in black, entered their home and demanded money. She said they responded by telling the men they had no money and that they never keep money in the house after which the intruders opened fire on them.
“We never expected anything like this to happen, we felt so safe there,” said Carolyn who added that during the 12 years they have lived at the property they never had any reason to feel unsafe.
She said they recently built a wall around the property and it is strange that there was never an attempt to burglarized or rob when they had a simple hedge, but since the wall has gone up this is the second attempt to enter the property.
Carolyn added that they have no idea who tried to rob them and at the moment they do not feel safe going back to their home.
The Lees, originally from England, have been living in St. Vincent for the last 12 years and Stephen is the manager at Barefoot Yacht Charters.
Carolyn said while they no longer feel safe at their home, their first thought is not to flee the island as St Vincent is their home, discovered during their many sailing trips around the world.
She said they have visited many countries but when they discovered St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), they fell in love and decided to settle here.
Carolyn thinks that it is unfortunate what happened to them and noted that this is the first time that they have experienced anything of this nature while living on the island. Her husband Stephen was discharged from hospital while Carolyn is in a stable condition.
The Police are asking that persons with information on the crime contact the officer in charge of South-Central Division at (784)458-4200 or the assistant commissioner of police in charge of crimes at (784)456-1339.
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Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise available to pre-order – new combat trailer released
August 15, 2018 by Barry
SEGA has released pre-order details for the upcoming Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, set to release in the Americas and Europe on October 2 for the PlayStation 4. physical pre-orders will include two free deathcry decal stickers that you are encouraged to stick to your console, controller or wherever. Digital pre-orders will include the Destiny Talisman Pack, which add useful abilities to the player. Also included is a theme and avatar set. After the break, check out the new trailer released today which focuses on the game’s combat.
Pre-order Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise
Continue Reading ➜
SEGA reveals Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise cover art
August 3, 2018 by Barry
SEGA has revealed the cover art for the upcoming Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise. Releasing October 2, 2018, the game will retail for $59.99 and at the time of this article will release as a standard edition. But knowing SEGA, there is probably a special edition or a steelbook or some fancy box lined up. In the meantime, you can pre-order a copy for yourself at Amazon.
SEGA confirms Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise hitting PS4 on October 2, 2018, includes optional English dub
June 11, 2018 by George
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise was actually ‘leaked’ early thanks to an Amazon listing and today, SEGA Europe confirmed it is a reality. The game is set to hit western store shelves on October 2, 2018! Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise actually released in Japan earlier this year under the title Hokuto no Gotoku, which is a game developed by the Yakuza Studios.
Unlike Yakuza games that retain their Japanese voices and offer subtitles, it seems Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise will have an English dub, which has been confirmed to be optional. So users can play it with English voice acting or Japanese. Check out the trailer above for more a sample of the voice work.
Amazon leaks ‘Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise’ Western localization
It seems that SEGA has plans on localizing ‘Hokuto no Ken‘, the Fist of the North Star game created by the Yakuza developers considering that Amazon has listed ‘Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise‘ product page (which they have taken down). The listing was spotted by Twitter user @RedMakuzawa and it seems that the product page has now been pulled.
Don’t be shocked if you see it revealed during Sony’s E3 press conference tomorrow, considering that Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise will be a PlayStation 4 exclusive.
Yakuza 6 survey gauges interest in Fist of the North Star game Hokuto ga Gotoku – is localization likely?
April 18, 2018 by Barry
In case you forgot, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life released yesterday to the west. As is the new norm, SEGA tacked on a survey for those who purchased the game (accessible from the console’s home screen). The eleven page long survey asks the standard questions one might expect, however it also asks the following: “While no localization has been announced at this time, how interested are you in the Fist of the North Star game created by the developers of Yakuza?” with the possible replies being: “would not buy it,” “I probably wouldn’t buy it,” “I’d buy it under the right conditions,” “I’d probably buy it” and “Day One! I would pre-order it!”.
This isn’t the first time SEGA of America has asked fans about the Fist of the North Star game Hokuto ga Gotoku. In August of last year, SEGA asked if fans were interested in the newly announced Yakuza Studio titles including Hokuto ga Gotoku. Also on that list? Yakuza Kiwami 2, which has since been announced to be coming west on August 28, 2018.
So while we are not saying Hokuto ga Gotoku is coming west, all signs sure are pointing to yes. Fire up your PS4 and take the survey today!
Hokuto ga Gotoku gets a great review score from Weekly Famitsu
February 27, 2018 by George
The latest issue of Weekly Famitsu has reviewed SEGA’s Hokuto ga Gotoku, the Yakuza Studio’s take on a Fist of the North Star game. The following are the review scores in the latest issue:
Crossing Souls (PS4) – 7/8/8/7 [30/40]
Fortissimo (PS Vita) – 8/8/8/8 [32/40]
Hokuto ga Gotoku (PS4) – 9/9/9/8 [35/40]
Immortal Redneck (PS4, Xbox One) – 7/7/8/7 [29/40]
Lucky Dog 1 (PS Vita) – 8/8/8/8 [32/40]
Tower of Babel (Switch) – 7/6/7/7 [27/40]
Your Four Knight Princesses Training Story (PS4, PS Vita, Switch) – 8/7/7/7 [29/40]
As for the legitimacy of the scores, a lot of people online agree that Famitsu is a industry magazine that always gives good scores to high bidders. Is it true? Who knows, but I had some hands-on with the Hokuto ga Gotoku demo and quite enjoyed it myself. Now we just wait to see if the game heads west…
[Source: Gematsu]
SEGA News Bits: Hokuto ga Gotoku Demo Hands-On Impressions
SEGA has released their demo for Yakuza Studio’s Hokuto ga Gotoku (Fist of the North Star). The demo had two different modes to try out, one that taught you the basics, while the other mode sends you on a quest to fix your newly acquired vehicle. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we discuss our impressions of the demo, how the driving works, how the combat is different from past Yakuza titles and what we noticed in our initial play through of the demo. Check out our video and have you tried out the demo? Let us know in the comments below.
If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a thumbs up so it shows up on more like-minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that YouTube algorithm is.
Hokuto ga Gotoku demo hits Japanese PSN later today
If you have been waiting to get your hands on Hokuto ga Gotoku, the Yakuza Studio’s take on a Fist of the North Star game, you won’t have to wait that long since the demo is launching in Japan on February 22nd! Considering how time zones work, if you live in America it should be later tonight.
If you live in America (like me) it will hit the Japanese PSN store at 5:00 pm PT/8:00 pm ET.
The demo will include
“Experience Hokuto Shinken” – Learn the game systems by battling Shin. Includes a battle tutorial.
“Experience the Story” – Play a side mission from the game. This mission will have Ken driving a buggy, fighting scoundrels, and exploring Eden.
Hokuto ga Gotoku will hit PlayStation 4 in Japan on March 8, no release dates announced outside of Japan. Yet SEGA was (not so) quick to announce Shining Resonance Re:frain, so don’t count this game out yet.
[Via: Gematsu]
SEGA Master System Fist of the North Star gets English translation patch
January 10, 2018 by George
If you are one of the many people excited for the upcoming PlayStation 4 Fist of the North Star (Hokuto Ga Gotoku), you might have something to play while you wait. If you didn’t know SEGA has created and published several Fist of the North games in the past, their first title was Hokuto No Ken (Fist of the North Star in Japanese), which released on the SEGA Master System (Mark III in Japan) in 1986. The game did make it outside of Japan as Black Belt, dropping all licenses to the manga. SEGA would later release a sequel to the game, which we got as Last Battle.
Fist of the North Star (SMS) Translation
As far as the Fist of the North Star Master System game, the title was actually one of the early games programmed by famed Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka. Looking at all the past SEGA published Fist of the North Star video games makes me want SEGA to port the 2005 arcade/PlayStation 2 game by Arc System Works. Please SEGA? While its cool to have a English patch, I don’t think you really need it to play the game.
The SEGA Master System version of the game will also be playable in the upcoming PlayStation 4 game, as an unlockable. No idea if the new one will make it over stateside. I guess we can only hope.
SEGA News Bits: What to expect from SEGA in 2018
December 28, 2017 by George
On this episode of the SEGA News Bits, we say goodbye to 2017 and start discussing what SEGA has in store for 2018. Join us as we discuss all the major releases from SEGA, SEGA related games not published by SEGA and what surprise announcements we think SEGA has for us next year. So sit back, listen in and let us know what SEGA title you are looking forward to the most in 2018!
If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a like so it shows up on more like minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that YouTube algorithm is.
Hokuto ga Gotoku unleashes trailer, details Pressure Point Action system
First up we have a new debut trailer for Hokuto ga Gotoku, which was revealed by SEGA via their live stream. This trailer has about six minutes of gameplay. We get to see a few things displayed in this trailer, including the “Pressure Point Action” system, various mini-games and even shows of Kenshiro racing in customized cars. Just like the Manga (wait, was that in the Manga?). Also, we see a SEGA Mark III console!
Hokuto ga Gotoku Japanese box art released and it looks amazing
November 22, 2017 by George
Below I have posted both the clean and retail box art for the upcoming Hokuto ga Gotoku on the PlayStation 4. If you guys didn’t know, Hokuto ga Gotoku is a game based on the Fist of the North Star IP, being done by the team behind the Yakuza games. The game’s box art was drawn by the and only Tesuo Hara, who obviously did illustration for the manga.
Hokuto ga Gotoku hits Japan, exclusively on PlayStation 4 this February 22nd! No western release plans have been shared by SEGA, but don’t be shocked if we get an announcement release early next year.
Fist of the North Star (Hokuto ga Gotoku) Extended Trailer shows off gameplay systems
September 29, 2017 by George
The Fist of the North Star (Hokuto ga Gotoku) seemed to come out of nowhere. It was announced a few months ago and in Japan its already going to get a early February 2018 release. It seems that the Yakuza Studio people are on a roll with releasing Yakuza Kiwami 2 in December, 2017, then a few months after that releasing this! I have to say, very ambitious studio.
This extended Tokyo Game Show 2017 trailer gives you a look at the story, some fighting mechanics, how leveling up works, mini-games (which we wrote about), and the most important thing is that they confirmed that Out Run is playable in the game. What is your opinion on The Fist of the North Star (Hokuto ga Gotoku)? Do you want to see the title come to the west?
Fist of the North Star reveals more story, new characters and play spots details
SEGA has updated the official website for Fist of the North Star (Hokuto ga Gotoku) website offering new details on the story, four new characters and even details on play spots within the game. Of course there are also new screenshots. I won’t go into great detail about the story right here, you can visit Gematsu who translated the website news themselves. The story goes into more detail but its piratically the same.
As for the new characters confirmed, the first one is Souther (voiced by Hiroki Touchi) the man who calls himself ‘Emperor’. This man is the sole successor of the Nanto Houhouken martial arts style. A prideful warrior that looks down on his weaker opponents and holds a secret you will discover. Next we got Jagi (voiced by Hidenari Ugaki) one of Kenshiro’s brothers who also studied Hokuto Shinken. Envious of Kenshiro, he wears a strange helmet and is an unpredictable person. Uighur (voiced by Naomi Kusumi) is a man that runs the prison known as Cassandra, which is considered a death sentence by many since no one leaves alive. Nadai (voiced by Masato Obara) is the founder of Eden. A accomplished man that created Eden within a generation but died suddenly several years ago.
Hit the jump to talk about the new minigames.
SEGA’s Fist of the North Star hits Japan in February 22
SEGA’s Fist of the North Star (Hokuto ga Gotoku) has a release date, for Japan at least. The title will launch in February 22, 2018. That means that before we get Yakuza 6 (in March), Japan will get both Yakuza Kiwami 2 and Fist of the North Star (Hokuto ga Gotoku). While its a bummer that we have to wait for these two titles, its nice to know we have a lot of content coming (hopefully) in the near future.
The announcement was made at Sony’s press conference at Tokyo Game Show. Above you can see the new Fist of the North Star (Hokuto ga Gotoku).
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Bring him home les miserables. Bring Him Home lyrics by Les Miserables, 1 meaning. Bring Him Home explained, official 2019 song lyrics 2019-01-09
Bring him home les miserables Rating: 6,9/10 429 reviews
Bring Him Home lyrics by Les Miserables, 1 meaning. Bring Him Home explained, official 2019 song lyrics
It Is the Fault of. The song's renewed popularity caused 's 1985 recording to enter the , peaking at forty-five with 4,987 sales. The audience stood and applauded for several minutes, stopping intermittently only to wipe their eyes. A stirring anthem, it is sung twice: once at the end of the first act, and once at the end of the musical's Finale. It is also the first of the two times that a National Guardsmen sings a warning to the revolutionaries. When Marius asks why Valjean confesses to him, Valjean explains that his conscience will not let him rest until he has done so.
Him from 'Les Misérables' Sheet Music in A Major (transposable)
It is among the better-known songs from the musical. Les Misérables tells an unforgettable story of heartbreak, passion, and the resilience of the human spirit in a breathtaking new production. The summers die One by one How soon they fly On and on And I am old And will be gone. When choosing to bring the family to Les Misérables, parents should make their own decision based on the maturity of their child. Empty Chairs At Empty Tables7. If this song really means something special to you, describe your feelings and thoughts. Michele's version has been released as a.
Valjean arrives and Cosette sees him. Bring him peace Bring him joy He is young, He is only a boy. His Jobert waits for him to come home from school just to chastise him again, tears his room apart for whatever anytime. In the stage show, a doctor shortly informed Valjean of Fantine's death and Valjean asked three days to fetch Cosette, which Javert refuses. Gavroche's gleeful uncovering of Javert is sung to an entirely different melody, already used in the Original French Version and is much shorter, before leading to the musical bit that was left in.
He's like the son I might have known If God had granted me a son. This is just a preview! The song is cut heavily or left completely out in most recordings. Alloy of all of this makes this melody to be one of the best in its kind. He's like the son I might have known If God had granted me a son. This tune appears throughout the show.
BRING HIM HOME Chords
The summers die One by one How soon they fly On and on And I am old And will be gone. Get the embed code Les Miserables - Les Miserables Act 2 Album Lyrics1. It explains Valjean's motives more clearly. Bring him home Bring him home Bring him home. Do You Hear the People Sing? The second part did not figure on the recording, but was used as a purely instrumental piece in the stage show. January 27, 2019 1:30 P.
In the film adaptation, the song comes after A Heart Full of Love and before. It is sung solo by Éponine and warns Marius about the planned break-in. It was an incredibly touching reunion. It is a memory we will never forget. Bring Him Home We had an inspiring experience recently when we were asked by a woman whose husband was serving in the military if she could surprise her 5 very young children on stage at one of our concerts. If I die, let me die Let him live, bring him home Bring him home Bring him home. President on the evening of the day that he was.
Bring Him Home (Les Miserables)
The lyrics were written by. The London production has run continuously since October 1985 — the longest-running musical in the and the musical in the world. She sings about a castle where she does not have to sweep floors and a lady all in white looks after her. The first part follows the same melody as L'un vers l'autre Towards One Another , a solo for Éponine that appeared on the original concept album but did not make it to the current version. The song is instrumentally an exact reprise of Valjean's Soliloquy, though sung by Javert with changed lyrics. He has no freedom, and is under the constant haunting of he's not good enough and feels alone between his separated parents.
Upon These Stones - Building The Barricade17. In the musical, Valjean pleads to God to preserve the life of another man. A Little Fall Of Rain2. Valjean's Soliloquy — What Have I Done? Bring him Home and give him a chance to live. Bring him peace, bring him joy, he is young, he's just a boy.
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Nearly 70 teams across Minor League Baseball will be coming together this summer to “strike out” hate with the largest “Pride Night” celebration in all of pro sports. The Las Vegas Aviators will host theirs in the team’s June 24 game against Sacramento at the Las Vegas Ballpark in Summerlin and will take place two days after the Las Vegas Aces WNBA team’s home game vs the Dallas Wings.
The Vegas event is just one of many this month around baseball. According to MiLB.com, MiLB Pride events league wide include encouraging teams to hold LGBTQ-themed nights, incorporate”Pride” into scheduled promotions, provide discounted tickets to LGBTQ organizations while also engaging with the LGBTQ community both in the ballpark and beyond.
“MiLB Pride” was created in response to a growing industry trend with just 19 teams staging Pride Nights in 2017, before 41 did so in 2018.
“The numbers doubled by themselves, so we thought we should lend a hand,” said Vince Pierson, director of diversity and inclusion for Minor League Baseball. “It’s a hybrid approach, whatever option the team wanted to take. You can dive in, or dip your toe.
“We have over 20 teams doing this for the first time, so at the national level we’re providing support. We’re wanting to be silent partners, like, ‘You may not have known, but there’s this team with a similar market size and similar fan base. We can connect you with that team. We can facilitate.'”
✈️⚾️🏳️🌈 Nonstop Pride.
The #AviatorsLV are proud to be a part of #MiLBPride, the largest documented Pride celebration in professional sports, as part of the organization's diversity and inclusion initiative.
Join us on June 24th for Nonstop Pride Night: https://t.co/Q6fZ0tmJtp pic.twitter.com/T3mcRQNQYP
— Las Vegas Aviators (@AviatorsLV) June 10, 2019
For Las Vegas, “Pride Night” is a big deal for members of the LGBTQ community. Bringing awareness to groups like Golden Rainbow (which holds its 33rd annual Ribbon of Life show June 23 with a “Summer of Love” theme), or AFAN (which is hosting its 33rd annual Black & White Party in The Joint at the Hard Rock August 10) is no easy task. Add into that the sports component with the Aviators being MiLB’s attendance leader thus far in 2019 (more than 9,600 per game), and the event has the potential to be one of the city’s most influential LGBTQ events every year.
Bringing awareness to bullying that affects the LGBTQ community is paramount, especially for young people. Results from the 2017 Youth Risk Behavior Survey show that, nationwide, more U.S. high school students who self-identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) report having been bullied on school property (33%) and cyberbullied (27.1%) in the past year, than their heterosexual peers (17.1% and 13.3%, respectively).
The study also showed that more LGB students (10%) than heterosexual students (6.1%) reported not going to school because of safety concerns. Among students who identified as “not sure” of their sexual orientation, they also reported being bullied on school property (24.3%), being cyberbullied (22%), and not going to school because of safety concerns (10.7%).
While support for “Pride Night” has been growing exponentially despite little resistance, adding more partnerships and franchises to join in the night of tolerance and community has been vital to reaching out to each individual baseball communities. The event’s planned in coordination with LGBTQ Pride Month.
“[MiLB Pride] hopefully feeds competition and gives team a sense of calm, that they’re joining a party that’s already going on,” said Pierson. “Now, in your local market, that might not ring as true. We don’t try to sugarcoat it. That first year, you’re doing something that’s out of your comfort zone. It can be a loaded topic and you don’t get to pick the way the conversation goes after you put it into the world. But after the first year, it’s easier.
“You’ll have some social media stuff, some fans that won’t come back. But you weather the storm and take the intentional step to engage. You embrace a community that might not have always felt safe at the ballpark. You correct that stigma and feel comfortable standing on that. Give it 365 days and I guarantee that after that, it will not be as difficult of a conversation.”
Come out to one of our nearly 70 #MiLBPride celebrations!
https://t.co/2pWalrDm7F #StrikeOutHate pic.twitter.com/IyQTcqjzh5
— Minor League Baseball (@MiLB) June 3, 2019
Pierson made it clear Pride Night are not just to one-night events for the teams, but one of many outreaches within the individual communities.
“We have 150-plus local organizations as partners. That’s a key element,” he said. “If there are local meetings, then you can be present at that organization’s local meetings and local activities. Provide education for the game day staff and full-time staff, during the season or the offseason. We’re hoping teams maximize relations beyond a single Pride Night.”
All but two Major League Baseball teams host “Pride Nights,” with only the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers as the only two teams not joining in. The first of event of its kind took place at Wrigley Field in 2001 with “Gay Days,” which is now known as “Out at Wrigley.”
“For Minor League Baseball, I think this is a moment in history for us,” Pierson said. “It may not feel like that, and some may be uncomfortable, but once we look back on it, we can say that what we started in 2008 [with the Diversity Initiative], we’re doubling down. In some areas we’re forced to grow and in some areas it’s a reflection of our growth. We can come to terms with both of those things and keep on charging, from one to 160, and all be better for it.
“Other than that, let’s sit back and watch 2019 unfold with a rainbow tent over it the entire time. Let’s be excited about what we’re able to do.”
For tickets or game information, click here or visit the Aviators web site at www.milb.com/las-vegas.
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About Soma
Soma was born on the island of Madagascar, into a family of allopathic doctors. When she was one year old, her family moved to Paris, France. Her mother was a nurse and a midwife, and her father had received a scholarship to complete his medical studies at the University of “La Sorbonne”. Nine years later, the family returned to Madagascar after her father had become a doctor and specialized in biology. He founded the first blood bank in Madagascar and tirelessly worked all his life to educate the population to become blood donors, so that there would be fewer deaths from the lack of blood supply in the hospitals.
Soma spent her teen-age years on the island and returned to France upon graduating from high school, in order to continue her university studies in the town of Bordeaux.
Life took her traveling for many years through India and South-East Asia, studying the philosophy and spirituality of Eastern cultures.
In 1986, Soma started her training in the healing arts and became a certified massage therapist. A few years later she joined a full time course of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She became certified both in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs by the National Certification Commission of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, USA and received the title of “Doctor of Oriental Medicine” from the state of New Mexico in 1993. In the following years, she completed medical internships in Beijing, China and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. She is also licensed in Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs in the state of Colorado since 1998 and received a Certification in Classical Homeopathy from the Homeopathy School of Colorado in 2005.
From 1998 to 2005, Soma was a professor at the Southwest Acupuncture College in Boulder, CO, where she taught several classes, developed the pediatric class and seminars, supervised clinics and personally mentored several students.
Since 2003, Soma has taught weekend seminars on Acupuncture internationally (check list of courses in the teaching page). She has been a guest speaker at the Boulder Community Hospital and was invited to speak on healing and spirituality in India and Singapore.
From 2005 to 2013, Dr. Soma, as the Balinese affectionately call her, lived on the island of Bali. She loves the beauty, grace and devotion of the traditional Balinese way of worship. She had a busy private practice, donated time for community service at the Bumi Sehat Birthing clinic in Ubud, and offered intensive courses for acupuncturists, on children and women’s health, not only in Bali, but in Myanmar, and also with the Tibetan community in India, all of which included free clinics for the local population.
Soma relocated to Boulder, CO, USA in May 2013, resumed her professorship at the Southwest Acupuncture College, and opened a new office for her private practice.
Soma Glick has been published in some leading acupuncture publications such as the “Journal of Chinese Medicine” in England and in “Acupuncture today” in the US. See the articles page for details.
For more information! - Click Here | Home | 2008-2019 © SomaDevi.com
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Knights fight for seeding
by jgoralski • October 27, 2016 • 0 Comments
Colin Burdette wins a 50-50 ball at midfield during a 2-1 win over Middletown.
By BRIAN JENNINGS
It wasn’t pretty, but the Blue Knight soccer team salvaged a one-goal victory and a tie as they continue to fight for seeding in the Class LL tournament.
“Over the last handful of games, we’ve kind of been playing a little bit to the level of our opponents,” said Southington coach Dave Yanosy. “When you do that, it’s dangerous. Everyone’s pretty good in the league that we play in, and everyone’s got some pretty good players. So if you don’t show up or don’t play the full 80 minutes, every team is capable of making you pay for it.”
In terms of where the team stands, Yanosy said that it’s not so much of back to the drawing board as it is refocusing and doing a good job of translating what they do in practice.
“Sometimes it doesn’t always end up working out for you when you leave it close when it shouldn’t be close and leave other teams in it,” the coach said. “If this trend continues, it won’t always work out for us. We talked about it and have to learn from it.”
On Monday, the Knights opened the week in Manchester where they settled for their second tie of the season in a 1-1 draw.
Burbank scored Southington’s lone goal of the game with just over a minute to go in the first half. The Indians responded by scoring a goal with 2:37 to go in the game.
“We generated a bunch of chances, but didn’t get the second one,” said Yanosy. “We had a couple opportunities to make 2-0 or 3-0, but we didn’t cash in on them and ended up paying for it with a late goal. Manchester was very good. They have a good record and beat some really good teams.”
The Knights took 12 shots on goal and one corner kick. Daddona saved 10 shots of Manchester’s 18 shots on goal.
On Friday, Southington hosted a scrappy Middletown team and achieved their seven win of the season after just squeaking by the Blue Dragons with a 2-1 victory.
Alexis Frausto put the Knights on the board first with a goal at the 27-minute mark in the first half. Hayden Burbank assisted Elijah Rodriguez with another score late in the half.
Southington went scoreless in the second half and allowed Middletown to cut the deficit to one with about five minutes remaining in the game. Following the goal, the Blue Dragons continued to work through Southington’s defense, taking a few more shots on goal, but would not be able to find the back of the net.
“I give a lot of credit to Middletown,” said Yanosy. “We had a 2-0 lead at the half, and they could have folded. But they kept playing, working, and got a goal. They certainly made it a little bit more interesting down the stretch.”
Southington took 16 shots on goal and seven corner kicks. Evan Daddona saved two of Middletown’s 14 shots on goal.
Southington is currently 7-4-2 overall and 0-3-1 in the CCC Central Blue Division (2-4-1 in the CCC Central Region). The Knights hope to carry momentum into this week against Windsor (2-11) and Avon (4-7-2).
Tags: Blue Knights soccer
← Football explodes from the bye; surges past Conard
Girls post pair of shutouts →
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Tag / James LaBrie
Dream Theater launch “Distance Over Time” in the studio video series
Two-time Grammy-nominated and millions selling progressive metal music band, Dream Theater, have announced the worldwide release of their 14th studio album, Distance Over Time, releasing on February 22, 2019. Their new album showcases their expressive creativity that have garnered them fans throughout the years. The album also marks the first for the band’s new label InsideOutMusic / Sony Music. The artwork was created by long-time cover collaborator Hugh Syme (Rush, Iron Maiden, Stone Sour). Distance Over Time was produced by John Petrucci, mixed by Ben Grosse and mastered by Tom Baker.
Now they are pleased to launch the first in a series of 3 in-the-studio video interviews, where the entire band sat down and discussed how the album came together. Watch the first one here:
“When I listen back to the album, I can distinctly recall every moment of the writing process; where I was standing in the room, what inspired us in that instant and the meaning behind each song. As a producer, my goal was to try and create the best-sounding Dream Theater record we’ve ever made so that listeners can just be enveloped in the music. I really wanted this recording to truly reflect the spirit, joy and passion that went into making the album and for people to walk away feeling some of the organic nature, personality and raw energy that the band captured while together in the studio. For me, I think it accomplishes that and I hope that other people will feel the same way,” explains John Petrucci.
In June 2018, Dream Theater secluded themselves in a private location in upstate New York to begin writing for the new record. Following an intense & extremely productive period of group writing sessions and wanting to retain the magic that was captured in this scenic and inspiring location, they decided to record the album in the very room they had all convened to write together in. Living together during the writing and recording for Distance Over Time marked another first for the band’s 33-year career. The result is a heavier collection of songs that showcases the early roots of the band while exploring new territory as musicians and as friends.
“It was like going back to summer camp,” adds James LaBrie. “Being around each other the whole time made it that much more of a profound experience. I think the songs reflect the energy. It was a lot of fun to have a situation so powerful at this point in our career.”
It has been 3 years since Dream Theater released new music. To announce the details of the brand new album, Dream Theater enlisted the help of one lucky contest winner to break the news of the record to the loyal fans of the band. An Alternate Reality Game was launched that encompassed a “treasure hunt” whereby fans were able to search for clues hidden in various photos, videos, social media posts, and more. Ultimately, one lucky winner was given access to content before everyone else including the release date and cover artwork, and the winner would be the one to share the first taste of never before heard music. Listen to that first teaser here.
Dream Theater is also planning to hit the road in support of the new album. The ‘Distance Over Time’ Tour of North America was recently announced and kicks off on March 20, 2019 in San Diego, CA. The tour will run for seven weeks before wrapping up in Mexico City on May 4, 2019. Information on tickets for all upcoming shows as well as VIP packages can be found here. More tour dates for the worldwide tour will be announced in the near future.
Progressive metal pioneers Dream Theater are:
James LaBrie (Vocals)
John Petrucci (Guitars)
Jordan Rudess (Keyboards)
John Myung (Bass)
Mike Mangini (Drums)
Find Dream Theater on Facebook and Instagram.
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Theatre Puget Sound Talent Talent Home Page Advanced Search
Find talent by first letter of last name: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Log in here: (username) (password)
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One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
Emperor's New Clothes
by Patricia Haines-Ainsworth
Last Leaf Productions
Touring theatre
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Building a Dedicated Team of Land Stewards from the Ground Up
While each member of the Taos Land Trust team comes from diverse backgrounds, each shares a love for the land and a sincere commitment to conserving it for future generations to enjoy and explore. Every day, we strive to develop real skills and build new relationships and partnerships that will help us actually accomplish something on the ground. We recognize that we are conserving more than just land in each of our projects. We are protecting our connection to local culture and traditions and preserving a sense of place and relationship for people connected to the land. It is an honor and responsibility to use land trust tools and resources to help preserve the productive and open spaces of our beautiful home for the benefit of a broader community.
Please contact us any time with questions or comments using our email addresses below. Or you can use our general email at info@taoslandtrust.org, or by calling our office at 575.751.3138.
Kristina Ortez – Executive Director
Kristina grew up in the San Joaquin Valley of California. She graduated from Harvard College with a degree in Anthropology, and began her career in New York City working in marketing and editing. In the late 90s, Kristina and friends started an internet company whose demise is forever immortalized on digital film in “Startup.com.” Shortly after the internet boom, Kristina moved to Indonesia, where she worked as an editor at Lontar Foundation, a literary foundation in Jakarta. It was here that her environmental consciousness was born after witnessing the devastating effects of environmental degradation. Kristina came back to the States determined to work on environmental issues that affected her own community. She has been an organizer, advocate and a policy analyst on public lands and water issues and served as a board member of organizations to restore and protect the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the San Joaquin River. She was most recently the Executive Director at SOMOS, Society of the Muse of the Southwest. She is the former board president of the Environmental Education Association of New Mexico. Email: Kristina@taoslandtrust.org.
Michelle Heinrich – Operations Manager
Michelle came to Taos in 2010 to work on a sustainable farming project at New Buffalo, spending the next two years helping create working farm as well as founding and running the Arroyo Hondo Farmers Market. She has her BA in English and MA in Teaching from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, WA, and has worked in education, retail, network engineering, law, and non-profits. Most recently, she was the Office Manager at Habitat for Humanity Taos. She grew up in southern California and has lived in Washington, Massachusetts, and Ohio, but the beauty and culture of northern New Mexico have truly won her heart. Email: Michelle@taoslandtrust.org.
Ben Wright – Education and Land Projects Coordinator
Ben has lived worked in New Mexico since 1996, transforming towards his current position as Education and Land Projects Coordinator for Rio Fernando Park. As an ISA certified arborist with experience in community tree care and community landscape stewardship, he has found a home with the Taos Land Trust in the agricultural and ecological restoration of the Rio Fernando Park lands. Email: Ben@taoslandtrust.org.
Jim O’Donnell – Communications and Policy Coordinator
Jim was born and raised in southern Colorado. He obtained both a BA in Anthropology and a Masters in Community and Regional Planning from the University of New Mexico. After ten years as an archaeologist, Jim served as the lead organizer for the Coalition for the Valle Vidal and after as the Northern Director for the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance. Today Jim works part time as a freelance journalist, conservation photographer and our communications and policy lead. He is the author of “Notes for the Aurora Society” and leads yearly photography workshops to Havana, Cuba. Email: jim@jimodonnellphotography.com
Maya Y. Anthony – Outreach Coordinator
Maya was born and raised in Taos until she left to pursue a degree in Environmental Planning and Design with a minor in Sustainability Studies from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. After completing her degree, she moved back to Taos to apply community-oriented skills in her hometown with an emphasis on local resilience and support for families and youth to engage in nature for long-term health and wellbeing. She is happy to be working towards those goals with Taos Land Trust on the Safe Routes to Parks project enhancing access for youth and underserved communities to Rio Fernando Park and Fred Baca Park. Email: Maya.Yasuko@gmail.com
Chyna Dixon – Working Lands Resiliency Coordinator
Chyna was born in Taos, and specializes in resilience research at the nexus of climate, water and agriculture. She holds a Masters in Environmental Science and Policy from Clark University, with a focus in Critical Geography. Her relationship to land and water stems from an acequia based childhood, a deep appreciation of the northern New Mexican cultural landscape, and her continued research on northern New Mexican climate change impacts and adaptation. Chyna coordinates the Working Lands Resiliency Initiative at the Taos Land Trust. Email: Chyna@taoslandtrust.org
Read about TAOS LAND TRUST BOARD OF DIRECTORS
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Fashion brand 'FUCT' seeks trademark help from Supreme Court
The Supreme Court is getting ready to hear a clothing brand's challenge to federal trademark law
WASHINGTON — Erik Brunetti's four-letter fashion brand starts with an "F'' and rhymes with "duct." The federal government calls it "scandalous" and "immoral" and has refused to register the trademark. Brunetti has a different word for his brand and designs: "thought-provoking."
"We wanted the viewer to question it: Like, is that pronounced the way I think it's pronounced?" he said of his streetwear brand "FUCT," which began selling clothing in 1991.
On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear Brunetti's challenge to a part of federal law that says officials should refuse to register trademarks that are "scandalous" or "immoral." Brunetti says it should be struck down as an unconstitutional restriction on speech.
The government is defending the century-old provision. The Trump administration says in court papers that the law encourages trademarks that are appropriate for all audiences. It argues it isn't restricting speech but rather declining to promote it.
Brunetti and others like him who are denied trademark registration under the "scandalous" provision can still use the words they wanted to register for their business, nonprofit or brand. They just don't get the benefits that come with registering a trademark. For Brunetti, that would largely mean a better ability to go after counterfeiters who knock off his designs.
Brunetti would seem to have a strong argument. Two years ago, the justices unanimously invalidated a related provision of federal law that told officials not to register disparaging trademarks. In that case, an Asian-American rock band sued after the government refused to register its band name, "The Slants," because it was seen as offensive to Asians.
In court, the justices had no trouble saying the band's name, but Brunetti's brand may be different. His lawyer, John R. Sommer, says he plans to say the individual letters of the name, "F-U-C-T," which Brunetti sometimes does too. Another possible workaround: explaining the brand is something of an acronym for "Friends U Can't Trust."
Part of Sommer's argument is what he sees as the arbitrary nature of the United States Patent and Trademark Office's decisions about what gets tagged as scandalous or immoral. A lawyer working for the office who is from the South might find something "not nice" that wouldn't faze a lawyer from the Bronx, Sommer said. That means "you can register profanity if you're lucky" and you get assigned a lawyer who allows it, Sommer said.
Two New York University professors gave that argument substantial support in a brief they filed in the case. They showed that the office routinely refuses to register trademarks both by saying something is scandalous and, ironically, too confusingly similar to something that is already registered. For example, the office refused to register "FUK!T" for being scandalous and immoral but also confusingly similar to the already-registered "PHUKIT." ''MIDDLEFINGER" was denied after "JONNY MIDDLEFINGER" was registered, and "Ko Kane" was rejected after "Kokanee" was registered. And those are just some printable examples.
Brunetti said the trademark office has registered trademarks "far more offensive than my mark."
The trademark office declined to comment on the case.
If Brunetti wins, the public is unlikely to notice a whole lot of change, his lawyer said. Retailers will decide what products are appropriate for their customers, and Target and Walmart aren't going to carry Brunetti's brand, Sommer said.
Brunetti hopes a victory at the high court will help him pursue counterfeiters. In the nearly 30 years since he began his company from his bedroom in Venice, California, he's produced thousands of clothing designs. Some of the best known are parodies involving the Ford logo and "Planet of the Apes."
These days, he directs a staff of four from a downtown Los Angeles office. They release new clothing on their website about once a month. Some items have sold out in less than a minute, and new collections are always sold out in under three days, Brunetti said. Because of the items' scarcity, some are resold on eBay for a profit, with a T-shirt that cost $40 sometimes fetching more than $100.
Brunetti said he's never met anyone truly offended by his brand.
"Most people find it clever," he said.
Follow Jessica Gresko on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jessicagresko
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Gregory Steinthal – President & Founder
Mr. Steinthal is the Founder and President of the Company with over 20 years in the defense and commercial industries leading research and product development teams from concept to manufacturing of high-tech technologies. Steinthal is experienced in photonics and electronics with a strong background in optics, electro-optics and electrical engineering. As a past program manager and principal investigator to a number of government programs, Steinthal brings significant business and management experience as well as technical know-how to the Company.
Steinthal began his career developing infrared sensing technology for a start-up Company in Santa Barbara, CA and then post acquisition moved onto Cyrano Sciences, a Cal Tech start-up in Pasadena, CA. Later he was Director of Engineering at Smiths Detection – a medium size defense contractor funny topics developing trace chemical sensing technology for the detection of chemical warfare agents, explosives as well as toxic industrial compounds in addition to a large number of industrial applications.
Mr. Steinthal received a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Arizona, with a minor in Optics, and a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Rochester. He has had several patents granted and has been involved in two acquisitions by Fortune 500 publically traded companies.
Email Contact: gsteinthal@stereovisioninc.com
Giancarlo (John) Meazzo – CFO
Mr. Meazzo has 45 years of experience as a corporate financial executive in both public and private companies. Worked as a CFO for over 25 companies (some as an interim) in industries such as Hospitals, Insurance, Mutual Funds, Manufacturing, Hospitality, Food Chain, Non Profits, Stock Brokerage.
Email Contact: jmeazzo@stereovisioninc.com
Dr. Sergey Karlin – Director, Product Business Development
Dr. Sergey Karlin is a seasoned technology professional with unique blend of technical knowledge and business acumen in generating innovative product ideas and bringing them to fruition. Sergey is an acknowledged expert in the application of facial recognition and image processing technology including personal identity authentication. While at L-1 Identity Solutions, Sergey was instrumental in developing the first commercial face surveillance solution and forensic face examiner application used by major law enforcement agencies and intelligence community.
Sergey stared his professional career at AT&T Labs, where he focused on high-speed data services. Following AT&T, Sergey worked at Visual Networks, Inc., ION Networks, Inc. and Whale Communications, in each case assuming increased responsibilities. Sergey has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Russia Academy of Sciences and M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from Moscow State University.
Email Contact: skarlin@stereovisioninc.com
Jonathan Hawkins – Senior Software Engineer
Sr. Software Engineer, control systems architect, and prior lead developer of medical optics systems. Mr. Hawkins has a proven history of delivering robust high speed data analytics software in the medical and aerospace industries. His specialties include: advanced image processing, embedded firmware development, low level system integration, signal processing, robotics, software automation, and networked computational systems.
Hawkins graduated with his Bachelors degree in Mathematics and continued to pursue thesis statements about technology his career in software engineering. With over 12 years of software development experience, Mr. Hawkins has performed extensive work in the field of image processing and high performance computing. In addition, he also has worked on a vast number of electronic hardware systems and provided development leadership for industrial equipment and embedded designs.
Email Contact: jhawkins@stereovisioninc.com
Diana Orozco – Finance and Administration Manager
Ms. Orozco has over 12 years of experience in Finance Management and Administration. She has a proven track record of reducing operating costs and optimizing company management practices. Ms. Orozco has worked extensively with DCMA, DCAA government contracting procedures, and continues to grow her career in the defense industry. Additionally, she manages logistic operations, company policies, budgeting, finances, accounts payable, accounts receivable, human resources, and performs all necessary administrative functions.
Ms. Orozco graduated 2012 with a degree in BA in Business Administration from University of Phoenix to advance her role
Email Contact: : dorozco@stereovisioninc.com
Kevin Robles – Test Technician
He has experience fully testing the product or system to ensure it functions properly and meets the business needs, such as testing all aspects of the product, system like function/component, system performance, regression and service. Setting up of test environments, designing test plans, developing test case/scenarios/ usage cases, and executing these cases. He has performed demonstrations for many government agencies including SPAWAR-ATL, FBI and NIJ.
Mr. Robles has worked for SVI 6 years as a Test Technician.
Robles currently attending local university for a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. He holds two Associate Degrees, one in Engineering Technologies and another in Physical Sciences.
Email Contact: krobles@stereovisioninc.com
Mike Thompson – Domestic Sales
Mr. Thompson has over 40 years’ experience in conducting business development, directly and as a manufacturer’s representative, for leading manufacturing companies, focused primarily on the U.S. government (Homeland Security, FBI, Secret Service, DEA and CBP), military and law enforcement space. His clients and colleagues recognize him for his professionalism, leadership, and creativity.
Mike began his career with Textron, Inc. He later joined Breeze-Eastern, NJ and was responsible for business development with the National Guard, Special Operations, Army, Navy, Law Enforcement and Helicopter OEMs. He has developed business opportunities for a leading hand-held gyro-stabilized electro-optical supplier to the U.S Army, Navy, Federal and Law Enforcement agencies and coordinated the business development of new targeting acquisition.
Email Contact: mthompson@stereovisioninc.com
Gary Olson – International Sales
Gary was raised in Southern California and was awarded his Graduate and Post-Graduate Degrees in Business from the University of La Verne. Gary has worked in the Aerospace Industry for over 40 years, initially in Production/Inventory Control and in Sales and Marketing over the past 30 years, the last 15 in a Senior VP position. Gary has extensive experience in Commercial and Government, Domestic and International Sales promoting high-tech solutions for operational issues.
Email Contact: golson@stereovisioninc.com
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© StereoVision Imaging, Inc. • All rights Reserved.
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Application of the International Classification of Diseases to Neurology (ICD-NA)
Gives specialists in the clinical neurosciences a detailed and authoritative instrument for coding virtually all recognized neurological conditions. Both neurological diseases and neurological manifestations of general diseases and injuries are included in this comprehensive coding tool. The volume is part of a growing family of specialty-based adaptations of ICD-10, which retain the core codes of the parent classification while providing extended detail at the fifth character and beyond.
Now in its second edition, ICD-NA has been revised to reflect current clinical concepts in the neurosciences as well as the new coding system introduced with ICD-10. The classification was finalized following extensive consultation with numerous professional organizations and international experts, thus ensuring the representation of as many viewpoints as are practical and consistent.
While remaining directly compatible with ICD-10, ICD-NA offers clinicians and researchers much greater precision, allowing them to match an explicit diagnosis with a detailed code at the five, six, or seven-character level. In addition, a comprehensive alphabetical index and the extensive use of inclusion and exclusion terms provide considerable assistance in finding the correct category for any condition diagnosed. Apart from these opportunities for recording greater diagnostic detail, the direct compatibility with ICD-10 facilitates comparisons between statistics compiled according to ICD-NA and national morbidity and mortality statistics compiled according to ICD-10.
These features enhance the flexibility of ICD-NA, making it suitable for use in morbidity statistics, hospital record indexing, and epidemiological research, by government and other health agencies collecting statistical data under relatively few main headings, or by individual physicians and researchers requiring a convenient tool for indexing their clinical and teaching material in sufficient detail. The revised classification should also facilitate the collection of epidemiological data, comparisons of the prevalence of individual neurological diseases, and identification of the risk factors for these diseases at both national and international levels.
In addition to the detailed tabular list of neurological and related disorders, the volume includes an explanation of the basic principles of classification and instructions for coding, morphology codes for neoplasms relevant to neurology and neurosurgery, and a 90-page index of diagnostic terms given in standard or official nomenclatures, together with synonyms and eponyms.
World Health Organization,
You're reviewing:Application of the International Classification of Diseases to Neurology (ICD-NA)
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04/27/2017 Globalaward, Nielsen Around the World
Nielsen Around the World Campaign Wins Shorty Award
We’re proud to announce that Nielsen was named a winner for the Shorty Awards’ “Industry – Business to Business” category on April 14 and accepted the award at the 9th Annual Shorty Awards, held on April 23 in New York City.
The award honors Nielsen Around the World, a campaign featuring an interactive map and an ongoing series of short “behind-the-scenes” associate videos. Through this content, we drive home the message that Nielsen provides best-in-class consumer and audience measurement by meeting shoppers and viewers wherever they are—from rural villages to bustling metropolises and everything in between, in more than 100 countries around the world.
We launched Nielsen Around The World in December 2016, with the help of a team of marketers and field associates across Nielsen’s global footprint. To date, more than 30 videos have been shared from 19 countries, garnering more than 15,000 site visits and almost 2,000 likes, comments and reactions.
We are proud to showcase our field associates around the world and de-mystify what goes into collecting the data our clients depend on (hint: lots and lots of people power).
Content can be viewed at nielsen.com/aroundtheworld or on Instagram by searching #NielsenAroundTheWorld.
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High Commission of Sri Lanka in India
Mission Staff
Indian Minister of External Affairs to visit Sri Lanka
Minister of External Affairs of the Republic of India, S. M. Krishna, will commence a three day visit to Sri Lanka on 25 November 2010.
This visit, which is the first high level visit from India in the second term of President Mahinda Rajapaksa follows up on the important visit to India from 8-11 June 2010 by the President, which has laid a strong foundation for the future development of India-Sri Lanka relations. The Joint Statement issued during President Rajapaksa's visit embodies the vision of the leaders of Sri Lanka and of India for harnessing the enormous potential available for consolidating and strengthening the bilateral partnership through building on shared values; leveraging common strategic concerns and interests; enhancing connectivity and economic engagement and reinforcing institutional frameworks for a comprehensive partnership in all
areas of bilateral endeavour.
A key event that will take place during the visit is the convening of the Seventh Session of the India - Sri Lanka Joint Commission which is co-chaired by Minister S.M. Krishna on behalf of India and Minister G.L. Peiris on behalf of Sri Lanka. This will provide the two countries an opportunity to review the growing ties between Sri Lanka and India; monitor implementation of bilateral understandings and further enhance the bilateral relations. Several bilateral agreements will also be signed during the visit.
The External Affairs Minister of India would make use of his visit to Sri Lanka to inaugurate the Consulate General Offices of India in Jaffna and in Hambantota.
The other key elements of Minister Krishna's programme include calls on President Mahinda Rajapaksa and on Prime Minister D. M. Jayaratne.
India Sri Lanka Relations
India Sri Lanka Foundation
Pilgrims' Rest in Delhi
Tenders from Sri Lanka
Registration of Births etc.
Authentication of Documents
Importing Pet Animals to Sri Lanka
Travel to the North of Sri Lanka
Filming in Sri Lanka
President of Sri Lanka
Parliament of Sri Lanka
Ministry of Finance & Planning
Dept. of Government Information
Dept. of Immigration & Emigration
Electronic Travel Authorisation
Registrar General's Department
Department of Customs
Central Bank of Sri Lanka
Registrar of Companies
Northern Provincial Council
Eastern Provincial Council
Sri Lanka Tourism
Sri Lanka Tea Board
Sri Lankan Airlines
National Gem & Jewellery Authority
Ceylon Chamber of Commerce
National Chamber of Commerce
Export Development Board
Board of Investment
National Chamber of Exporters
Copyright © 2019 High Commission of Sri Lanka in India. All Rights Reserved.
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News Reviews Blogs Users
Non-Gaming Discussion
11:21UTC
Tales from the Gas Station Part III: The Final Insult
I waited a while to post this tale because I wanted to confirm from former coworkers that what I thought had happed, really happened. It's not about me, but about a girl that I worked with. It's about a robbery gone wrong, in one of the funniest ways possible. There's also a little bit of a redemption in here for the would be robber.
The coworker who was involved is named Donna. I worked with her over a decade , while just starting out in my teaching career. I'd work weekends, to give me and the wife some spending money, and Donna worked mostly second shift. Donna was very friendly and sweet. Everybody seemed to love her, but most considered her to be a bit of a pushover.
One night,about ten o'clock, Donna was on the clock in an empty store. One of the regulars came in, but the thing is he came in high as a kite with his shorts covering his face and a knife in his hand. He demanded that Donna give him all of the money in the register drawer.
Now Donna did what most of us would do, she panicked. Of course, we all panic in different ways, some cry, some freeze in terror. Donna, on the other hand, started laughing uncontrollably. She giggled like a little girl and could not stop. This confused the robber, who thought she was laughing because she recognized him, but she did not. He then took the shorts off of his face and pretended like it was just some cruel joke.
"Oh, I was just kidding. It's me, it's me! " he said.
He then took off in his work van, with his name and phone number on the side. Donna called the cops after she got got over her giggles and the would be robber served about three years in prison.
There were plenty of laughs about that, as dangerous as the situation could have been. The story made the papers, and even rumors that some radio shows picked up on it.
Now that was years ago and I have not seen Donna in quite some time. I heard from people that kept up that there was a lot of turmoil in her home. Husband left her, children always in trouble.
But the best part is the would be robber (I'll just call him Jack), seems to have turned his life around. He's become a handyman of sorts, painting buildings, repairing lawnmowers, doing construction on the side. I've talked to Jack since and he seems like a pretty good guy. If I'm working, he'll always stop in to talk to me, ask about my uncle in the nursing home and go on back to work At least he seems to have changed and is trying to do some good with his life.
Posted by travo Wed, 02 Apr 2014 14:43:18 (comments: 7)
Foolz
Wed, 02 Apr 2014 14:48:50
Now Donna just needs to redeem herself as well.
gamingeek
Fri, 04 Apr 2014 17:15:54
I would have asked him: "Are you really going to rob me with shorts on your head?"
"Really?"
Sat, 05 Apr 2014 20:38:46
And don't forget his name painted on the side of his work van.
robio
Sun, 06 Apr 2014 13:58:38
A fine tale of criminal intrigue, danger, humor, despair, and redemption. Truly this was one death away from being the Song of Fire and Ice of gas station stories.
Well, if you want that final push that makes it like ASoIaF, then here goes. I knew Donna's oldest son was doing well for himself, got married, moved to Greenville(plug for Robio). What I found out through a friend is that he lost his job and they moved back in with Donna and her husband. Rumor has it that his wife and Donna's husband got together, moved out and are now living together.
Ahhhh incest or at least something close. Sure that works for me.
Oh and while I appreciate the shout out, I lay no claim to Greenville despite being born there.
Mon, 07 Apr 2014 03:21:25
travo said:
That prose is a bit too advanced to be taken seriously as an appropriation of Game of Thrones.
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